It’s understandable that Rowan-Salisbury schools would need to reallocate resources from time to time. But something about officials’ use of the word “optimization” to describe the action sounds like cover for something less high-minded.

Something like “staff cuts.”

If school administrators are forced to put a positive spin on a tough situation, though, the blame should go not on local administrators but on the state legislators whose tight budgets force difficult tradeoffs.

The Board of Education approved a plan last week that could eliminate up to 20 support positions districtwide by December. The positions would be eliminated through attrition, not layoffs.

The goal is a beneficial one — helping schools with greater needs get additional resources. Unfortunately, the schools that lose the positions will have to shift work to other employees.

No teacher or teacher assistant positions are eliminated, but the loss of a support staff person would have an impact on anyone who counted on that person for help.

Assistant Superintendent Julie Morrow explained how resources for support positions have been allocated so far at schools.

“They all have a tech facilitator, a media specialist, an assistant principal. They all have the same number of guidance counselors, they have a reading coach,” Morrow told the school board. “… All of our schools are significant. However, some have more needs than others.”

Ideally, the system would allocate more resources to the schools with higher need (read: high poverty) while maintaining the basic level of support positions at all schools. That is, they could add in one place without taking away from another. Reality dictates otherwise, of course.

A legislative task force has been looking at how the state finances the public schools — not to consider if funds are adequate, unfortunately, but to reform they way funding is structured. On the table is a weighted student funding model that would allocate a base amount of funding per student, and then add “weights” (more money) for students in categories such as low-income, English language learners and disabled.

That sounds smart, but would this model once again shift resources away from other students and their schools to help those with more need? Or would lawmakers recognize the inadequacy of state school funding and increase the education budget? Judging by past actions, the current batch of lawmakers would move funds around, pat themselves on the back  — and call it “optimization.”