Deaths of 10 Palisades Youths

John Mitchell’s article dealing with the “drinking and abusing” students at Palisades High is stirring and provocative but open to misinterpretation (“Palisades High Counts Its Dead and Wonders Why,” Part I, Nov. 8). A casual reader may conclude that excessive drinking and fast drivers are limited to this small suburb of Pacific Palisades. Our students and our community do not hold the patent on excesses, rather it is endemic to affluent areas throughout this country. Palisades High was “caught,” so to speak, by its high-profile tragedies, but the likelihood of such occurrences is not limited to our boundaries.

My willingness to be frank is derived from my wish that there be no other such tragedy anywhere. If readers conclude that they are on safe ground by leaving our city bounds without looking at their behavior as well as their children’s behavior, then these tragedies will surely have taught us nothing at all.

LINDA LEVINE

School Psychologist

Palisades High School