In 1999, Jeanne Osgood’s children were attending Elm Elementary School in Burr Ridge when she said she noticed animosity among students.

“You could sense an almost palpable hostility among some students in how they related to each other,” she said.

During a Community Consolidated School District 181 PTO meeting, Osgood gave an emotional speech about the issue.

“I was amazed how it resonated with other parents,” she said. “As a parent, you can feel quite isolated.”

Her speech came shortly after the Columbine High School shootings in Colorado that took the lives of 14 students and one teacher.

Her passion for ensuring a safe school environment led her to be instrumental in creating Social and Emotional Learning for Academic Success, or SELAS, a parent-delivered program that started at Elm Elementary School, but later was instituted at all nine District 181 schools.

“After Columbine, some felt young kids were potentially in training for another incident. Sometimes having great academic success can exacerbate the issue,” Osgood said. “SELAS was designed to make kids aware of their feelings, develop empathy and appropriate problem solving skills.”

In 2005, Osgood became a board member of the District 181 Foundation, which funds a variety of programs and initiatives.

During the past 10 years, the foundation has provided $400,000 in funds for programs, curricular enhancements, equipment, reference materials, technology and teacher training that otherwise would not be funded through tax dollars.

Notable
• 2009 Illinois State Board of Education “Those Who Excel” Award winner
• Helped initiate SELAS at Elm School, later adopted by all District 181 schools

& quotable
“The fact that SELAS is still being used validates the program’s value. It is a rare program because it is the parents who deliver it,” Osgood said.

Philosophy
“No matter what we tell kids, if we don’t embody it, we end up confusing them. What we do and how we do it is the most precise expression of our beliefs and values.”

Favorites
BOOKS The last good one was “Omnivore’s Dilemma” by Michael Pollan
MOVIE “To Kill a Mockingbird,” and “Where the Wild Things Are”
FOOD Home grown fresh vegetables



 — now harvesting brussel sprouts, butternut squash, chard and radicchio
HOBBIES Gardening and skiing