PITTSBURGH — A program at Pittsburgh Public Schools is showing great success. The Safe Passage program equips students to be safety ambassadors, helping to de-escalate situations and prevent violence before it happens.
The students are also trained to help other classmates who just need to talk to someone or a shoulder to cry on.
WPXI talked to two of the Safe Passage ambassadors at Westinghouse during the last school year.
“I feel like Safe Passage gave me a bigger voice when it comes to trying to stop violence,” said rising senior Ladarrius Carpenter.
“It’s a safe place where students can talk freely and have their feelings heard,” added rising sophomore Amia Mott.
The Safe Passage program is in six Pittsburgh Public Schools: Westinghouse, Allderdice, Obama, U Prep, Perry and Brashear. Students get $200 a month to be ambassadors during the school year.
“So, by me being a safety ambassador, when fights happen, I know the kids. So, I’m like, yeah, I know you’re probably just mad because this, that, and it’s OK. Let’s just walk off. We can talk about it. You don’t have to go straight to violence,” Carpenter said.
Markeya Lowry is the Safe Passage Coordinator at Westinghouse.
“We teach them how to mediate new interventions and prevention work to bring those numbers down and make it a safer school,” said Lowry.
At the beginning of the school year, Lowry’s first priority is to make sure the Safe Passage ambassadors learn the four pillars of the program.
“The four pillars to detect and interrupt, treat high-risk individuals, change community norms and provide identities,” Lowry said. “Once they master those pillars, then we can begin to provide the monitorship.”
Then, the ambassadors also can learn the tools they need in the classrooms and hallways.
“Sometimes the situations between two students doesn’t need the third party of an adult to lecture them. They just really need somebody to see eye to eye,” Mott said.
“By being a student, they don’t feel as though you’re kind of trying to force them or tell them, like, yeah, if you don’t do this, you’re gonna get in trouble,” Carpenter added.
Administrators at Westinghouse are proud of the way the students have taken to the Safe Passage program.
“If we look at it from the disease model, that violence is a disease. And how do we combat disease? Safe Passage has come in and brought us tools to be able to address it with our students, with our staff, and really elevate the impact of students upon students,” Westinghouse Principal Dr. Virginia Hill said.
Sometimes the ambassadors handle the situations all on their own, but other times they lean on their mentors for advice.
“They get abreast of what’s happening in the hallways or whatever and they come let us know. And then they let us know the steps that they thought about taking. And most times they’re very reasonable, and we’re able to allow them to go ahead and start the situation,” said Westinghouse Assistant Principal Tenille Thomas.
One result since Safe Passage started, attendance at Westinghouse is up 15%.
“It’s made a huge difference in our school culture,” Dr. Hill said.
“It made leadership cool again,” Thomas added.
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