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Tuesday, October 4, 2005
No Science Lab, No Library
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
So I wasn’t surprised that I had a dozen or so e-mails waiting for me when I came in Monday, most from readers taking issue with my story about construction delays at Southwest DeKalb High School and the absence of a suitable makeshift library and science lab. Here’s the story.
Most criticism centered on quotes from a student suggesting that Southwest was getting dumped on because of its location in a black community.
Okay people, obviously I didn’t take that statement lightly. Nor did I use it to rachet up the level of controversy in the story. Rather, I quoted the student because she said what everybody else at the meeting had to be thinking. When is it okay to expect high school students to get by with no working science lab, no library and no Internet access?
This is a school with involved parents who raised their concerns publicly last summer. Thinking their reasonable requests would be taken care of, I chose not to write about the construction delays at that time. Delays happen so often I can’t possibly write about them all.
But when I went to Southwest DeKalb last week and saw the situation for myself … I have to say the neglect rose above anything I have seen since I covered a construction fiasco in Clayton County back in about 2000.
High school students need working labs, a library and Internet access. It’s the school district’s responsibility to provide something makeshift while a school is under renovation. DeKalb school officials took responsibility and vowed to fix the problems, but the question that never got answered was how the situation got as far as it did in the first place.
Okay, that’s what was going through my brain when I wrote the story. Your turn. Talk to me!
