Associated organizations

LEAP-Kids (Law, Education and Peace for Kids), led by Executive Director David Keller Trevaskis, has the mission of promoting good citizenship through law-related and civic education (LRCE). LEAP-Kids, chartered in 2001 as a for profit educational consulting business, houses the Pennsylvania Youth for Justice (YFJ) site, part of the national LRCE network established by the Department of Justice, and serves as the statewide LRCE center.

Although LEAP-Kids does a tremendous amount of contract and grant training, working with schools to promote everything from teen court to character education, the heart and soul of the LEAP-Kids LRCE effort is its work in partnership with the Pennsylvania Bar Association (PBA). The PBA runs five major LRCE programs across the commonwealth: I Signed the Constitution; Project PEACE (Peaceful Endings through Attorneys, Children and Educators); Law Day; Mock Trial and Stepping Out for Seniors. New programs such as this year's Freedom's Answer get out the vote effort supplement these five cornerstone programs. The PBA/ LEAP-Kids support of these LRCE programs constitutes a major commitment each year to Pennsylvania LRCE efforts.

A quick review of PBA’s LRCE efforts shows that Pennsylvania lawyers are doing a lot to support the education of the next generation of citizens and LEAP-Kids is working with them to make a real difference in the commonwealth.

The "I Signed the Constitution" program, held in cooperation with the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, is a high profile event that allows thousands of Pennsylvania youth to show their affirmation of American citizenship by signing replicas of the Constitution. The event is held on a date near September 17th, Constitution Day, when the nation celebrates the anniversary of the ratification of the Constitution. This year’s PBA statewide center of celebration was in Harrisburg; a model program takes place each year in Hollidaysburg where social studies teacher Don Imler has hundreds of students and community leaders coming together to honor the rule of law. Hundreds of additional classrooms will benefit from lessons focused on the Constitution that the Bar will distribute prior to September 17th. These lessons, developed by LEAP-Kids, underscore the importance of the rule of law and provide opportunities for educators and students to reflect on the fundamentals of democratic participants in our society. A classroom teacher can create a powerful lesson for students by simply analyzing the rules governing classroom behavior.

In the wake of 9/11, the September "I Signed the Constitution" program was used by many schools as their way of honoring our fallen heroes and fellow Americans.

The "I Signed the Constitution" program works at any grade level and is the first major LRCE initiative of each school year.

The next program in the PBA LRCE school calendar year is the statewide mock trial program (MTP). MTP is one of the oldest law-related and civic education programs promoted by the PBA. Sponsored by the PBA’s Young Lawyer’s Division (YLD), the MTP annually involves more that 250 schools in a competition that selects Pennsylvania’s representative at the nationals. The MTP started in Philadelphia in 1979 under Beth Farnbach at the Temple University School of Law; Camille Kastalk-Cherry took the program statewide in 1984.

The MTP is the product of many partnerships. Local competitions, generally organized and funded by county bar associations, produce county champions that compete for regional honors and spots in the statewide finals. The statewide finals have expanded in recent years and moved to the state capitol of Harrisburg. Pennsylvania's 2002 state championship team went on to finish second in the nation.

Oversight of the statewide MTP flows from a committee of volunteer PBA attorneys and interested educators and court administrators. Funding for the statewide program, including paying to send the winning Pennsylvania team to the national competition, comes from a $100 entry fee and from the YLD budget of the PBA.

Next up on the calendar is Project PEACE (Peaceful Endings through Attorneys, Children, and Educators). Started for the 1999-2000 school year, Project PEACE is an elementary peer mediation and conflict resolution education program jointly sponsored by Pennsylvania Attorney General Mike Fisher and the Pennsylvania Bar Association (PBA).

Project PEACE strives to reduce conflict and violence in Pennsylvania schools by teaching children, who are still in their formative years, how to alter their behavior, control their anger and resolve their disputes peacefully. The children become active participants in governing behavior in their classrooms by taking on the role of mediator. Through the assistance of neutral peer mediators, conflicts are settled in a more positive manner. With fewer conflicts in the classroom, educators can put their energy into teaching instead of disciplining.

The PBA and Attorney General Mike Fisher, through their efforts in educating citizens of alternative means of dispute resolution in the justice system, and LEAP-Kids, through its leadership in school based conflict resolution education and mediation training, offer Pennsylvania schools this specialized training to bring about violence avoidance. By exposing schools to various aspects of the law, students begin to cultivate a greater respect for the justice system. The PBA and office of the Attorney General shared the cost of the program. The goals of Project PEACE are to:

• Promote conflict resolution as an important life skill;
• Develop awareness of and experience with various mediation skills;
• Compare and contrast mediation with adjudication;
• Provide opportunities for students/schools to network with attorneys and mediation professionals; and
• Create a school-based plan to establish a peer mediation program for the coming academic year.

Project PEACE is designed for elementary schools. As such, one elementary school from each of the 12 PBA geographic zones is selected by the competitive application to participate in the training. Representing each school is a team of the school principal, two educators/guidance counselors, a parent and a local attorney.

During the retreat, each team goes through intensive mediation training by participating is sessions such as, "When Push Comes to Shove: Looking at Adjudication and Mediation" and "Rewriting the Scene: Learning How to Diffuse Conflict Situations." By the end of the two day retreat, all teams write a mediation plan for their own schools. In these plans, schools answered the following questions:

• Needs: What are the needs you see in your school for conflict resolution?
• Program Outcomes: What do you hope to accomplish from this program?
• Obstacles: What are the obstacles you must hurdle to make your program succeed?
• Solutions: How do you plan to solve these potential problems?
• Staffing: Who is going to staff your program? How will staff be selected? How will staff costs be covered?
• Funding: How will you fund your program?
• Space: Where will the program be housed?
• Scheduling: What is the timeline for your program?
• Assistance: What assistance do you need to achieve success?

Law Day, held each year on May 1st, is the final LRCE event on the PBA school calendar. For the past few years, the PBA has produced and distributed a booklet of lessons designed for judges and lawyers to use when they visit classrooms. LEAP-Kids will work with the PBA , as in past years, to produce the lesson materials in the Law Day booklet.