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I have had the opportunity to teach students in ninth, 10th, 11th and 12th grades at Palmetto Ridge High School.

For the most part it has been great! These are wonderful students with their glowing future out in front of them! However, for an ever-increasing percentage, it isn’t going to happen!

I am totally flummoxed by the increasing number of my students who show up for whatever educational experience that we can provide them with all of the distractions of the common day with no paper, no pen, no workbook, no ID (as required) and in total violation of whatever dress code we have.

They do have their cell phone and their makeup case and their neat clothes that you bought them and their iPod or noisemaker to allow them to be in touch or fade out!

I would humbly implore or ask that you orient your child, if this applies, to get in touch. They all seem to be capable, but an increasing number show up and do nothing and don’t seem interested.

Unless they are schooling to be human house plants, then they are going to have to do something! I can’t but have to wonder how they have made it to high school in our school system without you noticing.

Unfortunately, our school system gives them 55 percent for doing nothing! The real world will give them nothing for failure.

These students are in the process of preparing for the next 50 to 60 years of their lives and it isn’t going to be pretty! In the more immediate future that could affect us all. They are going to be on the road as new drivers or passengers of new drivers. Not being able to understand the rules and following them could possibly prove to be tragic for you and me.

Don’t get me wrong. I have some super individuals who will go far beyond me. But they are being held back by those who are taking up space, in the way, and breathing our air. These future human house plants in the long run will want to have what they need without the tools to get it, raise their families and will eventually people the institutions that will attempt to care for you in your later years, if they remember!

None of these could keep a job, if they could get it!

Just thought that you would like to know and if this could possibly apply to you and your child and you care, then get involved!