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EDITORIAL
Hear their pleas
(Published June 28, 2004)

D.C.’s young people are screaming for more attention to their needs.

You can "hear" them in the city’s large number of teen homicides.

You can "hear" them in the high rate of auto theft.

You can "hear" them in the increasing frequency of drive-by shootings.

You can "hear" them in the city’s high number of school dropouts.

Unfortunately, most of our government leaders – all the way up to the District’s congressional overseers – seem to be stone-cold deaf to their pleas.

The Board of Education last month showed that it actually did hear them when a group of students, working for more than a year with D.C. Public Schools administrators, got the board to approve a resolution mandating that building principals next year provide students with free access to fully functioning, sanitary restrooms. The board also voted to put maintenance funds under the superintendent’s authority and to protect that money from any further budget cuts.

The situation has become so acute that, during an inspection by the student-led group earlier this year, 400 female students at three-story Coolidge Senior High in Northwest Washington were being forced to share a single restroom stall in the building’s basement. At several other schools, the restrooms have been locked to prevent vandalism and nuisance fires – which should be interpreted as yet another plea for help from the children.

Recall that our political leaders for years have been telling us they believe that children come first. Rhetoric comes cheap, you know.

Fixing school restrooms and allowing students to use the facilities when necessary will be a tiny, first step in responding to young people’s needs. That this situation has been allowed to fester during the past decade is testament to the child neglect that our political leaders at all levels have been practicing – and worse, getting away with.

Recently, the public hasn’t heard government leaders say much about D.C.’s children and their future. There has been no mention of bringing Major League Baseball back to Washington "for the children." There has been no attempt to explain how the city’s children would benefit from allowing a slot machine emporium to be built on New York Avenue. (Yes, advocates assert, a percentage of gambling income could flow to the schools – just like the D.C. Lottery was supposed to pump money into the schools, right? After more than 20 years, we’re still waiting.)

One senior citizen asked a searing question of city leaders June 24 as they trotted out an ambitious plan to create an "Uptown Destination District" of new entertainment venues, shops, condominiums and offices in Cardozo-Shaw:

"In this whole plan, there was no mention of young people. Where are our youth in this plan?"

Bowing to the impact of this neighborhood woman’s inquiry, one city planner immediately acknowledged the concern but also had no ready answer.

Therein lies one problem with the current mindset of city leaders. Despite the rhetoric, children are not the government’s first consideration. But they should be much more than an afterthought.

Copyright 2004, The Common Denominator