LETTERS: A PLEA FROM SIKESTON

To the editor:

On Oct. 26 representatives of the Sikeston police department and sikeston schools met with our community to discuss the Weed and Seed Project. The school system sees the hcild as the problem instead of being sensitive to possible struggles at home. Many children come from homes where parents are involved in drug and alcohol abuse. Many children come from single-parent homes where the parent has to work several jobs to maintain the household. The school offers permanent expulsion as a solution to drugs and guns in school. What do we expect this expelled child to do all day long?

The entire community needs to come together to support programs to save our children. The Outreach Center offers home visits, counseling, tutoring, computer training, sports and physical fitness programs. Sikeston schools need to encourage parents to refer their children who have become victims of this society to the Outereach Center.

A vicious circle surrounds our children because drugs come into our community. Drugs become a part of the child's environment. He is expelled from school and kicked to the curb.

We as a community need to come to that child's rescue. If we don't reach that child, the drug dealer will reach him or her. If the child gets hooked on drugs, money will be needed for the drugs. That child will break into our home. Before long the city will be infested with this disease. Who has the problem now?

Expelling children and kicking them to the curb is prompting them to become criminals. An uneducated child will most likely become a resident of a prison or may die in crime after they have terrorized a city. We as a community need to support our children, no matter what their background, with healthy opportunities to grow and succeed. Some of us make mistakes. This appeal is to you. Those who are perfect won't understand. Permanent expulsion may seem like the solution, because it encourages zero tolerance. But it reality it is denying the children who are environment victims of drugs, guns and alcohol and education.

D. FRIEND

Sikeston