It is, as the TV commercials have it, `` the most wonderful time of the year,'' for parents, at least.

Newspaper ads are filled with back-to-school sales and stores are full of school shoes and UPS trucks are full of book bags in neon colors being shipped to homes where they will be packed and, in just a few weeks, sent off to classes attached to the backs of children who will be protesting that summer is just not long enough.

But while the children are being readied for school, the question that arises is whether the schools will be ready for them.

In towns around the area, voters -- sometimes by narrow margins, sometimes by large pluralities -- have turned down extra funding for schools in a series of special elections this year.

There are many reasons for this. The economy is tight, gas prices are high and nobody likes paying extra taxes. In some cases, voters may have been unhappy with a school administration's policies, or they may have just finished paying for one project and felt it was to soon to be asked to fund another. Or it may have been a general dissatisfaction with the way American education is heading.

Or maybe it was just too hot.

Whatever the reason for this more frugal mood, one thing is sure: It's not the fault of the schoolchildren.

They don't make the policies, choose the textbooks or write the budgets. They just show up at the schoolhouse door, with well-scrubbed faces, every year around Labor Day with the expectation that someone is going to teach them.

This year, in some schools, there is a real concern whether teachers will have the resources available to be able to do just that.

Voters have decided that the schools are going to have to make do without the extra funding educators said they needed and administrators are going to have to live with that decision.

But if you are concerned about the state of education in your town, there are plenty of things you can do.

E Donate school supplies. Drawing paper, tape, glue sticks and tissues for runny noses all get used up at a terrific rate in classrooms. Many schools participate in the Newspaper in Education program offered by The Sun Chronicle. It is always in need of more corporate sponsors. Check with your school to see what's needed.

E Volunteer. Schools need classroom aides, lunch monitors, chaperones for field trips. Again, check with the school administration in your community to see what opportunities are available.

E Participate. Think schools have too little money or too much? Learn about what is going on in the classroom and how it affects your town and your neighborhood and become an informed citizen and voter. Whatever you do, you could find it very educational.