Usually the mention of the word &uot;gang&uot; sends parents and educators running for the nearest police officer, but on Monday it was the word of the day at Natchez High School.

And, believe it or not, we couldn’t be happier.

Street gangs — for years considered a bit of a taboo phrase around schools – became the focus of study by educators themselves as the school hosted a gang workshop.

While Natchez hasn’t turned into East Los Angeles with gangs running the streets, ignoring the presence of gangs in our community won’t help anyone.

Whether the card-carrying kind we see depicted in films or the loosely based neighborhood groupings that are much more common locally, street gangs are a serious problem for educators and law enforcement officers alike.

The purpose of the workshop was to educate the educators at our schools about gangs.

And as far as we’re concerned education any discussion is always a good thing.

Just as the old saying goes, knowledge is power. We’re happy to see the administration of the Natchez-Adams School District taking a proactive approach to a serious matter.

For reasons we sometimes may find difficult to understand, gangs are hypnotic to many of our young people. They’re easily lured into that mesmerizing culture where a simple color can mean the difference between life and death.

The indoctrination can happen in an instant.

While we don’t have a widespread gang problem here in the Miss-Lou, each member of our community should do whatever we can to prevent those children from falling through the cracks and becoming another gang statistic. And Monday’s workshop was a great way to start.