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Abandoning Our Duties As Parents

There’s a reason cops assigned as school resource officers usually get along quite well with teachers. The professions share a problem.

It’s why Central Elementary School in Moundsville needed a washing machine and clothes dryer.

It is that increasingly, our culture dumps our problems with children and young adults on law enforcement officers and teachers.

They’re supposed to be backups for us, not replacements. We’re supposed to educate our children to the best of our ability, then send them off to school for teachers to finish the job. We’re supposed to instill good moral values and respect for the law in our children, then rely on cops to deal with those whose parents didn’t do that.

More and more, however, we’re expecting teachers and cops to take care of responsibilities that ought to have been handled at home.

Last week, we published a story about Lowe’s in Wheeling donating a new washer and dryer set to the school in Moundsville. The equipment will be used to wash clothes for some of the children who attend Central Elementary.

That prompted a fellow in the office to wonder aloud why a school should be doing something that ought to be taken care of at home.

Yes, it should. But for one reason or another, it sometimes isn’t. Central’s educators say they know of some children who miss school because they don’t have clean clothes to wear.

Even when they make it to school, children who show up constantly in dirty clothes often lag behind their classmates. You don’t have to think hard to understand why.

So, bless their hearts, the Central teachers are going to take care of that for as many children as they can. And bless the good folks at Lowe’s for helping out.

Teachers should be worrying about curriculum, not detergent. But for some kids, the educational technology that makes the most difference is a washing machine or a stove where the only good meal they’re likely to get in a day is cooked at school.

Think outside the box, we tell educators. Find ways to help kids in that “lower socio-economic” category who so often don’t do well in school.

When the teachers do think outside the box, we second-guess them.

Here’s the thing: They wouldn’t have to be acting as parents outside the home if moms and dads — of every social and economic status — did our jobs better. Until we do, expect more requests for school washing machines.

And for cops to patrol the halls.

Myer can be reached at: mmyer@theintelligencer.net.

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