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Starpoint Central School District bans plastic straws

Students encourage superintendent to switch to paper straws

LOCKPORT, N.Y. — Plastic straws will soon be a thing of the past for Starpoint Central School District Students. 

The superintendent of the school district, Dr. Sean Croft, recently announced on the district's Facebook page that all schools will be making the transition to paper straws. 

"When they come from, in this case, student ideas, that's the best thing to do," Croft told 2 On Your Side. 

The move was prompted by a series of letters Croft received from seventh and eighth graders at Starpoint Middle School. 

The students were inspired to write these letters after their teacher gave them a reading assignment on plastic pollution. The students were shocked by the images they saw of turtles with their heads caught in plastic and whales with plastic waste spilling from their mouths. 

"I was like, 'how did I not know about this before?'," Nathan Duffin told 2 on Your Side. 

"I was heartbroken."

Nathan was not the only one in his class who was moved by the images. His classmates were also surprised by how much damage plastic straws were doing to the environment. 

It was the kind of eye-opening assignment their teacher, Jessica Smith, wanted them to read. Smith, had intended to engage the students in reading material that was relevant to their everyday lives. 

"That was something that popped up that I thought would be important for them to be reading about", Smith said. 

When the students first came to Smith to discuss ways they could spread awareness, the English language Arts instructor helped them spend their class period making informational posters to hang around the room. 

Soon, the students decided they could do more and decided to work on getting plastic straws banned from the school altogether. 

Smith helped the students work on writing letters to Dr. Croft after school. When the pile landed on his desk, Croft said he was in awe of their hard work and knew he had to make a change. 

"I came in and talked to our business manager and our facilities manager. It was really a no-brainer," he told 2 On Your Side.

Croft told 2 on Your Side that the paper straws had been ordered would start to be delivered next week. He anticipates all schools to be using paper straws by the end of next month. 

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