EDITORIAL: Baker School District takes a risk with International School

Published 2:00 pm Friday, April 15, 2022

The Baker School District’s Oregon International School, a charter school intended to bring up to 40 foreign students to Baker High School each year and make it more affordable for local students to study abroad, might turn out to be a success both culturally and financially.

Baker School Board members are confident that it will.

But the board and district have also taken a substantial risk, both monetarily and in terms of public perception, by deciding to spend an estimated $865,000 to buy and renovate two historic homes in Baker City that will be used to house a dozen or so of the visiting students each school year (the others would stay with local host families).

Although the board made those decisions in public meetings, those meetings, including the most recent one on April 12, were done remotely, via Zoom. The meeting agendas were available on the district’s website, but the district didn’t issue any press releases to announce the proposed purchases. The board needs to return to in-person meetings, as other public bodies, including the Baker City Council and Baker County Board of Commissioners, have done for many months.

As for the International School itself, the concept seems sound. There is a benefit to Baker students to meet, learn and socialize with teenagers from other cultures, and to have a better chance, thanks to scholarships, to visit another country themselves.

The district projects that the International School will produce more revenue, through state payments for visiting students and tuition, than it will cost, starting with its first full year of operation.

And although district officials told board members on April 12 that interest among foreign students has been strong, and that the district likely will have to turn away some applicants, what if the demand doesn’t continue over the 14 to 15 years the district projects it will take for the International School to repay the district for the housing purchases? As we’ve learned over the past two years, a pandemic can almost immediately curtail exchange student programs.

Although it’s gratifying to see two historic homes being used, the decision to buy those, rather than newer residences, is itself a risk. Older homes, even after renovations, can be expensive to maintain and, potentially, to repair.

The district’s recent history of starting new programs — Baker Technical Institute, Baker Web Academy and Baker Early College — has proved successful. These have not only added educational opportunities for students — and adults, through some BTI programs — but they have helped the district remain on sound financial footing.

That record likely helped convince some voters to approve the $4 million property tax levy in May 2021, the district’s first in more than 70 years. The district is combining that money with a $4 million state grant and $4 million from its capital projects fund to make significant improvements to all district schools over the next two years or so, including heating, ventilation and cooling and security. The district will also construct a cafeteria/kitchen/multipurpose building at Baker Middle School. All of the levy dollars are allocated to those projects; none is going to the International School.

Still and all, the board probably lost some of the goodwill represented by the bond passage with its recent house purchases and expansion of the International School, which, however rosy its financial projections, also necessitated significant spending up front, money that has no immediately tangible benefits.

Ideally, those projections will pan out and this latest program, like its predecessors, will enrich the district and its students.

Taxpayers will be paying attention.

— Jayson Jacoby, Baker City Herald editor