Student Letters to the Editor- April 28, 2026 Issue

For the next few weeks, we will publish student letters to the editor from the social studies class of Harrison High School and Middle School teacher Clint Kern. While this is a class assignment, we are pleased to publish the letters as insight into what is on our young people’s minds.

Dear Editor,

I am a resident of Harrison Michigan in Harrison Middle School, and I feel like there should be three day weekends. Two days isn't enough for a weekend.

I personally feel like there should be only four days of school a week, because three days for a weekend because students can have a longer weekend to do more things and spend more time with family and friends.

I feel this way because a lot of students feel like school should be shorter by months or hours but if there were less days of school.

Thank you for taking the time to read my letter.

Conner K Macigewski

Harrison Middle School Student

Dear Editor,

Today I will shout out Carly Young. She is an amazing teacher and a great person. I am in her Family Consumer Science II class. I regularly see her on a daily basis and whenever I have an off or bad morning her class and herself seem to cheer me up. There are always good times in her class from learning about kids, to cooking food, and learning how to sew. As a teacher, some of my favorite things about her class is when kids are taking longer with projects she will push the deadline back and she talks to us to see where we are on the things we work on. 

Another thing is when we do the cooking unit she really lets us try and do it by ourselves even if we mess up the food she doesn't get mad. Also, the food we make is good and food that a lot of us like to eat and is all so delicious. She is so nice and I've always heard people talk greatly about her and her class. When we do stuff, we tell us about her life like if she made the food or what she thinks would be fun to try and make it very nice to have her be so open. She asked questions for us to answer about cooking and I like it. I believe it makes her class so much more active.

Overall Mrs. Young has made an impact on my life in the two semesters I have been in her class. Her class is nice and peaceful, chill and calm. I appreciate her in so many ways and I'm thankful I got to be her student this year.

Ella Adams

Harrison High School Student

Dear Editor,

I am a student from Harrison Middle School and want to draw your attention to the problem of how long school is.

Students and parents complain about how long school is all the time. Parents are late for work and students are always late for school. Students don't wake up on time most of the time to get on the bus on time. It causes students to be exhausted and fatigued. And the months are too long because a lot of stuff can happen in 9 months and we don't have a lot of breaks or long ones.

People need to address students' struggles and parents' struggles. Parents have their own stuff to do early in the morning, and they have to take their kids to school. I think schools should start at 9 at the earliest because then people could ride buses more and wake up on time and have more time to sleep. School should also be shorter than 9 months because it could improve a lot of people's mental health and more people could focus. We need to make school shorter.

Godric Akhverdov

Harrison Student

Dear Editor,

I am a student at Harrison Community Schools, my name is Haylee Hyde, and I want to speak with you about the animal extinction problem throughout the continents. 

Our planet is harshly affected by animal extinction. Over one million animals have an extinction threat on them because of us stealing their homes and polluting the earth. Animals now are dying 1000 times faster than they used to. This affects us by how it accelerates the loss of biodiversity, directly undermining human health, food security, and economic stability. 

You could take white rhinos, for example. White rhinos in 2026 will have been dying off 15% faster than they did in 2020. Another example could be Vaquita dolphins: every year about 50% of Vaquita dolphins are dying off. Many more animals' lives are being threatened just because of what humans think is right to do but in reality, is ruining the animals and resources they need to survive and to help us survive. An example of how we could help is by putting a ban on hurting certain animals and to not go into certain areas or take from certain areas like trees and transporting water from them.  

Haylee Hyde 

Harrison Student

Dear Harrison Community Members,

I am Khloe Keel, a sophomore at Harrison High School. I want to give a shoutout to the girls’ basketball program. I participated in the 2025-2026 JV and Varsity girls basketball teams after taking a year off and I just want to thank Coach Joshua O’Day (JV coach) and Coach Ryan Carlstrom (Varsity coach). They are so welcoming to all the girls that show up. 

This year's conditioning had the most girls show up in years and I believe that happened because our program has grown a lot since Joshua and Ryan came into our high school program. After years of hardly winning, we started to win! Both of the high school coaches also pour a lot of their time into the younger girls’ basketball program. With Ryan helping coach the 8th grade girls’ basketball team, and Joshua coaching the class of 2028 from 4th grade-7th,9th through 10th. 

As a community we should show up more for the 2026-2027 girls basketball program. The games are definitely entertaining; you won't be disappointed!

Khloe Keel 

Harrison High School Student

Dear Editor,

I am a Harrison Schools student and I would like your attention of the easily obtained drug problem.

In my opinion modern technology and the accessibility of substances in daily environments have made it easier for children and teenagers to obtain drugs than in previous generations. 

The way we think, and act can be changed by how the kids get a hold of the drugs so I’m hoping that parents can acknowledge that their kids aren’t safe because they are doing a bad job for keeping the drugs away from the kids.

I hope that we can get the word out so everybody can know to keep their drugs away from kids and stop doing them if they have kids.

Kolten Polmounter

Harrison Student