The Peer Mentoring Program at Saint John Paul the Great Catholic High School in Potomac Shores works to integrate the students with intellectual disabilities in the Options program into the school community. The program is meant to help, aid, encourage and inspire the Options students in their studies as well as their spiritual and social lives. Mentors take Options students to their electives and help them with their studies in the classroom. By being present, mentors help provide the resources they need to prosper in their education and in their identity as a child of God.
The program is an integral part of the school community. When students sign up for the Peer Mentoring class, they are not just signing up for another elective — they are signing up for a program that will give them new opportunities for friendship, leadership and growth as a person. In turn, the Peer Mentoring Program gives the Options students a support system of care, community and friendship.
The Options students are given assistance to not just participate in the community, but to thrive in it. They are usually leaders in the school and are well-known within the first week of arriving. Students want to get to know them because they are joyful and their presence is inviting. When homecoming rolls around, an Options student is often a king or queen.
If a student signs up for the Peer Mentoring class for one year, chances are they will sign up again. After one semester of the program, that Options buddy and their peer mentor are not just fellow students — they are truly friends.
The school mission is to pursue veritas, or truth. We have a four-year bioethics program in which students learn to pursue veritas. One of the biggest truths taught in this class, rooted in both church teaching and natural law, is the dignity and sacredness of every human life. The Peer Mentoring Program immerses students in that truth daily. Every student at John Paul the Great and every person in the world deserves to be respected, no matter their differences or capabilities. Every person is known and loved by God.
In the words of the patron, St. John Paul II: “Where life is involved, the service of charity must be profoundly consistent. It cannot tolerate bias and discrimination, for human life is sacred and inviolable at every stage and in every situation; it is an indivisible good” (“Evangelium Vitae” No. 87).
The program works daily to extend love and charity to those in need, and empowers everyone in love both to receive God’s love through others and make a gift of self. It equips students with transformative skills they can use in everyday life at John Paul and after graduation.
