For the 4 or 5 days this newspaper has been out, we've received various sorts of criticism and support. The criticism, while coming from fewer people than support, are coming from people of importance. Luckily though, there are common misconceptions that most of these people are having and ones that I'd love to clear up.

The staff of this paper are in no way trying to degrade our school by speaking out against these issues. These are issues EVERYONE knows exists and if they don't, then they're not looking too hard. We're not trying to be elitist by saying we're better then them, because we know we aren't. We've all caused these problems before. We love our school and the education we recieved there with immense passion. It's that love that fuels our fire to try and get things changed for the better, before they get worse. We're not trying to spit on our school, we're trying to wipe the spit off. Every school has faults, we agree, but that shouldn't be a reason to not try and fix these faults at our school specifically. Almost every student at Woodruff knows Woodruff gets a bad rep with the community. The issues we speak out against are the reason that Woodruff gets that bad rep. We want those issues gone. If they do go away, then there's no reason Woodruff can't be looked upon with the pride that people of the community look upon Richwoods with. We're not trying to start some civil war between different groups of people, far from it. We aren't the only ones who've spoken out against these problems. Heck we're not even the first to speak to the entire school. People complain that we're ranting, but our ranting is just a harder hitting and louder form of communication than the ones people who speak to us at assemblies use.

The administration wants the school to become a better place, and so do students. We look at ourselves as the megaphone for those students who do want to speak out but are afraid to do so because they don't want the repercussions or don't realize they're not alone. We hope our speaking out empowers other to speak out and with everyone speaking out, the people who cause the problems might realize that their crap isn't going to be taken anymore. There's no reason to allow the problems with drugs, alcohol, pregnancy or violence to continue to run rampent without someone trying to deter them. We know we may post some contriversial articles, but we aren't doing because it riled people up, we're doing it because we'd like some change. The Class of 2005 did leave the Class of 2006 to take care of the school just like the Class of 2006 will leave it for the Class of 2007. It's on everyone to keep this school up and running well. We hope that you understand what we're trying to do and support it. For those of you who are speaking out against it, we hope this clears some things up. We do want change, and we want it for the better. We want a school where no one has to worry whether or not someone has a gun or if they're going to run into fighting or if their best friend is going to end up pregnant or dead from suicide. We know that us speaking out may not and probably will not stop these things, but we might as well try. This isn't going to be a place where students rant about the administration, because honestly, most of us on staff feel the administration is doing a much better job than they were in the past. These problems don't fall on the administration anyway. We know it isn't everyone who causes the issues, heck it's not even many at all, but we've allowed it to go on undetered for too long. If you readers see other students helping in the spread of decay in our school, speak out. Try and stop them. There's no reason for it at Woodruff and we're think most of you can agree that none of us want it at Woodruff. Peers have much more strength among their friends than they realize and a simple voicing of opinions about one person's actions can be all it takes for that person to stop. It's an intervention of sorts. So let's step up and make Woodruff a shining beacon of wonder, so everyone can be even prouder to be a Warrior.

Jonathon Simmer