The attack on public education by Worcester County elected officials shifted into another gear Tuesday with a press conference that accused the county school system and its top two administrators of being soft on crime.

Asserting that crime in the schools is out of control and that school officials have refused to work with law enforcement and the prosecutor’s office, State’s Attorney Kris Heiser and Sheriff Matt Crisafulli showed videos of school fights and statistics as proof that the school system’s leadership is failing miserably on matters of school safety and covering it up.

People of reasonable intelligence, however, should be able to connect the dots between this attack on the schools and the county commissioners’ decision to back the schools into a corner by giving them the minimum budget the law allows.

Taken together, the timing and the aggressiveness of these challenges are reason for suspicion. In addition, the unified message from the county commissioner majority, Heiser and Crisafulli that school officials are being uncooperative implies that what they want is not cooperation, but surrender.

While it’s no secret that the four-member commissioner majority seeks the ouster of school Superintendent Lou Taylor, this latest fusillade targets Chief Operating Officer Annette Wallace, whom Heiser and Crisafulli want to replace as the system’s chief safety officer with a law enforcement official because Wallace has no law enforcement experience.

In that vein, it must also be asked if kids in middle school, where much of the problem is said to take place, would be better off with a cop in charge with no teaching experience?

Of course, there is crime in schools. No one is disputing that or that it might be increasing, but parents and the public should take a hard look at how this campaign against the school system is unfolding and ask themselves whether all school “crimes” truly are crimes and whether county politics might be a factor in this crusade.

Individually, these charges against the county’s public schools might get a fair hearing, but when they arrive together, some serious skepticism is warranted.