Letters on West High prevention plan, cannabis
Prevention plan is working at West High
There has been a dramatic drop in numbers of expulsions from Wichita West High School over the past three years. What brought about this decrease?
In 2012, United Way of the Plains saw that West High was usually at the bottom of the achievement records in our schools. A community input meeting produced a coalition called West Wichita Promise Neighborhoods. The group decided to concentrate on attendance. If children miss school or are chronically tardy, they fall behind their classmates. Falling behind leads to lower learning. A cycle of ever-increasing problems begins.
Grant money provided personnel who would concentrate on those children who go to the feeder schools leading to West High. Outreach to their families uncovered problems that ranged from a simple solution – bus passes – to multilayered. By tackling one student at a time, and by providing ongoing support to their families, the efforts have led to more students being in school more often and on time.
How can we continue such progress? Grant money is limited. Gov. Sam Brownback has raided the early childhood program funds, and the Legislature is underfunding education. We need to convince them that shifting to prevention techniques costs far less than we spend on expelled students who end up in our penal institutions or on public support. Our future is worth the investment.
Liz Hicks, Wichita
The new snake oil
Move over, snake oil. There is a new miracle tonic – cannabis oil.
Got aches? Got pains? Are you feeling too sober? Cannabis can cure all that ails you, including glaucoma, cancer, Ebola, epilepsy, the inability to see imaginary colors and more.
Never mind that the drug companies want nothing to do with it – we all know that big pharmaceutical companies conspire to avoid making profits off of important cures. Never mind that the Food and Drug Administration has never been able to find that cannabis cures anything – a bunch of potheads arbitrarily claimed online that cannabis does, so we know it must be true.
Side effects include stupidity, driving-related injury or death, addiction, a ruined life due to impaired judgment, and temptation to rob friends and family members to get the next fix.
Perhaps the cruelest side effect is false hope given to people desperate to rid themselves of debilitating, life-threatening diseases. Don’t worry – by the time they find out, marijuana will already be legal and they will have outlived their usefulness to the cause. Who cares what happens to them then?
Peter Goico, Wichita
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This story was originally published January 25, 2016 at 6:04 PM with the headline "Letters on West High prevention plan, cannabis."