Letters: Parents can close school-to-prison pipeline

One kid doesn’t have the right to disrupt the education of every other student in a classroom.

As usual, Democrats want more training for teachers and school resource officers to handle disruptive kids (“Panel of S,C, Democrats takes aim at school-to-prison pipeline,” Oct. 2). But if the problem is children entering schools “unprepared academically and socially” — they can’t do the work so they act out, drop out and enter the school-to-prison track — why not blame the parent(s)?

Why aren’t they teaching their children colors, numbers, letters, simple words? Read to them. Play games. Go to the library’s story hour. Have them watch high-quality children’s TV shows. Parents can reinforce social skills when they insist on common courtesy: Take turns, respect others’ property.

These aren’t expensive solutions. Flash cards with numbers, words, colors, counting skills and dry erase boards are available at the dollar store.

It’s the parents’ job to ready their children for school. If more parents did that, there would be fewer on that prison track.