Gordon Clay here. Tuesday night at the Chetco Library, about 50 people showed up for the first Public Forum on Bullying. An interesting possible corelation was made. If the fact that the high school has such a high drop-out rate at 43%, and 6% of the district's students are being home-schooled, and that all three public schools received the dubious distinction of getting on the "150 worst schools in Oregon" list in reading, writing, arithmatic, and science, what might be a problem? We've got competent teachers. We've got good facilities. Hum.

According to the 2012 Oregon Student Wellness Survey, 50 to 60% of Brookings 6th, 8th and 11th grade students report being harassed on school grounds. With 3 to 4% of 8th and 11th graders reporting taking a gun to school and 12 to 16% report being threatened with a weapon on school grounds, 32% of 6th graders, 22% of 8th graders and 13% of 11th graders report being in a physical fight on school property, I would think that this would cause a major distraction from allowing students to stay focused on learning, leaving many students constantly vigilant for their own safety. Think about it. Would you tolerate that level of distraction at your workplace if someone else was constantly being harassed and called names? What if that person being harassed was you? Would you be distracted? If so, why do you think it would be less of a distraction for our children?

District officials were invite to hear parents and students concerns but weren't in attendance. We'd like to hear how our schools will deal with these issues. So far, from what we heard by concerned parents Tuesday night, not much.