High cost in cutting counselors
Consumer spending is up, so maybe kids will have school counselors after all.
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Seattle Times staff columnist
Consumer spending is up, so maybe kids will have school counselors after all.
Or not, but the two are tied together, especially here in Washington, where government's heavy dependence on the sales tax means you and I have to spend a lot of money to support schools and finance other government functions.
I'm thinking about the schools part because of a note I got from David Bilides, the head counselor at Seattle's Washington Middle School. He told me the Seattle School District is considering laying off elementary-school counselors as a budget-reduction measure.
He and other counselors were planning to address the board at Wednesday night's meeting.
In a statement to the board last month, Bilides wrote, "The ones who will suffer the most if you go through with this proposal will be the poor, children of color, and immigrants — the very people the public-school system was created to serve."
A line like that is bound to put a catch in the throat of kindhearted, caring folk who want to do something to help those poor kids. But the real deal for everybody is that we need to improve the lot of those children for our own selfish selves.
What kind of society do we want our children and grandchildren to live in? What manner of people do we want to be surrounded by as we grow old?
Bilides told me about a study reported last week that found bullying has been going down, crediting anti-bullying programs. That's the kind of work counselors help with. In the national survey, the percentage of children who reported being bullied or beaten up fell from 22 percent in 2003 to 15 percent in 2008.
The problems that lead to bullying fester in children and show up in adult crime statistics later. Less bullying now, means less crime later.
Safety isn't all we get from supporting children.
Ideally, counselors help children overcome the obstacles they face in and out of school and give them a better chance of becoming, "intelligent, kind, social citizens in this country and in the world," Bilides said.
We reap hardworking, productive citizens who can lift some of that tax burden off the rest of us.
