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HIGH POINT -- Teachers and administrators at Guilford County Schools are hoping to change the way minority students are disciplined. Officials say African American male students are 3.4 times more likely to be suspended than their white male counterparts.

Over the last year, the school system has been getting input from the community about things they need to work on. Besides literacy, parents said they want the district to look at disproportionate discipline.

Leaders are quick to point out that Guilford County's discipline numbers reflect what's happening on a national level. Still, they say the numbers need to improve.

That's the focus of this two-day conference where teachers and administrators are learning about how they can make things more even..

"Understanding the problem, understanding implicit biases that we bring to it and beginning to think how we change it systemically," said Chief Academic Officer Beth Folger. "All of our students, all of our young men come to us with the capability and maybe the system is not working for them as well as it should."

Another thing they're looking at is out of school suspension. Folger says studies show it has no benefits, especially if the offense is not serious. She says last year African American male students missed some 17,000 school days due to out of school suspension. She points out, the students can't learn if they're not in school.