DEAR ABBY: This is in response to the letter about using closed military bases for vocational schools. I'm not criticizing the idea, but I am criticizing the writer's misconception of vocational school students. I was offended at his statement that those of us who attend these schools are disadvantaged kids who are not college material.
I am a girl completing 10th grade at a vocational-technical high school in Delaware. Students must achieve a certain grade point average and fill out an application even to be accepted into this school. If they get into any trouble or don't keep up their grades, they are removed from the school. Furthermore, 60 percent of the students here go on to college after graduation.
My grandmother told me that vocational schools were first established for disadvantaged "problem children," but times have changed since Granny's day. These schools are not for dumb kids who come to learn a trade because they'll never do anything else productive in their lives. Students at my school are intelligent and excel academically as well as in their "shops."
Abby, people need to change their views about vocational schools. I speak for many of us students when I say that we are not "disadvantaged" and we are, indeed, "college material." -- HONOR STUDENT ATTENDING VOCATIONAL SCHOOL IN DELAWARE
DEAR HONOR STUDENT: Thank you for righting this misconception. You are living proof that vocational students can be college material. There are also students attending vocational schools who are learning a trade to provide themselves with comfortable livelihoods. My hat is off to them.