Project Citizen is an important part of the Maria Middle School experience. Project Citizen not only encourages problem solving, but teaches students to be aware of community issues. It also prepares students for their future by involving them in public policy. It involves a five-step problem-solving plan, which helps students understand how to think critically. The first step is to identify the problem that is affecting our school. The second is to research information about the problem so you know the background. The third step is to evaluate other solutions so you know what works and what doesn't. The fourth step is to develop your own solution using problem solving and teamwork. The fifth and final step is to create an action plan that is realistic and can work. The project takes place during a student's seventh grade year, during the 4th term. It has been held every year for over 14 years. It has been going on for so long because it is educational and interesting. The main goal of the project is to solve problems. Students must identify problems around them and think of plausible solutions. The Citizen Project is an educational, yet interesting, part of Maria, which explains why it has been around for so long. The primary concern of the 2014 Citizen Project is school safety. The issue of school safety is present in every school, including Maria Middle School. Maria is a fairly large school. It has 600 students in grades 6 to 8 and 47 full-time teachers. North Shore School District 112, built more than 60 years ago, is located in the north Chicago suburb of Highland Park. The school's address is 929 Edgewood Road, Highland Park, IL, 60035. There are many safety issues at Maria that need to be...middle of the road...schools should be prepared to deal with situations involving it. Edgewood has a system for addressing bullying at its school. They have two parts to their system. One of them is security incident reports. These allow students to report a bullying incident anonymously. They can give them to any teacher or staff member and they will always be read. The other part of the system is how they inform parents about their children's bullying. According to the handbook, students who act aggressively (such as bullying) will be notified by parents and receive "early intervention." Edgewood isn't the only school that has rules to prevent bullying. The Highland Park High School handbook states that students may not bully anyone for any reason on school grounds, during school hours, or in any way related to school.