It would mean a qualified school councilor for almost every school, with a specialist team for a region. Fixing problems at source or at least making a meaningful go at fixing the problems.

[–] Dave 11 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

$2B over 5 years, with 1/3 going to schools?

So $666M split among 374 high schools (let's assume only high schools as there are almost 2,000 primary schools). Let's add the composites as well, as I believe these generally include at least some of the high school years. 193 of those brings us to 567 schools.

That's about $1.2M per school. Or about $235k per year. I'd guess that since senior counsellors earn about $100k, this should be plenty to cover one qualified school counsellor per school including both salary and extra admin costs, with extra left over so large schools could have multiple.

I think the next problem to solve is finding another 600 counsellors, but I think you may be right that this would be an effective prevention step. It's enough money that you could bump pay by $30k as incentive and still be well within budget.

[–] luthis 5 points 11 months ago

I love it when the numbers get run

[–] absGeekNZ 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Prevention is my goal.

But the 600 extra counselors is a major issue. But I would also establish a specialist team of 6-8 to take on difficult cases per region.

This approach; would pay dividends for generations.

[–] Dave 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The next challenge is how to keep accountability in politics while also incentivising polititions to think beyond the next election cycle...

[–] absGeekNZ 3 points 11 months ago

Lets focus on the possible before tackling the impossible.