Class Act: ‘A real turnaround’
Several years ago, Cara Prentiss, principal of New Horizons High School in Southern California’s Banning Unified School District, had an itch to try something different to boost her students’ morale and, she hoped, their grades.
“Being a continuation school, [the community] was looking at us as the quote-unquote ‘bad kids,’” Prentiss says. “Our students had slipped through the cracks at the larger schools; they were kind of invisible. I wanted to develop in them that they are needed in school every day, that they have a buy-in.”
Then, after attending an outreach convention with a colleague, Prentiss had a brainstorm.
“Cara came back with a conflict resolution idea,” says Cindy Mediano Flanagan, a BUSD outreach consultant and the colleague who accompanied Prentiss to the conference.
“She wanted to build up student morale at New Horizons and make it a place where students wanted to be,” Flanagan says.
New Horizons shares a campus with the Susan B. Coombs Intermediate School in Banning. Prentiss wanted to involve her students with the younger students there somehow. She presented her idea to her staff, and they all agreed.
In the 2004–05 school year, the Peace Crew United Conflict Mediation program was launched. Loosely modeled on the Community Boards conflict resolution program developed in San Francisco in 1976, the PCU curriculum consists of seven days of instruction for selected New Horizons students that defines and explores the concept of conflict, varying communications styles and problem-solving techniques. Once trained, the PCU students utilize their skills working with Coombs’ fifth- and sixth-graders on their own turf at recess and lunch periods, hanging out with their younger counterparts, organizing games and mediating scuffles.
Three years later, the plaudits and accomplishments are piling up.
In 2006, the California Department of Education named New Horizons one of only 18 Model Continuation High Schools in the state. CSBA honored the school with a Golden Bell award in 2007. And in March this year, the Riverside County Office of Education recognized PCU with its High School Models of Excellence: Exemplary Programs and Practices award.
“Winning the Golden Bell award inspired more and more positive comments from the community,” Flanagan says.
Any student at New Horizons is eligible to join the PCU program, provided they maintain a 2.0 GPA, exhibit no behavior problems and maintain good attendance.
Because of the popularity of the program with students, Flanagan says, “Attendance is so high, students do whatever they can to remain part of the crew.”
In PCU’s first year, “Only 20–30 kids were in it,” Prentiss says. “Now, 60–65 are involved at any time. It’s been a real turnaround.”
In fact, New Horizons attendance rates have increased year-over-year, by 6 percent in 2006 over 2005 and another 1.5 percent in 2007. The school’s Academic Performance Index grew 205 points by June 2005 and another 41 points by 2006. The Coombs Intermediate School benefited as well, reporting a 25 percent decrease in conflicts and related disciplinary referrals.
Startup and operation costs for PCU have been minimal in comparison to the tremendous impact the program has had on the district. A one-time expense for legally reproducible training materials and a compilation of proven methods and strategies from various conflict mediation sources totaled only $400. Annual PCU-logoed T-shirt costs are also minimal (around $700 the second year) and vary with the number of students involved as mediators. Staff advisers supervise PCU trainings. Evaluation of PCU volunteers’ academic and attendance progress does not require additional time, as all New Horizons students’ statistics are compiled anyway.
Clearly, the Peace Crew United program is a hit. Both the high school mediators and their intermediate school charges benefit from improved communication skills and a sense of fellowship they carry forward with them into adulthood. Add to those gains the improved attendance rates, grades and behavior issues, and the hit advances into solid gold territory.
“Our school board is very proud of [the students],” says Alice Silverman, a 10-year board member, “because, of course, they keep getting awards.
“But the best part of being a school board member, for me, is being there at their graduations and seeing more and more of them succeed. I’m very proud of the program. I wouldn’t miss those graduations for anything.”
—Marsha Boutelle