Our Reasons

And so a movement, a shift in the population's thinking toward the truth, has begun.  I have planted the seeds and it is up to you to water them, to pluck the weeds from our garden so that the flowers may blossom and flourish.  In the coming days, if attention is brought to our plight from outside of our school walls we must be prepared for the leadership, whether they agree with our cause or not, to label us as a fringe group.  Freaks, outsiders and outcasts, students with no compassion for the whole of the school and no other goal than to see anarchy.  But are we anarchists?  No, most certainly not.  We are citizens of the world, concerned that we may not be getting the best education available to us, for it is that education that we deserve.  It is that education that will prepare us for the world that many of us will come to face in the next three years.  We are students that believe that we cannot get this education under the circumstances imposed by our principal.  We cannot learn when we are constantly looking over our shoulders waiting on the next attack;  waiting to hear the next rule that will make our school feel more like a prison to us.

    I am not the first to say this, in fact a number of these remarks come from the words of our fellow students who felt the need to drop out of school to escape the looming and ever-present shadow of our authoritarian leader.  The cold chills felt constantly by these students due to this shadow looming just behind them caused their grades and morale to plummet and it is mainly this that motivated them to leave our school for the alternative setting of middle college.

    To our sophomores and freshmen and perhaps to some of our juniors who don't remember, things weren't always like this.  Two years ago, when Byrd was our principal, and Madren was merely an assistant, things were much better.  In the two years I had him as principal student morale was never this low.  Dress code was enforced to all students, not just the ones wearing black shirts or students that hung out in certain places.  On field trips we were not called "w****s" because of our shorts because no one was allowed to wear them.  Students from other schools did not shrink away from us as if we had the plague in fear of our association with the aforementioned "w****s".  We could go to the bathroom before class without fear of getting silent lunch.  Students carried drinks and threw them in any of the many trash cans located around campus.  I rarely remember seeing cans or bottles laying around campus, and I never littered myself.  Students exercising free speech were not suspended instead they were given warnings if our behavior was inappropriate, and received apologies if he found out that we had valid reasons for doing what we did.  I remember laughing with him in his office.  But things aren't like that anymore.  Morale is lower than I ever remember it ever being. Times are bad.  And it is times like these when the good and brave and just among us stand up and ask for, no, demand change.

    I have heard it said that I am angry with Madren or that I am acting rashly.  But I have thought this over and there is no way I would rather have it be.  And I am not angry with her, nor do I hate her or anything like that.  I remember a lot of people disliking her as an assistant principal, but I actually think she did her job then more or less, she actually enforced the dress code from what I remember, instead of ignoring it and discriminating against certain students.  Perhaps you don't understand because you haven't been discriminated against, but just ask anyone standing near B building or "Hawaii" and you'll hear stories of how she picks and chooses students to punish instead of punishing those who are violating the rules.  You will hear how she will carry on a conversation with a girl whose butt is hanging out of her shorts and then tell one of them to turn a shirt inside out because she doesn't like what it says (and not because it's an actual violation).  Personally, I don't think she did too bad as an assistant principal (although I disagree with some of her antics, like suspending a student for laughing while she tried to talk to him), but as an actual principal I think she performs poorly and fosters immaturity within the student body.  And I also know that a majority of the people who have dropped out this year cite her or her policies as a main reason, and I believe that this alone is reason for her to be removed as principal.  And as a final note of this topic, I have heard that on Friday the 5th at least five students dropped out, on that day alone.  Is this the way we want our schools run?

    And finally I dispute claims that I am doing all of this for myself, or that we are doing this for ourselves.  We are doing this for the good of the student body, and for our families.  I know that there are a few of you with younger brothers or sisters who will come to southern in the future.  I myself have two nephews who want to come to the southern that I was once proud of, and hope to be proud of again.  And I am doing this for you.  All of you.