L.A.S.E.R. Program IMPLEMENTATION –

SCHOOL AS LEAD ORGANIZATION – Obligations for the School

Successful L.A.S.E.R. Program implementation requires careful, thorough and sequential planning. The following is designed to guide schools interested in becoming a L.A.S.E.R. school through suggested steps of program implementation. L.A.S.E.R. asks all school interested in becoming a L.A.S.E.R. project school to review the following suggested activities, and provide feedback to the L.A.S.E.R. program staff on the school’s ability and willingness to take on the responsibility outlined below. For schools able to take on these responsibilities, the L.A.S.E.R. project will endeavor to provide schools with provide initial training, a copy of basic training materials (provided primarily via the LASER Website – www.laserpeer.org ), mentoring and ongoing support from trained L.A.S.E.R. volunteer trainers for two years at no cost to the school.

q Schools interested in building a L.A.S.E.R. program should acquaint themselves with the L.A.S.E.R. program by reviewing the website at www.laserpeer.org and asking any additional questions they may have to the phone number and e-mail listed there.

q Schools should assess the needs of the school to ascertain the fit of the L.A.S.E.R. program with other building initiatives. School personnel initiating this discussion should secure building and possibly district support, from at least the principal and lead counselor or teacher.

q Schools should identify an implementation team: administrator, counselor, staff, parents, interested community volunteers, as well as an attorney from the community. Schools who do not have information about local attorneys can contact the L.A.S.E.R. program’s website for help.

q Schools will need to determine how the new program will fit with existing policies and procedures concerning discipline, referrals, scheduling of training, scheduling of mediators, arranging mediations, record keeping, curriculum transfusion, etc.

q Schools will send their teams to no-cost L.A.S.E.R. “New Volunteer” training in the fall (L.A.S.E.R. provides a late September to late October) “New Volunteer” training at no cost to participants – interested schools are encouraged to recruit their teams to participate in this training. L.A.S.E.R. will strive – as resources allow -- to recruit trainers to provide first time training on site for those schools who were unable to attend L.A.S.E.R.’s regularly scheduled October New Volunteer training session.)

q Schools must be willing to provide some staff orientation (45 minutes minimum, to 3 hours), student orientation (classroom presentations or assemblies), and parent orientation (optional – ½ hour to 1 ½ hours) to introduce the program to the building.

q Schools will take the lead in selecting student mediators in consultation with the L.A.S.E.R. site implementation team.

q Scheduling of student peer mediation training (12 hours) –

q Schools will provide copies of training materials, downloaded from the L.A.S.E.R. website, for all participating students, and for trainers who did not participate in regularly scheduled L.A.S.E.R. New Volunteer training.

q Schools will find a room, provide and collect the required signed parent permission documentation, and recruit the students.

q Ongoing meetings and trainings – L.A.S.E.R. volunteers commit to a 2-year minimum stay when the volunteer with a school. The L.A.S.E.R. project can provide curriculum for these ongoing trainings.

q Other information is available at www.laserpeer.org)

q Data Gathering: Always observing rules of confidentiality school should collect — at a minimum — the number of mediations held, who requested the mediation, and an indication of the success of the mediation. Other valuable information would include the type of incident requiring mediation, incident of location, whether or not an agreement was signed, and it the agreement was honored.

q Program Evaluation – On a regular basis, perhaps at the start of each new School year, the program implementation and desired outcomes should be revisited by the L.A.S.E.R. team to determine what changes would improve the program in the coming year.

The L.A.S.E.R. program will work to provide program support for schools who agree to undertake the above efforts to ensure the L.A.S.E.R. Program in their building is successful.

School Commitment

Declaration