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Implications for educational practice of the science of learning and development

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Pow AMS Behavioral Supports and Actions for Minor Behaviors

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Restorative justice focuses on healing, not punishment

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Restorative justice focuses on healing, not punishment

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Panelists at Campbell Law School offered a different path to resolving conflicts - in the criminal justice system and in disciplinary situations in K-12 schools.

The Restorative Justice Panel featured four panelists Oct. 16 at Campbell law school, where the Restorative Justice Clinic resides. Panelists included Jon Powell, Campbell law professor and director of the Restorative Justice Clinic; Colleen Fitzpatrick, a former educator and coordinator for Restorative Practice in the Wake County Public School System; and Nichad Davis and Morgan Bridgers, both Campbell law students involved with the clinic.

The focus of the panel was on restorative justice, which emphasizes bringing victims and offenders together to resolve conflict rather than prioritizing punishment.

"Crime causes harm, and sometimes the very system that we have developed to address crime causes harm," Powell said.

Powell described the practice as addressing different questions than are typical within the traditional criminal justice system. The traditional method asks what law was broken, who did it, and what do they deserve. The restorative practice, on the other hand, asks who has been hurt, how have they been hurt, and what do they need?

"It is a theory of justice that recognizes crime and wrongdoing not only breaks laws but harms people, relationships, and communities," Powell said. "The practice of restorative justice is the practices we implement to try and address those harms."

Oftentimes, restorative justice requires bringing people together to find a resolution that's healing. It's a practice that focuses less on punishment and more on resolution.

Bridgers said she first approached restorative justice with some skepticism.

"For the first two or three weeks, I told Professor Powell about this, I said this is not my thing. I felt like I was pretty much talking to a counselor at times when we had circles," Bridgers said. "It was very much outside of my comfort zone."

It was only after Bridgers got involved with prison circles, a practice of restorative justice, did she start to understand. Bridgers participated in a handful of prison circles, which changed how she viewed the restorative justice practice.

"Honestly, I thought this was a very liberal approach, and at that moment I just put politics aside, because it's not about politics," Bridgers said. "It's about meeting people's needs."

In prison circles, inmates share what they have done and how they ended up where they are. The inmates also talk about how they're working to better themselves.

Bridgers and Davis host circles at Knightdale High School in Wake County. At-risk students, including those who have faced past suspensions, participate in these restorative justice circles and work through their conflicts. Unlike mediation, circles aren't reactive to conflicts but instead are a proactive way to address the root of the problem.

Davis got involved with the restorative justice clinic because he was frustrated with what he saw as structural inequalities in the criminal justice system. He perceived a school-to-prison pipeline, and he wanted to help children who run afoul of the law.

"What we are doing at Knightdale is trying to implement large scale cultural change in the way that we discuss school disciplinary policy," Davis said.

Fitzpatrick, an educator for more than 20 years, saw the prevalence of punitive measures in schools and how they weren't working to resolve conflicts. She started implementing restorative justice practices in her classroom and is now helping Wake County schools do the same for their students.

"The kids I'm educating, they come with a lot of trauma," Fitzpatrick said. "I feel like for me to be an effective educator, I need to address the trauma they're bringing."

Fitzpatrick said the kind of trauma the kids are bringing to school is often a reflection of people in their family who are involved with the juvenile or adult justice systems.

"They bring those problems with them to school and you can't get to education if you don't help them with their social or emotional needs," Fitzpatrick said. "I see that in 23 years the need seems to be growing. I've used it in kindergarten, preschool, all the way up to seventh and eighth grade."

Powell said during his time as a criminal defense attorney and working in prisons he has yet to meet a prisoner who, at some point, wasn't a victim.

"That and me being a backseat psychologist helps me understand that pure punishment for offenders creates a lot of resentment because in their mind they're being punished for being a victim," Powell said.

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Restorative justice focuses on healing, not punishment - Carolina Journal

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Panelists at Campbell Law School offered a different path to resolving conflicts - in the criminal justice system and in disciplinary situations in K-12 schools. The Restorative Justice Panel featured four panelists Oct. 16 at Campbell law school, where the Restorative Justice Clinic resides. Panelists included Jon Powell, Campbell law professor and director of the [...]

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Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools replacing suspensions with ‘restorative’ conversations

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Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools replacing suspensions with ‘restorative’ conversations

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Assistant principal Sarah Tompkins, left, listens as a seventh grader discusses a recent conflict with another student solved through restorative justice, which included teachers and students gathering in circles for discussions, at Ed White Middle School in San Antonio. Three years after starting a restorative discipline program, out-of-school suspensions have dropped by 72 percent. Chapel Hill-Carrbboro schools are now adopting the approach. AP

A method of handling discipline issues that one middle school started experimenting with four years ago has been so successful that all Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools are adopting the system.

McDougle Middle School saw major discipline referrals drop nearly 75 percent the year it started Restorative Practices techniques, which focus on repairing relationships. And the method quickly proved useful not just for discipline but for academics and dealing with disruptions to the school day.

"I think we do talk about the discipline portion of it and how it changes school culture in that regard," said Stephen Rayfield, a language arts teacher and part of the two-person team that brought restorative practices to the school.

"But I would encourage everyone who knows anything about restorative practices not to discount the academic qualities," he continued. "Because it has changed my practice as an educator, as a leader and as a human."

Restorative Practices draws from Native American and African traditions, Rayfield said. A big part is restorative circles, where the wronged and accused come together to discuss how to deal with an offense, or where a whole class can get together to discuss something.

McDougle held circles in every class the day after the Nov. 8 presidential election, a move that the school had planned no matter who won.

In a circle, said Wendy York, McDougle behavior and academic support specialist who also helped bring Restorative Practices to the school, the focus becomes relationships, not just punishment or who's right or wrong.

"You can express your opinion," McDougle sixth-grader Julia DePinto said. "I think it makes it much more friendly and open. If people have problems they know they can talk about them."

'School of hormones'

York and Rayfield first started talking to each other about Restorative Practices about five years ago, when McDougle had a higher number of in-school suspensions than administrators liked - "We are the school of hormones," York said of middle school.

They became interested enough in the new direction that they talked Principal Robert Bales into sending them to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, to the International Institute of Restorative Practices graduate school.

York said they traveled on a "less than shoestring budget" made up of funds from a grant from the Public School Foundation and a match from CHCCS.

York and Rayfield started using Restorative Practices at McDougle four years ago, and the number major referrals, which include referrals for in-school suspension, for out-of-school suspension and to the district's Boomerang alternative-to-suspension program, shrunk to 17 in 2013-14 from 64 in 2012-13.

It has gone no higher than 18 in the years since.

Seventh graders discuss a recent conflict they resolved through restorative justice, which included teachers and students gathering in circles for discussions, at Ed White Middle School in San Antonio. Three years after starting a restorative discipline program at the school, out-of-school suspensions dropped by 72 percent. Chapel Hill-Carrbboro schools are now adopting the approach. Eric Gay AP

Training teachers

After the initial success, York and Rayfield began training other McDougle teachers about Restorative Practices.

"Now when you're called down to the discipline office," York said, "you're called down for a conversation." There's a conversation about what happened, she said, who's been affected and how to make it right.

As students have become accustomed to the circles, they begin to ask for them themselves. Three years ago, a Latina student grew tired of hearing slurs used to describe Latinos and ask for a circle about the problem. It was three weeks before end-of-grade testing, but each class held a circle because administrators felt the problem was that significant.

The district has taken note of the success and has begun using Restorative Practices techniques in all middle schools, with plans to extend their uses into all schools.

Victoria Fornville, now a sophomore at Chapel Hill High, was an eighth-grader at McDougle the year the school began to uses restorative practices throughout the school. She said her class was not very close at the beginning of the school year, but that the new techniques worked to bring them together.

"I think it's really made McDougle a better school," she said.

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Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools replacing suspensions with 'restorative' conversations

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A method of handling discipline issues that one middle school started experimenting with four years ago has been so successful that all Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools are adopting the system. McDougle Middle School saw major discipline referrals drop nearly 75 percent the year it started Restorative Practices techniques, which focus on repairing relationships.

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Interactive Version - https://www.marcohealthtech.com/emotion-wheel-app/

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