Asked to up the ante for their public schools, islanders are opening their checkbooks once again.

By the time this edition hits the streets, the Bainbridge Schools Foundation phone-a-thon will have come and gone. While numbers weren’t available at press time, BSF’s Heidi Dexter reports that two days into the three-day fund drive, about 60 volunteers had phoned some 1,800 island households. Sixty to 70 percent of calls have netted pledges.

Funds raised through the drive will supplement the regular school levy, keeping class sizes down, and paying for staff development and constructive classroom programs.

What a great cause – and what a great waste of civic energy.

Don’t get us wrong; we’re glad there’s a Bainbridge Schools Foundation to tap private support for public education. But we’re dismayed at the ongoing need for such drives; can citizens even imagine a phone-a-thon for new police officers or fire trucks? Perhaps after putting their time and money into the fund drive, supporters of Bainbridge public schools can channel some of that energy toward Olympia and the coming legislative session.

A week ago in these pages, Superintendent Ken Crawford explained the disparity in levy caps on local schools, which creates a patchwork of “have and have not” districts; that should be fixed. Too, the will of Washington voters should finally be heeded with state funding to lower class sizes and boost teacher pay; popular initiatives to those ends have been poorly funded or suspended outright by Olympia. And then there’s the 60 percent “supermajority” hurdle for local school levies, long overdue for retirement.

While this list of school funding priorities is by no means comprehensive, it’s a good place to start.

It would be unfair to say that one party or other has our children’s education more at heart, but Democrats on the whole seem more inclined to steer tax money toward public schools. And following last Tuesday’s “blue tide” at the ballot box, Democrats enjoy an unassailable majority in both chambers in Olympia, buttressing the party’s hold on the governor’s mansion.

Bainbridge Island will send to the next legislative session a seasoned state senator in Phil Rockefeller and newly minted Rep. Christine Rolfes; Poulsbo’s Sherry Appleton has “honorary islander” status, as sympathetic an ear for local issues as you’ll find on the far side of the bridge.

Now is the time to engage our “island caucus” and push for legislative change; if we can’t get something done for public school funding in the next two years, when will we?

We hope Review readers gave generously to the Bainbridge Schools Foundation this week. We also hope that someday, its mission is obsolete.