Just this week parents and family members of Halie McDonald complained about the recent deaths involving students at Caney Creek High in Montgomery County.
Halie’s Mother Stephanie Basham says the school hasn’t done enough to prevent drinking and driving related crashes.
Montgomery County prosecutors believe drinking may have played a role in the 16 year old freshman’s death.
She died on March 13th while riding as a passenger in a car.
The driver of the vehicle slammed into a pole just a mile from Caney Creek High.
However, there are students who say the school is doing as much as possible to educate students about drinking and driving.
One of those students is Courtney Biehle and these are her words:
Caney Creek High School has been devastated by an increased number of deaths recently.
Our brother, sisters, close friends, and just the regular people we see everyday in school.
Regardless of social status, these people are remembered, and thought of everyday.
As a former student at Caney Creek, much like others, I too had to suffer the loss of a close friend. But with the help of family, friends, and the staff of the school, the grieving process was much easier.
I was upset to see that so many people thought that the school had not made enough, if any effort, to reach out and help the students.
Having been a part of something they did do however, I could not help getting offended.
Is the school really to blame for all of this misfortune? When a student from Caney Creek passes away, administrators bring in extra councelors, and teachers make themselves avalible anytime, in case quite a few students needed to talk to someone.
They follow the particular students schedual, and comfort those who seemed to be taking the loss much harder than others.
Absences are excused for those who attend the service, and among the students, the many of the staff is present as well. Unfortunate as it is, no matter how much the school does for hard times such as these, they cannot make the students take the help they have provided.
A program created to show the teenagers what a drinking and driving accident can look like,was introduced to the students a couple of years ago.
But, when the program did not come back, the school, and community pulled together to make one of their own.
Administrators, police department, fire department, EMT, local funeral home, local judge, students, and parents all worked overtime to send the message to stop drinking and driving.
This program as of last year, not only includes drinking and driving, but texting and driving as well, but what the kids do with the knowledge they are given is completely up to them.
The school has done all it can to try and make these students understand that the decisions they make can cost them, or someone else their lives.
Parents need to sit down and talk to their children.
The more they understand the consequences, the less likely they are to do it.
This is the sam case with society in general today. You can make laws, but you cannot actually enforce them until those laws are broken. The school’s hands are tied.
It is terrible to lose so many young people due to irrational, and fatal decisions, but if everyone takes the time to listen, and think, the messages that the community are trying to send, will make a lot more sense, and the roads will be much more safe for not only the students at Caney Creek High School, but for everyone else as well.
Courtney Biehle
Very well said.