Troubled youths often get little help

The Limestone County Board of Education certainly was right to ban a 16-year-old from any of its campuses based on information members received from Ardmore police.

But what happens after the 12-month ban?

Police charged the youth with making a terrorist threat Friday. They said he allegedly planned to burn a teacher alive and kill other people at Ardmore High School. He supposedly named three teachers and some students.

The youth is obviously a troubled young man. He’s a school dropout with an arrest record that accuses him of attacking his grandmother with whom he lived.

Police and school officials and the parent who alerted them to the alleged plot may have prevented an incident like the Columbine High School massacre.

Some students fit a profile that makes them at risk for violence or for failing at school and dropping out. School counselors are aware of them and can help some; but the more difficult ones fade into oblivion, only to resurface as troubled young adults.

Most teachers want to help these students but have limited resources. That, too, is a tragedy.