Editor’s note: Sequim High School’s Rachael DeAngelo, who teaches Spanish and English, gave her students an assignment to write and submit a Letter to the Editor to the Sequim Gazette on a topic that is important to them. We are happy to publish the students’ letters in this issue and over the coming weeks.
Limited options
At the high school in Sequim, we do not have enough options for language classes as we only have two options for learning a foreign language which is required to graduate. These options are ASL and Spanish.
As a student at Sequim High School, I have found these options limiting. Personally, I chose to take Spanish and have absolutely loved the class. The school offers these classes for all four years of high school ,which is great, but you have many students who would much rather take other classes like Portuguese, French, Latin, or Dutch.
Now, of course we do not need all of these but adding one or two or more would offer another option to students. According to Spanish teacher Senora DeAngelo, this would be a promising idea and would “offer more opportunities to students.”
So, as you can see this is a great idea and the Sequim High School would be very wise to explore this as an option, and I as a student at this school would be very happy if this were to happen and I think would help students who are already interested in other languages as they enter Sequim High School or ones who are current students.
Brycen Gorr
Sequim
Addressing homelessness
Do you know anyone that’s homeless? Do you see a lot of homeless people around where you are, or common places you go? The recent report from the Department of Commerce, highlighting a continued rise in homelessness across Washington, demands our urgent attention and compassionate response.
While the slowing growth rate offers a sliver of hope, the fact remains: 22,173 individuals experienced homelessness on a single night in January 2025, including lots of my own family. This isn’t just a statistic; it represents thousands of our neighbors, fellow citizens, and family members enduring unimaginable hardship on our streets or in crowded shelters.
As a concerned resident, I believe we have a moral obligation to address this crisis effectively. The state has invested billions in affordable housing and support services, yet the problem persists, especially with the omission of King County’s unsheltered data, historically representing half of the state’s total. This suggests a need for more targeted and comprehensive strategies, particularly in regions with significant populations experiencing homelessness.
We must critically examine where these billions are going and ensure maximum impact. With 33% unsheltered and 67% in various forms of sheltered housing, the data clearly indicates a need for both immediate relief and long-term solutions. Let us advocate for data-driven policies that prioritize effective interventions and expand access to resources, ensuring every dollar spent helps transition individuals out of homelessness and into stable living situations.
Curtis Vert-Graff
Sequim
Voices of youth
After reading the letter “A Disgrace” I felt the need to write about it. I agree strongly with the author. I believe that the current office is very ill-equipped to deal with the current issues facing our country.
The Trump-led office has repeatedly ignored the issues that most Americans feel (are) urgent. They have prioritized their regime instead of the well-being of America. The future of America lies in the hands of the youth; however, the office has ignored the youths’ voice to the point where most young people, including myself, feel that there is no point in trying to make a change. We may attempt to make a change but the current office chalks it up to youthful ignorance or see it as unimportant. It’s so sad to see our voices being ignored.
Logically, the priority of America should be the future. When the youth of America are in the driver’s seat soon, it should be our America and not the America of our parents. That’s how it’s always been done, but now we have not been shown that we can make a change and it’s incredibly detrimental to our sense of power. It’s very discouraging to feel like you don’t have a voice in your own country.
To conclude, the youth of America should have more of a voice than we have, considering we have none. We are not little kids anymore; we are the future of America.
William Lewis
Sequim
Faulty technology at SHS
I have been a part of Sequim School District for one year, and I think the school-provided technology is a problem. At the beginning of this year all the laptops weren’t working. The school should have checked those before school started
They have a Scantron machine when they could just grade by hand. I personally find it hard to use the Scantron papers because it is easy to miss one and get half of the questions wrong. And did you know those little papers are expensive to get? I think that’s a waste of money to mess up our grades.
There are TVs in the high school that don’t get used. There are two in the hallway of the H building and two in the cafeteria that both don’t get used. There is one in the library that barely gets used. Over half the library lights are not working.
There is a big section of computers in the library that are unable to be used, and what if you need to do homework on the computers? Students might as well go to the Sequim library to do their homework.
They have a lot of printers, and they probably don’t use most of them. There are a few clocks that get covered. They have multiple different Wi-Fi routers, all providing different Wi-Fi. I do understand having WiFi for students and another for staff, but five different Wi-Fi routers?
I personally think that they should get rid of the technology that doesn’t get used and isn’t needed. It would make a bigger budget for the school to fix other problems and fix the faulty technology.
Logan Lorigan
Sequim
Senior drivers
Stop allowing old people to drive or change up the system. People over 65+ have some sort of illness, vision impairment, or can’t drive properly anymore.
From the year 2020, there has been over 48 million drivers that have car incidents, which is a 68% increase since 2000. People around their 70’s-80’s will stop or reduce their driving usage simply because they can’t drive anymore, which they won’t need a license for.
Although ages 20-50 get into more car crashes, this is simply because there are a lot more people during those times, including the fact that a lot of these are from road rage. Another issue is that seniors who experience crashes are usually badly injured during any crash due to their fragile bodies.
Older ages will have a higher risk on the road for insurances, due to hearing loss or vision problems, which is more uncommon in younger ages. This makes insurance companies charge seniors more for their higher risk at crashing.
• In 2020, almost 200,000 seniors were treated at hospitals for car accident injuries, roughly 7,500 seniors killed in car accidents, meaning 20 elderly die every day.
• 20% of all people older than 85 experience permanent vision loss.
• After turning 65+ the chances of getting blindness or vision impairment grows rapidly, from 2% all the way up to 20% once you reach 85.
Landyn Mathews
Sequim
Too many people
Sequim is a town that has been here for over one hundred years, and since a couple of years back it has been a nice town; however, with 2025 and everything it has brought, a large number of people have been moving here. In 2000 Sequim had about 4.3 thousand people, and now with a slight rise since that time it has almost doubled its value.
But why do people want to move here? Is it because it is a nice town? Is it because it has good views? Or is it just because the people who went here did not have a choice?
Either way, the household income has increased, and more houses have been built by people. Like we need more people here. It is surprising that with the household income we have resulted in more people moving to this area. Now there are many more people. Annoying people. More cars on the road. It is harder to get from place to place. And the occasional homeless.
This town is not all bad. It has some pleasant things inside it. A decent number of stores, cool stuff. It just has too many people. This area is meant to be a retirement area from what I heard.
Jaykob Mellon
Sequim
Budget issues
I am a junior at SHS. Our school has been plagued with budget issues as long as I can remember. Our laptops and IT are inefficient and are constantly breaking down. The track just got its first recoat in almost a decade or more. The paint on the upper tennis court is almost non-existent. Once a year the school uses almost the entire budget on a necessary fix, but then we have no more money for the rest of the school year.
The Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe makes many wonderful donations to our community. Yet none of these donations go to our schools. I ask the tribe for a donation to make our students happier.
A well-maintained school, with more employees and maintenance, would improve learning, overall school appeal, and most importantly, the students’ quality of life while spending their time at SHS.
Jasper Flath
Sequim
