Parents, children working together for safety

For many teenagers, talking their parents into allowing them to go to a Friday night party is a weekly battle. But Bishop Gorman High School senior Molly Moore often doesn't have to cajole her parents to win her Friday night freedom.

Instead Moore's parents pull out their BEST (Bringing Everybody's Strengths Together) Parent Network Directory and look up the names and phone numbers of the friends their daughter is planning on hanging out with.

If the friend is listed in the directory, there's a good chance Moore will be out the door with no problems, but if the friend is not listed, it's back to cajoling.

"There have been a couple of nights where one of our kids wanted to go somewhere where we didn't know the kids or the parents, and we had to draw a line in the sand," Robert Moore said. "There were a couple of tears and some arguing, but we made it through."

Moore and other parents are using the parent network to establish communication links with other parents who want to keep their children safe.

The program is being used in 26 Clark County high schools, middle schools and elementary schools, and sets common guidelines that parents and their children pledge to follow, network facilitator Jeanette Young said.

Parents agree to actively chaperon get-togethers and not allow alcohol, tobacco or drugs to be used by minors in their homes. Parents also agree to communicate with other network members, to support and use curfews and to be positive role models.

Once the agreement is signed, parents receive a directory with all the names, addresses and phone numbers of other parents at their child's school who have signed the same agreement.

"As a parent believe that the schools are there to educate our children, not to raise them," said Young, who has been in charge of the network for three years. "This helps to put the responsibility back on parents to take care of their family."

The network began in 1991 through the Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act. The act provided the resources to start a community-based drug prevention coalition, which included starting a parent network. That coalition later became the Las Vegas BEST Coalition, with representatives from the different areas of the community tackling the problems of drug and alcohol abuse.

"The network is an important component of the coalition," Young said. "It allows us to have a tool to help keep our kids safe and drug-free, while putting parents back on the spot.

"Parents need to be good role models for their children," she said. "Parents get less and less involved with their kids as they get older, but they need to get more and more involved."

Western and Bonanza high schools, Becker and O'Callaghan middle schools, and Earl and Gibson elementary schools are just some of the schools that have joined Gorman as nNetwork members.

Moore said that it's not a big deal that her parents can track her down through the network.

"We have a real open relationship," Moore said of her parents. "Some of my friends are in the directory, but a lot aren't. The big thing is that I let them know where I'm going to be."

The school district estimates that between 11,000 and 14,000 new students a year will be moving into the district for the next 10 years. This influx is one of the reasons that School Board President Susan Brager believes that the network can be a help to parents.

"When my girls were younger, I wanted to meet the parents of their friends before they went over to that friend's house," Brager said.

"Anytime parents get involved with their children on a voluntary basis, I think it's great."

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