Positive and Negative Incident Reports

Whenever faculty or staff members, or peers, observe a student’s behavior that is exemplary, they are expected to notify the Dean of Students, who keeps a record of all such positive incident reports. This information is used to consider a student for a Community Builder or Leader Award. Each week, the names of those students receiving Positive Incident Reports, along with the number of Positive Reports he received, are posted in the main hall of the Seminary. At monthly student assemblies, the total number of Positive Reports for each class are announced and particularly admirable reports are read aloud. It is not unusual for more than 200 reports to be filed in any given week.

If faculty or staff members, or peers, observe a student’s behavior that is contrary to St. Lawrence Seminary rules or social skills, they are expected to confront the student whenever possible. Depending on the nature of the incident, a faculty or staff member will instruct the student on the expected and appropriate behavior and then assign him an appropriate consequence. It is the student’s responsibility to accept the feedback and consequences without question.

Staff are instructed specifically along the following lines for correcting misconduct: a.) describe to the student the inappropriate behavior; b.) ask the student for his perception of the misbehavior; c.) teach and/or re-teach the appropriate behavior; d.) provide a rationale for the appropriate behavior; e.) ask the student to describe or demonstrate the appropriate behavior; f.) assign consequences or indicate what the consequences will be if the misbehavior is repeated; g.) check for understanding of the consequences; h.) end with a genuine statement of praise.

The faculty or staff member is expected to record the incident and submit it to the Dean of Students. If the faculty or staff member, the Dean of Students or the student believes that further action is necessary, a meeting will occur.

When assigning consequences in response to an infraction of a rule, St. Lawrence Seminary authorities take into account the many factors that make each student and each situation unique. For this reason, the fact that a certain type of problem has been handled in a certain way in the past does not necessarily mean that what seems to be similar infractions will merit exactly the same consequences. Each situation is unique, and the details of any one case are not always publicly known.

Peer Mediation

Learning to live in the close community of a boarding school that has real world ethnicity can be a challenge. Selected seniors are chosen as peer mediators who have lived through experiences in commonly found disputes involving jealousies, rumors, misunderstandings, bullying, fights, misuse of personal property, and the ending of friendships.

Mediation is a communication process in which the students with a problem work together, assisted by a pair of neutral third party seniors, to solve the problem. The senior co-mediators facilitate the problem-solving process and help the disputants (underclassmen) negotiate an agreement.

In the process the co-mediators create and maintain an environment that fosters mutual problem solving. During the mediation, the disputing students listen to each other’s points of view, identify interests contributing to the conflict, create options that address the interests of both, evaluate these options according to objective criteria, and create an agreement.

Participation in mediation is voluntary, and the co-mediators do not judge, impose a decision, or force a solution.

Seniors are chosen relative to application response statements, ethnicity, involvement, and academic strengths. All mediators are actively involved in nine hours of instruction by staff members using the Peer Mediation – Conflict Resolution in Schools – Program Guide, by Schrumpf, Crawford, and Bodine.

"Peer Mediation helps you to realize that, in the midst of conflicts, many people do want to resolve their social clashes. What makes a good session is not that the Peer Mediators become problem solvers, but rather, the students in conflict find a solution to their own puzzle." Vincent Dang (’08).