I am a senior at Monroe High School. The media have really degraded my town. If it’s not a story about our prison or an escaped convict, the only things we hear about Monroe are negative.

Monroe is only 40 minutes away from Seattle but still I am constantly called a hick, redneck, and looked down upon by students at other schools.

I’m a Caucasian so talking about harassment with anyone doesn’t really help because it has become more of an instinct to just respond to the minorities in our community in order to look as though we are treating everyone fairly. I am very glad that those incidents were brought to the attention of my school’s administration, but why did all your readers need to hear about it? Would they really help? It’s just going to increase the criticism that I have to hear about my hometown.

Monroe has become one of the most diverse communities in this area. Everywhere you go comments will be made and things done that don’t sit well with everyone. The community itself has to change its outlook on the world. Other involvement only makes it harder for me and my fellow students to take this situation seriously or even consider it a problem.

A school is a community within itself. Making general statements about students only hurts the morality of the innocent students and makes us all look down upon ourselves and have less respect for the community we are part of. Please take this into consideration when you are writing other stories about Monroe. There are a lot of students in a school and most don’t deserve to feel poorly about where they live or go to school. We can’t make everything happen the way it’s supposed to, but we can do what’s best to fix it.

Anne Zaremba

Monroe