Editorials / Opinion

Seattle Times letters to the editor

High schools should be havens

As a volunteer tutor, I work with youth who are trying to improve their lives by completing their high-school-equivalency exam (GED). Despite their many challenges, they are polite, funny, and grateful. These students work hard and are empowered by finally mastering the concepts they should have learned in school.

We need our high schools to be havens for kids of all backgrounds rather than yet another venue that is overly punitive [“Feds probing district’s treatment of black kids,” page one, March 6]. Denying access to public education through suspension sets struggling kids further back academically and puts them on the dropout track. Discouraged, it often takes years before they work up the courage to walk into our GED classroom and ask for the help they deserve.

–Jennifer Ting, Seattle