Public schools
should welcome all

A friend whose daughter is about to cross the line into her teen years is ecstatic about getting her accepted into a private school. More than that, my friend is relieved that her daughter has accepted that prospect, a turnabout from her insistence that she stay with her elementary school friends as they move on to a public mega-middle school.

As Dad tells it, his young scholar was persuaded when she overheard a telephone conversation in which an earthy assessment by a local friend of her parents predicted "that little blonde haole girl will be chewed up into little pieces" at the public school.

Dad's jovial anecdote left a sad, hollow echo as I reflected on it. What is wrong with us adults -- parents, taxpayers, citizens of a civilized society -- that we condone a public school in which the idea that violence, whether physical or the emotional harassment that auntie predicted, is acceptable where the majority of our children are taught?

--Mary Adamski

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