MIDDLE AND HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS who volunteered to serve as members in the new Peer Mediation program underwent three days of specialized training in conflict resolution this summer. Front row, from left: Minna Karapchanski, Macy Kurchian, Hailey LeBarge, Mia Ledoux, Paige Helferich, Eva Hanegraaff, Barrett Deninger, Cameron Kosinski and Aiden Buckley. Back row, from left: Katelyn Tropeano, Special Education/Bridge Academic Liaison; Indira (Trainer), Dr. Cathy O’Connell, NRMS Principal; Natalia Panousos, Quinn Newton, Shenaya Verma, Joel Rogerson Polanco, Richard Cohen (Trainer), James Rainey, Caitlin Cahill, Shea Tassinari, Harper Breen, Doug (Trainer), NRHS Assistant Principal BarriAnn Alonzo, Laura Oliveto, Chandra (Trainer), and Jessie O’Brien, NRMS art teacher. (Courtesy Photo)
By EVA HANEGRAAFF
NORTH READING ⏤ It is an undeniable fact that conflict will arise in even the most uncontroversial of circumstances. North Reading High School is not an exception. However, a new method of handling conflict is being introduced into the school that seeks to utilize peers as opposed to teachers to handle conflicts between students. This past summer, a group of middle and high school students, teachers, and members of administration participated in a peer mediation training. This training took place from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., August 26 through 28.
“Peer mediation is an opportunity for two students to work together with a mediator to solve their conflict,” BarriAnn Alonzo, the high school’s assistant principal, explained. A mediation will be carried out in the high school when a conflict between students occurs. Administration can choose to give them the option of working this conflict out in mediation. If both parties agree to do so, they are brought to a room with two student mediators. The mediators will follow a semi-scripted procedure in which students will be invited to talk about the situation with each other with the purpose of reaching an agreement at the end.
The high school students who were involved in the program volunteered in the spring of last school year. They filled out a google form that included questions requiring them to describe their reasons for applying and traits that they believed would make them a good mediator. They were accepted into the program by email, with the requirement that they attend the three-day summer training session.
This is the first year this program is being introduced into the two schools and will be implemented during the current school year. “I think it really stemmed from Mrs. Conant in the central office,” Alonzo explained, “she’s a trained mediator and she knew that we could benefit from it.”
Peer mediation is a topic with which many of the individuals involved in the training were previously unfamiliar. “I didn’t understand what it was about,” Alonzo reveals. “I was surprised to learn how much I had to learn. I thought just by being an adult and being in education for 27 years and having participated in mediations, I thought that I kind of knew what to do, but I didn’t.” She then went on to describe how, by using a practiced structure, a mediation can occur smoothly, often with positive results.
When talking about the students involved Alonzo admits that she “did not expect the students to be able to handle it.” She herself understood that to accomplish a successful mediation program the students would need to focus and take it seriously. “I was hesitant that the students wouldn’t understand the importance of the confidentiality,” Alonzo says, adding, “and they did; every one of them, from middle school to high school.” Her surprise at the abilities of the students who attended the training did not stop there. “Everyone understood the importance of it and gave 110 percent, and I loved it,” she asserted.
With both the middle and high school students together, Alonzo was apprehensive at first on how the two groups would interact, if at all. “I think that the high school students were very welcoming to the middle school students,” she recalled, “and in return, the middle school students were very accepting of it. They didn’t shy away, which was what I thought was going to happen.” She went on to say, “I was so impressed with the middle school program and their maturity and how much they wanted to be there as much as the high school kids.”
Alonzo also described the positive impact the middle school students had on her by describing her experience on the second day of the training. Each participant was assigned a buddy on the first day, and Alonzo’s was a middle school boy who she had not previously met. Buddies were required to sit next to each other and, on that day, Alonzo had forgotten, so her buddy called to her across the room while tapping the chair next to him. “That was really cool because not only am I an assistant principal, and that scares people, but I’m also in the high school, and he was in the middle school and I was so thankful and grateful we were able to make that connection,” Alonzo recalls.
Alonzo, though apprehensive at first, says that ultimately the new peer mediation program “…was obviously a good choice.” Going into the new school year with this program in place, she confesses, “Not that I want to have conflicts in the school, but I’m so ready to hand the appropriate conflicts over to the mediators.”
This program is being put into place during this current school year in different forms in the middle and high school and can be expected to work as a conflict resolving medium if such conflicts arise.
NRHS senior Eva Hanegraaff is a student intern at the Transcript for the 2024-25 school year. She wants to use her internship to learn about the field of journalism and bring in a high school voice to the Transcript. Contact her at evahanegraaff@gmail.com with any article ideas or tips.
