STUDENT SUSPENSIONS

I would like to comment on the recent Laurie School suspensions.

What a great way to reduce class size! Let's just kick them out and say
what else could we do. This is in NO WAY positive to our community,
society, or the kids. The latest figure is that 21 students were given
anywhere from a one week suspension up to suspension for the rest of the
year for allegedly smoking pot off of school property. This resulted in
the arrest of a 20-year-old non-student for the possession of a small
quantity of marijuana.

Sounds to me like they never took any real preventative measures if things
could lead up to suspensions to this many students at one time. This was
apparently a daily event that they have let build and build and then
brought the hammer down. I don't think that this approach is recommended
by any style of child care.

It's been my experience that if you deal with things when they begin and
are small they are a lot easier to handle with a far higher success rate.
For example, one would think that if a police officer was to take a stroll
through the problem area during the problem times this whole situation
could likely not have grown to such an unacceptable level.

And before you point the finger at the home or the parents, this one has to
be shared with the school who obviously let things get way out of control
without any effective measures of prevention, the system that has the
school, officials, teachers and all the resources stretched so thin that
they barely help anyone anymore. The bottom line is that this is not just
a home problem, it needs to be addressed by everyone, schools and society
at large. We have to devote more of our resources to our youth. Kicking
them out, not letting them skateboard, calling them useless, lazy and rude
does not help society at all. It almost ensures higher drop out rates,
teen pregnancies, higher youth crime & suicide rates and that's just for
starters. One mature way for the schools to deal with this would be to
become more a part of the solution than the problem. These suspensions
don't sound like much of a solution.

Lori Sturney

Cranbrook