School Safety, Counselors

I object to the characterization of teachers made by Mike Downey (May 14). There are about 3 million teachers in the U.S., and you can count on one hand the number of teachers who have engaged in inappropriate conduct with their students. To add to his exaggerations and inaccuracies, Downey adds the man who drove his car into the preschool playground, who wasn’t even a teacher.

The type of person who goes into teaching, together with the very thorough background checks teachers go through, assures us that the stories Downey writes about are extremely rare. As a journalist, Downey should know better than to stereotype an entire profession (“we trusted teachers then”) over the actions of less than one-tenth of 1% of its members.

STEVEN D. KLEIN

Los Angeles

*

Regarding the unforeseen incident that took place at El Sereno Elementary School (“Teacher Undressed in Class, Officials Say,” May 13), I hope that the boys and girls in that fourth-grade room will be commended for behaving and reacting to the situation as well as they did.

ELVA GARCIA

Los Angeles

*

In “$100 Million Earmarked for School Safety” (May 13) I read of Gov. Gray Davis’ decision to give millions for high school counselors to eliminate violence in the high schools.

Many elementary children also have problems and a portion of the money should be set aside to hire counselors for them. Problems just don’t appear at the high school level; most of them begin in the earlier years. Attacking the problems on the elementary level is much more realistic, instead of waiting until the problems are magnified at the high school level.

MARIA S. WOODEN

Retired Elementary School

Counselor, Los Angeles