Theft problem needs to be addressed

To The Eagle:

Many students who attend Wahkiakum High School are getting phones, iPods, money and clothes stolen from them almost every day. These items can equal up to hundreds of dollars in our students personal property.

These are things that not only our parents, but we as students, work hard to buy. We should be able to bring things that we earn and work for to school without worrying about them being stolen. Two examples of this happening are: early on in the school year a student had over $100 stolen out of her wallet; just this week another student had her iPod stolen from her purse. In both of these situations, little to nothing was done to prevent this from happening again. Theft should be as important to the school authorities as it is to the parents and students to find out where their belongings are and who took them.

Because the school district has not taken serious disciplinary actions, theft will continue to be a recurring problem in our small community. Some appropriate solutions to start dealing with this ongoing problem would be educational assemblies, locking the locker room, and harsher disciplinary actions. As soon as theft is reported, the school should take immediate action with the parties involved. Searching lockers and questioning quickly would result in students getting their stolen property back.

Coming from inner city Seattle school districts, I would have never thought that stealing would be such a huge problem in a small community. As students, parents and citizens of Wahkiakum, we need to tell the school district this needs to be dealt with more efficiently and effectively. Making our schools a theft and drug-free zone should be just as much a priority as our athletics.

Alexus Tischer

Cathlamet