For starters I would just like to say, this is why we can’t have nothing nice. Come on DC students!!! It only takes a few knuckleheads to ruin it for everyone which is unfortunate for both the students who missed out on this potentially great event and the people who worked hard to put it together.
That being said, I disagree with cancelling the evening events. While safety is always the first priority and concern, success is also a priority. This seems like punishing the many for the sins of a few!!! Over 12,000 students were evacuated because this incident!! When I was in high school I was smart but unmotivated. I had a fabulous adviser named Demisha Lee who understood me in ways that I did not understand myself. In addition to being my academic adviser, she was also the college counselor. She was the one the directed me to Cornell College and it changed my whole educational experience. While I came from a family where going to college was a given, college would have probably been a struggle for me if not for Demisha’s insight. Once I had that school as a specific future goal, my high school experience changed as well because I had something new to push me… I had found MOTIVATION!
Every student should have the chance to make that connection and to have that moment and often that is through things like college fairs and experiences. I believe with the multitude of schools in this country, there is a place and an experience for everyone. However without access they may never make the connection and reach their full potential. And DC students deserve more than that.
Students evacuate after fight breaks out at college fair
By: | 10/19/11 10:02 AM
Examiner Staff Writer @Lisa_Examiner
Their button-downs buttoned, and resumes still warm from the printer, teenagers headed to the D.C. College Fair Tuesday to meet with representatives from more than 300 colleges and universities.
And then things went wrong.
Shortly before 11:30 a.m. — more than an hour and a half before the morning session was supposed to finish — 12,000 students were evacuated after fights broke out, WAMU reports.
The Office of the State Superintendent, which co-sponsored the fair, declined to comment. A spokesman for Superintendent Hosanna Mahaley called the scene “a non-issue.”
But the evening session of the college fair was canceled, and students were pretty bummed. An 11th-grade charter school student from Southeast told WAMU she had prepared herself with questions to ask, and now didn’t know where to get them answered.
Terry Lynch, vice president of School Without Walls Senior High School’s parent organization, wrote a letter to D.C. Council Chairman Kwame Brown asking local officials to hold hearings on school safety.
“Very unfortunate D.C. students and families lost out on the opportunity to learn more about colleges,” said Lynch, whose daughter is a sophomore at Walls.
He said he also was upset that D.C. Public Schools failed to provide any information about what happened at the college fair.
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/capital-land/2011/10/students-evacuate-after-fight-breaks-out-college-fair#ixzz1bKjUl4EC
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