New Haven Independent

Hillhouse has found success with multi-pronged mediation efforts. School resource officers, security guards and administrators are trained to help kids talk through problems before they escalate into violence. At the press conference at the high school Thursday afternoon, city officials announced they’re expanding mediation services to reach more city schools.

Two female students, Jahnaya and Jessica (click on their names to watch their presentations), joined a team of mediators at a conference room at the high school. They told how they came to that table embroiled in a gossip-fed fight, and walked away as friends.

Swirling gossip had pitted the two students against each other. They never fought physically, but were hurt by harsh words. Jahnaya called a school resource officer and asked for help resolving their problems.

They were taken to a comfortable conference room with posters of Denzel Washington and comfortable chairs. The room has a mirror so that riled-up students can see how they’re behaving, and adjust.

At the table, the two girls stopped yelling and eventually opened up to each other. Click here to watch Jahnaya, and here to watch Jessica, tell how it happened.

Inspired by tales like Jessica and Jahnaya’s, school officials are calling the mediation program a success. At Hill Central School, a partnership with Community Mediation, Inc. led to a 70 percent drop in suspensions, school officials said.

Boosted by these successes, and seeking to respond to a summer of youth gun violence, the city announced it will spend $80,000 to expand mediation programs into 25 schools. Community Mediation will train administrators and school cops to help kids find non-violent solutions to conflict.

As mediators left the conference room at the end of the school day Thursday, security officers stood outside to keep an eye on the flow of students walking out of the building.

Two male students got into a fight — a “pushing match,” according to Sgt. Rick Rodriguez, who supervises the city’s school resource officers (SROs). Officers were there on scene, and quickly brought the boys inside.

Seats at the mediation table filled back up. Students sat there with SROs, security officers and Andre Dupree, a principal on special assignment who facilitates mediation at the school. They talked behind closed doors.

“We tried to mediate it, but we couldn’t,” said Rodriguez, who wasn’t there but heard a report of what had happened. “You need two people agreeing to the process.” One boy had refused to participate, he said.

The two boys were arrested on breach of peace charges.

On-the-spot mediation works with some, but not others, said Rodriguez. With kids who are involved in neighborhood feuds, “we don’t get too much mileage in mediating.”

Andre Wilkins, 15, (pictured), was walking home from Hillhouse with friends Thursday. He said he’s gotten suspended for fighting in school before, and he wouldn’t want to sit down with the kids he fought with.

“No — they different from me. I don’t like people who act tough in front of their friends, trying to put up their rep and stuff.” Suspended from school for a few days, Andre’s post-fight anger festered. “It just got me more mad.”

Rodriguez said kids who bring neighborhood feuds into school are often handled through other means. Officers have more luck approaching the kids’ parents than settling the problem in school, he said. If needed, the kids get “sent to court, or to Charlie Pillsbury.” (He heads Community Mediation.)

Catherine Sullivan DeCarlo, the mayor’s spokeswoman, noted some of the city’s most at-risk kids are being helped through a new evening program with the NAACP, as well as being identified through the Yale Child Study Center.

Pillsbury, told of the post-conference tiff, remarked: “It shows the need for mediation, and my guess is there might have been a chance to intervene earlier.”

“What you witnessed is just more reason to make a very strong committment to resolving conflicts in nonviolent ways by talking them through and problem-solving.”