By LARRY HENKLE

Many changes have been made to benefit students of the Maine Township schools, but one of the most important needed changes has been overlooked by the administration. That change is the present smoking regulations. The change is needed for many reasons. The basic one is the present smoking regulations are failing badly.

The idea of changing smoking regulations is not new. It is being used as a pattern all over the state including Forest View High School right in this area. I hope the administration will seriously consider giving Maine Township either a student lounge for smoking or the right to use the parking lots for smoking. When the facts are weighed, the smoking regulations definitely need to be changed.

How many of the students in this school are tired of walking into the smoke arena called washrooms? The amount is many, I suspect. Speaking for the non smokers, I find it irritating walking into a washroom and coming out smelling like I was at the scene of a fire.

Also the idea of having to post teachers inside the washrooms in order to enforce the school regulations of no smoking shows how futile the present system is. The teacher who is "on guard" is likely to be both annoyed and feel himself to be a babysitter with the present system.

Let's consider the smoking student himself. It appears to me if smoking means that much to him or her, that they are willing to risk being kicked out of school for three days and having their grades ruined, then smoking must be very important to them. If it means that much to the student then there is reason to believe it should be allowed.

If the administration is keeping the present system of no smoking, in order to try to keep students from starting to smoke, they are fighting a losing battle. What really is the difference if the student smokes right on the school grounds or waits until he steps off the grounds and then starts to smoke?

I'm not saying there aren't things standing in the way of changing the rules because there are. One of the big obstacles is that fire regulations do exist for the Maine schools. This would have to be changed. This could be changed, though, since Forest View got around the rules.

What I'm saying is the present regulations are a bother to students, teachers, and janitors; and setting off an area somewhere outside the school or giving us a room to smoke in would eliminate the problem. I urge the administration to take a good long look at the situation of today. A change was made this year in attendance procedure to benefit students and teachers; how about going one step further?