The Vashon Island School District’s 1,500 students made their way back to school this week, a bittersweet reminder that fall is in the air and the long days of summer are behind us.

Their return to the district’s sprawling campus is also an opportunity to consider its condition — and the weighty decision that will soon be before the district’s board of directors. After nearly four years of discussion, studies, debate and political wrangling, the board is closer than ever to deciding what kind of multi-million-dollar, campus-wide renovation plan — if any — to offer up to voters.

And make no mistake: Before they do so, this board wants to hear from you.

The district has created a color brochure outlining the two options it has identified as the leading proposals for a campus makeover. It has crafted a survey — both paper and electronic — seeking voters’ input on the two options.

Board members have held meetings in private homes, met with groups and boards and dutifully made themselves available at the Farmers Market each week — where they inevitably found themselves giving tourists directions as often as answering Islanders’ questions about the district’s proposals.

It’s now time for voters to begin to pay serious attention.

Two options are on the table: One, the cheaper of the two, would amount to a comprehensive renovation plan of the three-school campus. The other would entail a considerable amount of renovation as well but would also result in a new, 40,000-square-foot building for classrooms at the high school, where current classrooms, administrators say, are crowded, stuffy and ill-suited for today’s students.

Both will cost property owners, although the actual impact on the pocketbook will be minimal. Because of existing bonds and levies due to expire just as new bonds would be issued, the increased tax levy on a home valued at $400,000 would range from $1 to $8 a month, officials say.

What do the Island’s voters want? What’s best for our kids? What can we afford?

The board is determined to offer up a bond measure next February that has some legitimacy in the eyes of the voters. Board chair Bob Hennessey, who ran for the school board three years ago in part because he was frustrated by the process around the last ill-fated effort, said he doesn’t need a guarantee that the proposal the board puts before voters will pass. He and other board members, however, also don’t want to float a proposal that’s dead on arrival.

In other words, they want to take the pulse of the Island before they move forward; they want to know what you, the voter, thinks.

And now’s your chance to tell them. The district is holding its first community-wide forum on the issue at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 9, at the Vashon High School library, where audience members will be able to offer up instantaneous feedback using snazzy, hand-held devices provided by Islander Buzz Blick’s company, Change Forward.

Summer’s over. The kids are back at school. It’s now time for voters, as well, to begin doing their homework. It’s time for us to think seriously about the condition of our schools.