It’s not often that we are surprised by the results of our weekly “Progress Poll,” but we have to admit, this week’s results shock us.

Honestly, we thought those voting for investing in a second middle school in Easley would slightly outnumber those voting against such a move. At worst, we thought the vote would come out even.

But slightly more than two-thirds of those voting voted against remodeling Gettys Middle School to form a second middle school in the city.

Perhaps including the word “invest” in the question had something to do with the poll results. After all, it’s easy to say, “I want a new car,” but its more difficult to say, “I want to make payments for six years.”

Such matters were clearly on the minds of our voters.

“I think the city needs a second middle school,” one voter wrote. “I thought that back when I was going to Gettys. But with all that we already owe on the facilities plan, we simply cannot afford to go any further in debt.”

A second voter was more practical in his explanation.

“I need a new truck,” he wrote. “But I can’t afford to buy one until I finish paying for my wife’s car. The difference is that if I get too far in debt and can’t make the payments, they come and take the truck and the car. If the school district gets too far in debt, they simply raise taxes.”

Our longest response came from school trustee Alex Saitta.

“While I voted “No” in the poll, this is something the rest of the board is seriously considering,” Saitta wrote. “While Gettys is overcrowded, the plan was so poorly put together a fix Gettys was never included. That was one of the many things that was mismanaged in this plan.

“Now that the board has borrowed hundreds of millions, raised your debt obligation from $37 million to $600 million, millions have been wasted on things like drawing and redrawing plans or buying property that was never used, $14 million is being spent on new football fields when the current ones do the job, the district is facing a $2 to $3 million deficit and more teacher lay-offs next year, there is about a $5 million shortfall for computers and the board lacks the revenue to maintain all these buildings when they are up and running, some board members want to spend even more on a fix for Gettys. The public needs to look closer at what is going on, because this board is putting families and businesses in a massively deep (and getting) deeper financial hole.”

We did have a few comments in favor of remodeling Gettys and having two middle schools in town.

“Unless your child goes to Gettys, you can’t appreciate the conditions there,” one voter wrote. “The staff does a wonderful job, but when you put that many children of that age together, you are going to have problems.”

Another said the money to remodel Gettys is there if the school board will just look for it.

“We hear that they don’t have enough money to remodel both schools, yet they have money to overpay administrators and build fancy football stadiums.” the voter wrote. “The school board is just like everybody else. You can find money to do the things that are important to you.”