Children React to Graffiti Problem

On Monday, Nov. 9, students arriving at Savannah Elementary School in the Rosemead School District found that vandals had covered their campus with graffiti over the weekend. Sixth-grade teacher Nancy Gates asked her class to write down their feelings and suggest solutions. Following are excerpts of their letters with the original grammar and spelling: Dear Los Angeles Times,

. . . I feel that it is about time we start doing something about graffiti. People need to say something if they know something about graffiti. It would be better to have a world without graffiti. It makes our world ugly.

Annette Huynh

. . . I hate when this happens, it looks so ugly. I think that the police should patrol the school, and also the people that live near the school should keep an eye on the school.

Sonya Vanhoof

. . . I feel sad because the janator has to clean every thing up. I think the people hwo see gangs doing graffiti should call the police.

Sincerely

Adrian Molinor

. . . Maybe we sould have a police look after the school for a little time.

Annabel Lopez

. . . The principal says when they graffiti our school, it takes money away from what was supposed to be for new equipment. We should have watchmen that come in during the weekends to watch our school.

Henry Phan

. . . These gang members have to be stopped. I suggest that the school put up hidden cameras to take pictures of the criminals and to alert the police.

Macha Sriwongtong

. . . I am very scared of my community in Rosemead. I live across the street of a gang and I am scared of being killed.

Your Friend,

Daniel Metz

. . . Obviously, we need more police out on the street. The community should help to, if we wrote to the police department. I know this is not anything you might want to write in your newspaper. Sorry if I wasted your time, but this is a serious problem.

Sapphire Espaillat