Editorials / Opinion

The article on suspending high school students by Claudia Rowe hit home for me [“Suspending kids doesn’t fix bad behavior; schools look for answers,” Education, Dec. 5].

I’m a high school student from the suburbs of Seattle and the truth of the article is unavoidable. I have had friends that even have been suspended because of drug use and being removed from school made getting help and moving on even harder.

Once they were suspended they spent their days getting high and sleeping in, and day by day they just got further and further behind in class. When they are able to come back, they’re even more behind than before. It’s almost impossible to catch up after weeks or even days away from school.

Because of the lack of help or ability to catch back up I see my friends give up and call it quits since there’s no way they can get their lives back together. In-school suspension isn’t much different either. There isn’t a comparison to actually being in class. Just the other day I walked into the library to see a student watching pirated movies on one of the library computers. He had been suspended for something related to drugs.

This system isn’t working and these kids need help.

Sophie Stoltman, Redmond