‘Peer Mediators’ Keep the Peace on Ventura Campus

VENTURA —  Wearing neon visors marking them as specially trained “peer mediators,” the 21 children roamed the playground at E.P. Foster School, ready to broker peace.

It wasn’t long before they got their chance.

Near the volleyball courts, a boy was crying. A tall girl stood nearby, trying to explain what happened. In a flash, a teacher and two of the young mediators were on the spot.

They shepherded the combatants into the nurse’s office and started the healing process with a couple of simple questions.

“Do you agree to solve the problem?” asked 10-year-old Dillon Miskiewicz.

“Do you agree to tell the truth?” 10-year-old Christian Mikkelson added.

These are the ground rules for E.P. Foster’s peer mediation program, now in its third year at the west Ventura campus.

The I-Care Cats--as they are known to their peers--must get both parties to agree to solve the problem, not call each other names, not interrupt and to tell the truth.

The program has become so successful that the Ventura Unified School District is expanding it to seven other elementary schools this year. Funding for the expansion will come from the city’s $1.5-million gang violence suppression grant.

Principal Sylvia Camiel said the peer mediation program has changed the way her school operates.

“You’d be surprised,” she said, surveying the schoolyard dotted with the neon-visored mediators. “From four-square to physical confrontations, to being able to mediate friendships, they are really able to make a difference.”

Christian and Dillon had practiced mediating in class. But they said Friday was the first time they put their new skills to use.

“So what happened?” Christian asked the volleyball players--one a boy, the other a girl--who had quarreled.

“We were playing volleyball and the ball went into the net and went into his eye,” said the girl, who was about a foot taller than the boy.

“The ball was rolling and then she kicked it,” said the boy’s friend.

“Basically it was an accident,” the girl further explained.

“Is there anything she can do to make you not feel mad at her?” Dillon asked the boy.

The boy looked blank. He didn’t understand, so Dillon was sent to the playground to find a Spanish-speaking mediator.

Through the mediator, Christian asked the boy if he wanted the girl to say she was sorry.

He nodded.

She did.

When negotiations were completed they filled out a peacemakers report form and filed it with the principal.

Dillon said his first mediation was “kind of scary.” Christian said it was “kind of fun.”

Teacher’s aide Wanda Gibson, who has worked at E.P. Foster for 26 years, said the mediation efforts have produced startling results.

“It does work, especially on the younger ones,” she said. “But it even works with the big ones, even though they feel silly at first.”

Counselor Marie Alviz, who provides the eight hours of training for the peer mediators, said visitors from other schools can feel the difference on the campus.

“They really are the leaders of making peace,” she said of her schoolyard mediators. “Especially on the avenue, and here at this school.”

The program does not always work, though.

On another part of the playground, two Spice Girls clubs were fighting because one raided the other’s members.

The battle was high-pitched, and after several failed attempts to work it out, the peer mediators gave up. They left the Spice Girls wannabes to hash it out in the principal’s office.

Camiel explained that, even when mediation fails, children are encouraged to use the special language they learn--starting in kindergarten as part of the school’s peacemaking curriculum--to try to resolve the dispute themselves.

In this case they couldn’t. Finally, Camiel intervened. It is agreed that all members of both Spice Girls clubs will return Monday and draw up a contract of behavior for the week.

The principal said it’s hard to track the program’s success after her students graduate, although she has heard good things from teachers at De Anza Middle School, where most of her former students attend. One middle school teacher even sent a letter of thanks to Camiel.

But within E.P. Foster there are already quantifiable differences.

School suspensions have been reduced 55% and office referrals are now almost nonexistent.