Editor’s note: Today’s letters to the editor are from Southwest Junior High students learning about persuasive writing.

To the editor:

You hear it every day, “I’m so bored.” I think we need something fun to do in Lawrence. Teenagers every day come home after school and sit around doing nothing. Unless you have sports practice, then you sit there watching TV playing video games, or are on the computer. We need an amusement park or an indoor arena of some sort. I’m talking about like a Power Play for teenagers where you can have a football game and do go-carts or something like that.

Teenagers are getting more bored so they come home and hang out with friends and drink or do drugs. I think if we have an area or spot where kids can hang out and have fun then we wouldn’t have kids doing drugs or drinking alcohol. If we had a spot that’s safe and supervised, then parents wouldn’t have to worry if there kid was getting into something bad.

Some 20.2 percent of high school students have used or are using marijuana, according to the editor of school policies, because they are bored and need something fun to do on Friday or Saturday nights or after school. I think we need an indoor water park that’s in the area that we don’t have to waste gas money for. I think once the economy is back to normal then we should invest in something like that.

Ryan Stagg,

Southwest Junior High