Woodland students learn to become peer mediators

by Desiree Ramirez
Woodland High School Lead Peer Mediator

This past October, Woodland High School’s Peer Mediator Program held a two-day training at the school district office. The main goal of peer mediation is to give our students the opportunity to solve their problems with their peers. The training was a big success! The purpose of the training is to learn new and improved skills on how to help students solve conflicts with their peers. Forty-three of 51 students who were accepted as peer mediator trainees attended, and 39 have passed their test.

Throughout the day we had wonderful presentations about the Peer Mediator Program, most of which were led by the five lead mediators. One could really see that the students were enjoying themselves. We had a student evaluation in which we asked a series of questions and asked for the students’ honest opinions. From the responses we have received so far, we got positive feedback. When students were asked what their favorite part of the training was, a lot of them said the role plays of a mediation. A role play of mediation was when the lead mediators came up with a problem and two other lead mediators had to lead the mediation. Students said they liked this most because it showed them the right and wrong ways of solving a problem.

Our two-day training was awesome, and students said they are really looking forward to it next year!

The Woodland High School Peer Mediator Program is a REACH Program Improvement grant recipient.