Equip your students with lifelong conflict resolution skills while giving your administrators their time back.
We help you transform how your district handles peer conflict by launching a sustainable, student-led conflict resolution program that runs on its own and grows stronger every year.
Middle school is where conflict peaks, impacting both your students and your administrators.
A comment posted at night becomes an argument in first period, a crowd in the hallway by lunch, and a suspension by dismissal. Students this age often don't have the tools yet to work it out on their own, so the adults step in.
This spring we surveyed 66 leaders responsible for middle-grade students, and 97% said a significant share of their team's time goes to resolving conflict.
Every dispute students can't resolve pulls a teacher off instruction and an administrator off their priorities. Hiring another counselor or assistant principal is rarely in the budget, and even then it does nothing to teach students to handle the next one.
As one student in one of our partner districts put it:
We just don't know how to talk to each other.
Your students aren't the problem. They're the solution.
The resource your schools are missing isn't another adult. It's the students themselves, trained and trusted to deescalate conflicts and restore relationships.
What if peer conflicts could be resolved before they even reached your administrators?
Picture one of your buildings this spring. Two students walk into a quiet room down the hall, upset over something posted the night before, and walk out with an agreement they reached themselves, guided by two of their peers.
A school counselor or dean oversees it. Your administrator tracks the impact on a live dashboard. And your students become the leaders who transform your school's culture.
That is where the Peacemaker Pathway takes your district: from adult-dependent to student-led conflict resolution.
Built to survive student and staff turnover.
The usual model is a two-day workshop. A company trains your students and leaves. Then students graduate, the one adult who ran it moves on, and the program dies. We built the opposite: a year-round service, not another platform your team has to run. It comes down to three things.
The Pathway is a roadmap embedded in the school, so it lasts no matter which students or coordinators come and go.
Scheduling, requests, and tracking run on your own Google Workspace. You control the tools, we don't collect or store your student data, and your district gets a live dashboard for each school so you can track the impact.
Instead of two days, we're with you all year, providing coaching, courses for staff, curriculum for students, and a national community of school leaders you can connect with and learn from.
The inspiration for MediatorSPARK.
Before MediatorSPARK was a company, Samuel was a teacher at a Title I middle school in New York City. He trained more than 40 student mediators who resolved over 100 conflicts at a 91% success rate, with zero breaches of confidentiality. Through that experience, Samuel learned that while some resources existed for schools, there was nothing out there that would provide the systems and the support that would allow a school to sustain a student-led conflict resolution program long-term, particularly at the middle school level.
He left the classroom and, along with Michael's help, they built the Peacemaker Pathway to fill that gap.
This year, seven schools across six states ran the Pathway for the first time, training more than 70 student mediators and rating the staff training 4.58 out of 5. In Stratford, Connecticut, both district middle schools launched the Pathway and ran seven mediations, with all seven reaching an agreement.
Now, for the 2026-27 school year, the MediatorSPARK network is growing as school and district leaders make the decision to implement the one thing that brings student voice, social-emotional learning, restorative practices, PBIS, and student leadership development all together: student-led conflict resolution.
Samuel Rabkin & Michael Mahoney, co-founders
Built for a district, not just a building.
Personalized coaching for each of your schools.
We meet with each school every month, providing personalized advice that matches the needs and culture of each unique school.
A consistent system in every building.
We provide simple tools in your Google Workspace that facilitate requesting, scheduling, and tracking mediations, so staff don't have to learn a new software platform.
Data you control.
Every tool runs in your district's Google Workspace. You own your student PII (personally identifiable information); we don't collect or store it.
A way to cover the cost.
Because we provide training and coaching directly to your counselors and administrators, the Peacemaker Pathway qualifies for Title II professional-development funding, and we can support your team through that process. The Pathway qualifies for Title I funding as well.
How it works, from your first day to your first mediation.
We do the heavy lifting, and the timeline runs from the day you start, whether that's the fall or in January.
- Build
You name a coordinator, we set you up.
We equip your coordinator with the curriculum, set up the systems on your own Google Workspace, and start their one-to-one coaching.
- Ignite
Your students get trained and start mediating.
Your coordinator recruits and trains the student team, and the first student-run mediations begin within a few months of your start.
- Grow
It expands and takes hold.
Students take on greater ownership of the program and help train the next class of mediators, with our coaching continuing to support your program all year long.
From then on it's your school's coordinator, with our continued support, committing about two and a half hours a week. It's a trade, not an add-on. It transfers low-level conflicts that your counselor would have otherwise handled to your student mediators, resolved before they escalate and take up administrator time.
From California to Connecticut.
See all the schools that have certified student mediators through the Peacemaker Pathway.
- Hutto Middle SchoolHutto, TXPeer mediators certified
- Wooster Middle SchoolStratford, CTPeer mediators certified
- Flood Middle SchoolStratford, CTPeer mediators certified
- Mt. Auburn PrepCincinnati, OHLaunching in 2026-27
- Wibaux SchoolsWibaux, MTLaunching in 2026-27
- Grundy Center Middle SchoolGrundy Center, IAPeer mediators certified
- Connersville Middle SchoolConnersville, INPeer mediators certified
- Laton Middle SchoolLaton, CALaunching in 2026-27
- Providence Classical AcademyBossier City, LALaunching in 2026-27
- Desert Ridge AcademyIndio, CALaunching in 2026-27
- Casey-Westfield Jr/Sr HighCasey, ILLaunching in 2026-27
- Dimmitt Middle SchoolRenton, WALaunching in 2026-27
- South Junior High SchoolBoise, IDLaunching in 2026-27
- Beckwith Middle SchoolRehoboth, MALaunching in 2026-27
- Parker Junior High SchoolFlossmoor, ILLaunching in 2026-27
- Armstrong Middle SchoolFlint, MILaunching in 2026-27
Questions district leaders ask.
Your students are ready to lead. Give them the Pathway.
We're partnering with districts that want their middle-schoolers to gain lifelong conflict resolution skills and their leaders to regain their focus for implementing district priorities. If that sounds like your district, let's find a time to talk.