District 205 Looks to Parents to help Address Behavior Problems

"We live for our children, our children are the future of this world, so we need to push them," said Cindy Lopez, a concerned parent who is helping re-word the code of conduct.

When district 205 set out to re-word the student code of conduct they went straight to parents for help on how to manage students' behavior.

"We're here to make sure that we assist our principals, and maintain a safe learning environment for all students," said executive director of student services and alternative learning Angela Hite-Center.

For district leaders it's about making parents and students know what's acceptable and what's not.

"Parents are our most valuable resources when it comes to educating their children, and also building our students in terms of social interaction skills," said Hite-Center.  

One issue the group wants to tackle is changing guidelines across the district to be more consistent.

"It's nice to have a discipline code to have some reference," said Linclon Middle School principal Jason Grey.  "Gives us a little bit of flexibility to run our buildings, they way we want to, but it also gives us some guidelines to keep everybody consistent throughout the district."

Grey says making sure the code of conduct book is easy to understand is a vital step in the process, so that parents can help facilitate a better education for their children.

"Sometimes they bring to our attention things that we might not be looking at, so we have some very good feedback," said Grey.

Still, Lopez says parents engaging their children about appropriate behavior is the first step to making schools safer.

"It's part of the parents responsibility to learn also, and be in code with the teachers so we can have our children follow," said Lopez.

The group plans to hold at least seven more meetings in the months ahead.  If you would like to join the conversation contact your child's principal or PTA.