Pillars

Drug abuse honesty

Early drug abuse correlates with substance abuse problems later in life, and the most significant increases in destructive behavior appear to take place among older teens and young adults. The Methamphetamine epidemic in Illinois has seen exponential growth in recent years especially in rural Illinois counties. The data indicates a 289-percent increase in the number of methamphetamine-related arrests between 2010 (863) and 2017 (3,362). Further, the methamphetamine-related arrest rate more than tripled between 2010 and 2017, increasing from seven to 26 arrests per 100,000 residents. This problem will not solve itself and should begin with cultural shift in our leading rural Illinois School districts. Statistics source: https://icjia.illinois.gov/researchhub/articles/illinois-and-national-methamphetamine-trends

Parents rights

Parents have a natural right to direct the moral upbringing and education of their children, as well as the duty to protect their children’s physical and mental health. These rights and duties are deeply rooted in the nation’s history and tradition. Congress should confirm that parental rights are fundamental rights, in order to ensure that federal government policies never overrule them except for the most compelling and particularized of reasons under law. The presumption must always be that mothers and fathers know and love their children best.

Transparency

In order to ensure that every child is successful in school, we must provide options, ensure transparency and engage families in the educational experience. Our school should be willingly publishing all course syllabuses, materials and a list of available library books online. Our school board can and should set age-appropriate standards when it comes to sexual content in the school library and curriculum. Also parents should be encouraged to participate in classroom settings and be allowed to share their own professional work experiences with students during instructional time regardless of future emergency orders. Furthermore all school board meetings can and should be available online; ensuring this becomes a priority in the 2023-24 school year is a must.

Bullying

Bullying and Cyberbullying should have no place in our local school system yet the problem still exists. Every single student has the right to a safe and violence-free school. Despite having a well thought out policy Sherrard Schools still has to deal with bullying. We can do this together by shining light on these incidents when they occur and bring the issue home to parents and family members willing to do the hard work of dealing with these issues at home and at school. Enforcement of heavy consequences is needed in these cases and I stand strongly for zero-tolerance enforcement against any form of bullying whether the incident is discriminatory (skin color, religion, gender, etc.) or not.