The students at the Mediation Center have been working toward making school a safe and comfortable environment for students. Each hour is working on their own project which focuses on something that the student body needs.

  “All the ideas that we’ve come up with together [are] based off of trying to make the school a better and safer place for everyone,” senior Tanner Motley said.

  The first-hour students are working on creating a safe environment called the Wellness Center where students are able to come and get help if they are struggling or if they just need a place to take a deep breath.

  “This is going to be something at lunch where someone can just come in and take a deep breath and can have that comfortable place for people who need it. A lot of people want to have that place but instead, they go to the bathroom,” sophomore Allison Sheets said. “I feel like it’s really important that students do have that place because having people supporting you is super important and instead of going into a bathroom stall, you can have a place where you can take a break and it’s good for you.”

  Something that may help students come in would be the reassurance that the Wellness Center is trying to be monitored by the mediation students and not completely advised by an adult. If there is a need for the room to be monitored the teachers of the Mediation Center, Genevieve Minor and Megan Olsen, would be looking in on the room.

  “We still have to talk to Mr. Esper about if there has to be a staff member but we were thinking if it does we could do it in the backroom in the library so Ms. Olsen and Mrs. Minor can still check on us, but the mediators depending on their lunches can be in there to talk if the students need that or if they just need a silent place or anything else, that’s going to be the place for them,” Sheets said.

  The process of getting the wellness center together isn’t all that’s all that planned by this program. The mediators during second hour are working on getting more seating for lunch in the athletic wing, but there’s even more to it than that.

  “We’re trying to get seating in the athletic commons for lunch. We want it to be a sign-in thing so that it’s quiet enough that people can do homework but also work on stuff with their friends. It’s kind of like the writing center, but more of an official lunch spot,” senior Alix Thorington said.

  The student body has seen a spike in students being overwhelmed in the commons during lunch, which is the reason the mediation students have taken this on.

  “I know a lot of people are really overwhelmed by the lunchroom so I think that will help some people that are super anxious about that,” Thorington said. “I think it’ll help some people calm down if they’re stressed out about the lunchroom but still are able to be social. I know that we do have another room where you can go, but you can’t really talk in it.”

  The last hour is working on two things, a proposal for new cafeteria furniture and working on adding feminine hygiene products to the bathrooms.