The Star - News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area

In the business world, decisions are generally made by weighing the costs of something desirable for a business against its benefits over time. A piece of equipment may cost a lot of money, but if it pays for itself in a few years and provides an added benefit, such as increased customer satisfaction, it’s likely to be bought.

Public schools don’t generally have the luxury of increasing their revenue by such means. They get what a state formula says they’ll get, regardless of any increased value its leaders think the school could bring to students if the school could just muster a little more revenue.

Aside from the occasional grant from some non-profit organization or government agency, school budgets live and die by the number of students they serve.

So it’s understandable that if someone points out the need for a couple full-time school counselors and a staffed “break-out” room for kids having problems, administrators might only nod and shrug their shoulders, palms upturned in a gesture of helplessness. We suspect that’s how anyone locked in a state educational bureaucracy might react to such a funding problem.

But another economics term might also apply to the Grand Coulee Dam School District’s current conundrum on discipline. To be sure, the district IS spending money on part of the solution. Long-term training and communication among staff with a goal of helping them deal with the few problems that disrupt the school is a good start for the long term. And it’s necessary, leaders think, to help change the culture among staff who, like most of us, might be inclined to want to just “crack down” on kids who act out, a strategy that with some kids is completely counterproductive.

But perhaps considering the “opportunity costs” associated with a needed, beneficial-but-costly additional plan might shed light on another part of the solution.

Opportunity costs are those that must ultimately be born when you do not invest the needed resources. In business, it’s the profit you would have gained if you’d made a different decision and bought that new equipment.

Perhaps at Lake Roosevelt Schools a corollary might be seen as the investment of full-time professional staffers whose existence and duties of helping kids behave would keep everybody else on the job and other students learning.

Currently, the district has 16 resident children who attend elsewhere. If the state spends more than $7,000 to fund each of their educations, perhaps there’s something like $112,000 in this year alone that would help pay the needed staff. And the numbers of those who have left the district in prior years has been higher.

That’s overly simplistic, but you get the idea. The opportunity costs in lost enrollment, and more importantly in education not achieved, in eyes not lighting up, in minds not taking an extra leap, may be very high indeed.

Lake Roosevelt has good teachers, good staff. Students who want one can get a good education there. If you walk through that beautiful, bright school, you’re probably not going to notice any big problem. But the school board has to find a way to focus resources on the immediate problems faced by staff and students, not just the long-term ones.

If the reports coming from staff are even half true, the opportunity costs of not doing so are probably staggering.

Scott Hunter

editor and publisher