Girls Received Special Treatment

We are writing to you to let you know how we feel about the recent decision made by the school board regarding three students, who we believe are all currently seniors. We feel that as taxpayers, we all deserve to know what is going on in that school system.

We heard through the grapevine that these three students (along with three others) were accused of smoking marijuana on the class trip. This in our mind is a huge violation of more than one school rule. We did graduate from RUHS and we did play sports. We were under the impression, correct us if we're wrong, that drinking alcohol, doing illegal drugs, and smoking cigarettes is in violation of the rules of engagement in extra-curricular activities.

We are sure that an investigation was held and it was concluded that these girls did not do this, through some sort of drug testing, but drug tests can be manipulated, as we all know. This is an outrage to the school's reputation and an outrage to former students who were kicked off of sports teams for similar accusations.

We also feel that this is a slap in the face of the principal and the sports directors because the girls were suspend ed and kicked off the team at first. There was then an emergency school board meeting within 24 hours of this decision and the school board alone decided that these students had "convincing denials."

One of us was kicked off the softball team for smoking a cigarette- mind you I was even 18. How can the school validate kicking a student off for supposedly smoking a cigarette and not kick someone off for supposedly smoking pot? I was devastated when this happened to me and it made me resent the school even more than I already did when I heard this.

On top of all this, what is it saying to the rest of the team for the coach and the teachers and the parents to be saying, "Oh, these poor girls are going to be under so much pressure at the game; I feel so bad for them," which was overheard in a public place. We'll tell you how we would feel; we would feel like no one else on the team mattered and that it was pretty much a lost game if these three "special" girls were not there. The rest of that team would have played their hearts out to be sure that they at least showed what they could do without the three "special" players.

We thank you for your time and concern in reading this article. We hope that together we can make a difference. Maybe nothing can be done about it this season, but we can make sure that it doesn't happen again.

Kristin Smithers

Former RUHS Graduate