JACKSON LEARNED HOW EVERY VOTE COUNTS

This election has made the cliche, "Every vote counts," into a mantra everyone is chanting. Most who say it refer to the presidential election, which perhaps will be decided by a few hundred votes.

But we have a better example even closer to home in the $6 million Jackson school bond issue.

It needed a four-sevenths majority to pass. It passed this margin by a mere 20 votes, 6,718 to 5,006.

Can you imagine how easy it would have been for 20 people who voted in favor of the bond issue to stay home? They could have said, What difference does it make anyway? No elections get lost by one vote.

Here's what would have happened if 20 people felt that way:

Students at R.O. Hawkins Junior High would have wondered why their parents and other voters in northern Cape Girardeau County didn't care enough about them to spend an extra 10 cents per $100 assessed valuation so they didn't have to trample each other to get to class.

Teachers who been using carts to carry their supplies from classroom to classroom -- the school is too crowded for every teacher to have his or her own classroom -- would have continued breaking their backs carrying manuals, homework assignments and supplies because the halls are too crowded for carts.

With class sizes of 29 to 33 students, some children might have continued to fall behind because of a lack of personal attention.

And nothing would have changed about "the dungeon" -- what junior high students call the former custodial closet converted into a special-education classroom. Here are kids who need the best of what our educational system has to offer if they're going to make it, and they're getting a closet with no ventilation.

Yes, some voters were frustrated by the way the Jackson School Board handled the issue. They didn't like that the estimated cost of the 18-classroom addition and renovation project changed. They didn't like that district officials had a tough time producing a spending plan for districtwide improvements. They wanted proof that they wouldn't be nickel-and-dimed to death. And that's understandable. Jackson school officials still need to develop an easy-to-understand plan for the entire district.

But until then, thank you to the 20 who helped make life better for today's students.