Students learn that adults can make some hard calls

It’s not always clear who is going to learn what or when as consequences come down after rules are broken. But one possibility this week is that the community is learning to draw a meaningful line.

Four students, by all accounts good ones, will suffer the consequences of breaking rules against alcohol at school functions and contrary to their own pledges: They won’t be allowed to walk at graduation this Saturday.

Following two executive sessions, appeals from each of the four, and more appeals from some 30 or so of their supporters Tuesday night, the Grand Coulee Dam School District Board of Directors stood by the punishment meted out near the end of the school year after the four were caught with alcohol on the senior trip to Disneyland.

The school board’s follow-through may break with a tradition of ignoring similar behavior or backing down when community heat is applied.

Still unclear is whether the four, and probably multiple others who weren’t caught, will learn anything more from the no-walk decision, or whether they even need to learn more than they already have by going through the whole heartbreaking appeals trauma.

But it might mean the community learned something already expressed at the last board election, a lesson now to manifest in a day that will hold less joy for some.

They’ll get over that, no doubt, but could the decision mark a turning point for Lake Roosevelt High School culture?

— Scott Hunter

editor and publisher