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As a parent, I feel terrible about this. So sad to hear. That being said, it would be a shame for the entire Plano ISD to be smeared with this brush. Thousands of kids have successfully gone through Plano schools with no issue whatsoever, and indeed many have been highly successful. To use this unfortunate incident to talk about Plano schools being "infiltrated" by drugs is quite frankly, silly. Yes, there will be drugs in Plano schools, but as others have mentioned, there will also be drugs at every high school in America. It happens. How your child deals with it will depend on what he/she was taught at home.
On another note, I dont know why it seems that high schools get absolutely killed by this type of negative news, yet equally bad things happen at colleges with barely a murmur. My alma mater is TCU in Fort Worth. I can remember kids who had to be pulled out of school and put into rehab for alcohol and a couple for harder stuff. Rapes have occured on campus, some talked about, but far too many dealt with a whisper, and I'm sure that similar things have happened at other campuses. Yet no one puts up OPs about them at all really. Maybe the ISDs need to hire their PR departments?
Then MurphyPL1 shouldn't have posted. The original post was not combative at all. An assumption was made that perhaps drugs were involved.
That's not any reason to jump down a poster's throat, but that's exactly what Murphy did, and it doesn't matter what reasons he gives.
Murphy, you need to calm down and stop posting on this unless you would like to just give factual information regarding the situation. You're attacking a poster for making an implied connection between these suicides and drug use. Frankly, given the situation, I bet a lot of people would think the same thing. I'm sure everyone is asking "Why?" Drug use is a completely logical conclusion to come to, especially if someone were to pull up "suicide" and "Plano" in a Google search. Several stories that pop up allude to Plano's fight against heroin.
If that was someone you knew and cared for, would you appreciate some stranger implying that perhaps drug abuse was involved? I dont think the OP meant that maliciously, but it was very poorly worded to say the least.
If that was someone you knew and cared for, would you appreciate some stranger implying that perhaps drug abuse was involved? I dont think the OP meant that maliciously, but it was very poorly worded to say the least.
If it was someone I knew and cared for, I wouldn't be posting anything about it on the internet. Posting on a subject that is emotionally charged for the poster (be it politics, global warming, or in this case suicide) is rarely a good idea.
Murphy took offense where none was to be taken. As I said before, I went through Plano schools myself. I personally knew/was friends with the kids who died/went to prison in the 90's. When I hear about two kids committing suicide, one of my first thoughts was if drugs were involved.
When given Plano's history of drugs and wide media coverage of it, making that connection is inevitable... whether it ends up being true or not. Still isn't something to be angry about.
If people want to talk drugs in Plano, then I think that the large schools help keep students from peer pressure drug use. If a student has no interest in drugs, then they can find a tribe that fits them that does't do drugs. As I have posted before, my friend that went to a small school found that if she didn't do the drinking/sex/drugs thing, then she was shunned. A lot harder to resist pressure when friends have your back.
Against my better judgement I am going to wade into this little foray. I think its important to distinguish what has happened here what the history of Plano since right now nobody really knows why these girls did what they did.
I also went to PISD schools from the 5th grade to 12th, so roughly 1996-2004. I remember the peak of the heroin epidemic and all the terrible TV specials on Dateline, 20/20, MTV, etc. It all hit roughly around middle school for me. TBH I thought it was a little unfair. There's really nothing specifically about Plano that caused it. I guess there was a certain level of "this can't happen here" cluelessness from the community, and the generally large size of Plano means we just got most of the attention.
Dallas-Fort Worth is full of bored teens from upper middle income homes that start dabbling in drugs. I've had multiple people in law enforcement both inside and outside the area relay this to me. Its really more of an issue that people don't like to admit to. With that in mind, if you are going to talk about drugs in Plano, you'd have to bring up all the overdoses in Southlake/Colleyville earlier this decade, among other places.
I will say there is an immense amount of pressure put on teens in Plano. And I do think this pressure can push kids into some really dark places. It was very true when I live there and I imagine its true today. People forget there was a rash of suicides in Plano back in the early 80's. I'll never forget a girl who didn't make the cheerleading team my junior year lock herself in her bedroom for several days. Come to think of it, I knew of several kids that had full-on mental breakdowns in class. Probably the most searing memory I had in HS was my teacher slamming her fist on the desk during our PSAT practice and screaming "this test will determine your whole life!!" and it caused the girl next to me to start hyperventilating. Again though, I don't think this was somehow unique to Plano. I do think its a big issue in new money, upper middle class areas, which DFW has no shortage of.
Against my better judgement I am going to wade into this little foray. I think its important to distinguish what has happened here what the history of Plano since right now nobody really knows why these girls did what they did.
I also went to PISD schools from the 5th grade to 12th, so roughly 1996-2004. I remember the peak of the heroin epidemic and all the terrible TV specials on Dateline, 20/20, MTV, etc. It all hit roughly around middle school for me. TBH I thought it was a little unfair. There's really nothing specifically about Plano that caused it. I guess there was a certain level of "this can't happen here" cluelessness from the community, and the generally large size of Plano means we just got most of the attention.
Dallas-Fort Worth is full of bored teens from upper middle income homes that start dabbling in drugs. I've had multiple people in law enforcement both inside and outside the area relay this to me. Its really more of an issue that people don't like to admit to. With that in mind, if you are going to talk about drugs in Plano, you'd have to bring up all the overdoses in Southlake/Colleyville earlier this decade, among other places.
I will say there is an immense amount of pressure put on teens in Plano. And I do think this pressure can push kids into some really dark places. It was very true when I live there and I imagine its true today. People forget there was a rash of suicides in Plano back in the early 80's. I'll never forget a girl who didn't make the cheerleading team my junior year lock herself in her bedroom for several days. Come to think of it, I knew of several kids that had full-on mental breakdowns in class. Probably the most searing memory I had in HS was my teacher slamming her fist on the desk during our PSAT practice and screaming "this test will determine your whole life!!" and it caused the girl next to me to start hyperventilating. Again though, I don't think this was somehow unique to Plano. I do think its a big issue in new money, upper middle class areas, which DFW has no shortage of.
Great points. Also, Plano East apparently has a "zero hour"
Quote:
the school offers students the option of attending a "Zero Hour" class at 8:00 a.m. This allows students the option of leaving early at 3:19 p.m.
So these kids are waking up at ???? time in the morning to make class at 8AM, and doing what after school ? More academics, tutoring, piano, etc ?
This Plano East student was one point shy of a perfect ACT, and decided he needed to "take it again"
He (age 17) discusses "time management" and "making sacrifices"
Quote:
Make sacrifices
Because of all that travel, Michael has to juggle multiple assignments or extra projects throughout the year. He often gets to school an hour early when he is in town to work with teachers or meet with study groups. That also means giving up some Saturday nights with friends. “You have to be willing to sacrifice some things to get homework done,” Michael said.
But not too many
Practice. Study. Travel. Tests. More travel. Repeat. Such demands can build up the pressure until you hit a wall. Michael said to find opportunities to decompress even when the day is packed. Sometimes that’s just tuning out the world and enjoying music during the daily drive to practice. Other times, that means power napping or playing Frisbee golf with friends. When he really gets overwhelmed, Michael tells his coach he needs a day off. “Everyone has that wall they have to breach when it gets to be too much,” Michael said. “Sometimes, school is more important than practice.”
Another Plano East graduate, named Niket, had the following to say about the school:
Quote:
Niket's just plain tired. With the IB program, KRIPA, tennis, the clubs, the awards banquets, the applications and just being a regular kid, his senior year has been booked up from first light to good night. "I mean, I don't sleep much," he says.
Maybe he'll get a chance this fall.
"A lot of my friends who had the IB program," he says, laughing, "say college is like a breather."
.....I wonder if these kids are ever allowed to emotionally develop, as it is not all about academics.
That's not just Plano, Ivy hopefuls are doing that in every town and every country. Perfect GPA and SAT aren't enough, you have to have stellar extracurriculars as well. It's crazy.
That's not just Plano, Ivy hopefuls are doing that in every town and every country. Perfect GPA and SAT aren't enough, you have to have stellar extracurriculars as well. It's crazy.
It's every kid who wants to attend Harvey Mudd, Cal-Tech, Olin, Cooper Union and many others and every kid who wants to enroll in the best programs at Duke, Notre Dame, Rice, Vandy, A&M UT, Berkeley and many more. It's every kid who wants to attend any US allopathic and most DO medical schools or any veterinary school. Every kid who wants to get into a top 15 law school or a Magnificent 7 business school. And lots more.
With only a little variation the trinity + is:
Excellent SAT/ACT scores #1
Excellent Grades #2
Extras with a leadership role being better #3 but required
Volunteer efforts #4 helpful for everyone but required for medicine
Kids who get all of these things done and done well must be bright, motivated, strong time managers, excellent prioritizers and good at getting by on 5/6 hrs. of sleep.
If you play sports and do one other thing (one-act play, UIL, music, anything) that's what it's like at every school across the US and has been for decades and not just for Ivy hopefuls. At my school 20 years ago, sports practiced from 3:30-5:00, and one act play was from 5:30 - 7:00pm.
At some point there will be way too many kids with stellar this and stellar that and judging from the extreme microparenting ( yes, i made that up) going on these days, these stellar kids with their stellar extracurriculars and stellar leadership skills will soon be the norm. Then what?
I suspect universities will then look for the outliers, cause lets face it, these schools aren't looking to fill their schools with 'normal' kids. Whatever the current definition of normal is at that time.
We are literally killing our kids in the pursuit of a very narrow definition of success. And for what?
There isn't a teenager i have met that doesn't know another kid that is on drugs or is possibly depressed or is otherwise 'weird'. They are quite apathetic about it actually, especially the drugs thing. And these kids are both public and privately educated from great and regular ISD's alike.
Being a 'normal' American teenager these days is stressful. And that's normal. And its a shame. Because i also happen to know loads of international students who get scholarships to those same schools with none of the extreme grooming/ madness with the extracurriculars and 'leadership' skills.
I pray for peace for those girls' parents.
Last edited by BLDSoon; 02-04-2016 at 08:25 AM..
Reason: Other
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