The Chicago Tribune had an article about a 17-year-old boy who was trying to get himself out of the gang life, but he got shot. He was the 26th Chicago public school student that was killed so far this school year.

I think my own school, North Campus in Pinole, has a lot to do with this article because there are a lot of kids who go through these things. Teachers at my school choose not to deal with it. They just want to kick kids out of classrooms or put them in jail instead of trying to help. The teachers at my school are real lazy. They’d rather call the police to deal with these problems. When they ask us to make suggestions about what should go on in our school, they don’t put them to use. They make it seem like they do, but they don’t. Some of my suggesting were to have more teachers, more security at the school and try to help the kids more. From my point of view, there’s not going to be any changes at school because the teachers don’t want any.

Outside of school, I think that parents should pay more attention to their kids, because if they don’t—this kind of violence is what happens. Their kids go somewhere else for the support and attention that they are trying to get from their parents.
—Deajene Willridge
This blog was written during a New America Media Education Reporting Fellowship for Youth, which was funded through The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.