Pro
By Kelly Simmons
A young boy, possibly 12 or 13, is out on a Saturday night It's approaching midnight, this parents don It mind that he's not home. They trust him to behave. He stops to talk to someone he sees. It could be a perfect stranger or a friend; it could be a man or a woman; it could be an adult or someone his own age. They talk for a while and then they walk off together.
The next day, around noon, the boy's mother notices he is not around.
She checks his room and sees that he didn't sleep in
his bed. It doesn't occur to her that something could be wrong; so she
doesn't report him missing to the police until 6:00 that
evening. The police begin to look for clues as to his whereabouts but find
it difficult because he hasn't been seen for almost 24 hours.
Three weeks have passed, then a month. The police are no further than when his mother called, although they have determined he is not just another runaway. There's not much they can do but keep looking. . . and hoping.
The problems with the curfew are minimal when compared tothe possible kidnapping and death of children. The young boy in the beginning of this article was trusted by his parents trust other people not to anything to their children? Parents must start to take anything to their children? Parents must start to take a little responsibility where their youngsters are going, what time they will be home, and who they will be with. If they can't take that responsibility, then someone else has to. Mayor Jackson is only trying to save the lives of some innocent children.
In February of 1981, Mayor Maynard Jackson issued a statement placing a curfew on the children of Atlanta. All those 14 years of age and younger must not be out between the hours of 7 p.m. and 6 a.m. Mayor Jackson felt there was nothing else he could do to stop the madness that has taken over the city. The middle of February, brought the discovery of the body of a young boy who had been missing since the previous spring. His body was the seventeenth to be found out of eighteen missing children.
Con
By Mike Hardin
In February of this year, Mayor Jackson signed a bill making it illegal
for any child under 14 years of age to stay out from 7:00 PM to 6:00 AM.
This curfew was made to protect Atlanta's children from the person or persons
responsible for 19 murdered (and 1 missing) children in the past year and
a half.
This curfew, along with a reward and a 35 member task force, is being used to help stop and to solve the problem. Unfortunately none of them have worked yet. The curfew, unlike the other, is not what it's cracked up to be. The curfew has some problems itself. First, the curfew is for after dark, and most of the abductions have happened in broad daylight. Second, the penalty for Your children being out past the curfew is a $500.00 fine and your child is put in jail. The penalty is rather severe if you consider that most of the children being abducted are from families with low or fixed incomes. Third, there is the financial burden of enforcing the curfew and prosecuting the offenders. The city is already having to ask for state and national funds to pay for the investigations which are totalling into hundreds and thousands of dollars.
The curfew, however good in intention, has one more very big problem. Before the new curfew was passed, and while the curfew of 9:00 which was discussed by the City Council to go into effect after the 90 day curfew of 11:00 ran out, two more Atlanta children had been added to the list. One was kidnapped from a shopping center and was later found dead; the other was taken off a downtown street at around noon, and fund a week later strangled. Also one of the missing children was found, dead.
I am not saying that nothing should be done; it just seems as though more should be done to apprehend the people responsible for the crimes and quickly. The children of Atlanta and their parents should certainly realize the danger of going out at night by themselves and take the proper steps to insure their safety, and let the police spend more time and money on the cases.
Grady's Going Places
By Kelly Gaines
In recent years, many people have had negative attitudes about Grady;
and the principal, Harold Miller is very concerned about this situation.
Mr. Miller recently discussed some of the reasons that he feels are causing
this negative publicity. Years ago, when Grady was Boys' High, this school
was, in Mr. Miller's words, the school to beat. However, as time, passed,
he feels that as Grady became more of an inner city school; it became less
respected. Although Mr. Miller feels that some of the blame should be placed
on a very small minority of students, the greatest problem is society. School
systems are faulted for many things over which they have no control. Mr.
Miller knows that a school cannot please everyone at the same time. Its
prime objective must be to educate.
Dorothy McGirt is the head of the social science department, and she
says that two students have made outstanding achievements in the past two
years. In 1980 Betty Styles won third place in the "workshop competition"
and this year Lady Hall was a nominee for the Senate Youth Program.
Emory university is sponsoring a Career Preparation in Bio-medicine program:
Priscilla Breen and James Forman were invited to participate in this activity.
They are two of only 125 students chosen from among 800 applicants from
five different school systems.
Michael Moate, head of the English department, reports that students and projects from the English department have been very successful. The drama class won the superior rating for a one-act play in the Language Arts competition in 1979 and 1980. Also the Southerner was selected as one of the 10 best papers in 1979 in the Metro Atlanta Competition sponsored by the Atlanta Press Club.
Many individuals have made contributions in English. Liz Gregory's works were published in the April 1980 edition of Connection which spotlights young literary talents, and in the Area Three Anthology
Mr. Miller doesn't believe that Grady should take a back seat to anyone. Obviously the accomplishments made in the past two years prove that this is true.