Donna Chewning noticed that one of her students seemed uncomfortable as she sat down to participate in a restorative circle at Armstrong High School in Richmond, Virginia. Suddenly, the student began to laugh uncontrollably, angering her peers.
The incident could have easily erupted into an argument and led to suspensions. But to Chewning, a certified mediator who leads restorative justice programs, the outburst provided a teaching opportunity. Over time, the other students came to understand that the girl was laughing out of nervousness, not mocking them, and she gradually gained control of her laughter.
Armstrong is one of many schools in districts across the country that have begun embracing alternative student discipline strategies aimed at reducing their use of suspensions, particularly for minor offenses. Approaches can vary, with some districts offering volunteer opportunities in lieu of suspensions, cool-off periods designed to de-escalate tensions before any consequence occurs, and cultural competency training that examines the role teacher bias can play in high suspension rates for students of color.
In Oklahoma's Tulsa Public Schools, changes to the disciplinary guidelines have prompted teachers and administrators to "think about discipline differently," says Ebony Johnson, interim executive director of student and family support services.
By emphasizing alternatives to suspensions for minor offenses such as skipping class or violating a dress code, the district decreased its suspension rate by 50 percent over the first few months of the 2016 school year, says Johnson.
Underpinning Tulsa's effort to reduce suspensions, she notes, is a commitment to restorative justice. Unlike traditional punitive discipline policies, restorative justice focuses on repairing a harm that was committed—whether to another student or teacher or to the school community—rather than simply meting out a punishment.
Chewning says that although restorative justice can sometimes be misunderstood as being "Kumbaya for everybody," schools and districts that have embraced restorative practices are seeing notable outcomes. At Armstrong High School, for instance, restorative practices contributed to a decrease of in-school suspensions by nearly 90 percent and out-of-school suspensions by 70 percent in just two years.
Rooting Out Inequities
When district officials in the Denver Public Schools began examining suspension data in 2007, they found that many students were being suspended for nonviolent offenses, including disrupting other students or "disrespect," says Eldridge Greer, the district's associate chief of student equity and opportunity.
They also noticed bias in their suspension rates, finding that black students were overrepresented despite being a minority in the student population. These findings inspired a rollout of policy changes and new programs designed to reduce the use of suspensions and address the racial disparities in suspension rates.
First, the district pledged to limit the use of out-of-school suspensions, expulsions, and referrals to law enforcement only to incidents that involve a "serious and credible threat to the safety of pupils and staff." They also limited the role of school resource officers (SROs). Now SROs handle only violations of city and state laws, and they are present in some of Denver's large high schools and middle schools but not in its elementary schools.
Another policy change included transforming how students serve in-school suspensions. Previously, says Greer, students sat quietly, sometimes without a dedicated teacher present. Now, certified teachers provide students with coaching and support as they serve the suspension. "They're away from their peers and their classroom for a day, but they're not falling behind in terms of the academic work that they're supposed to do," he says.
Denver also started a home visitation program intended to foster closer relationships between teachers and the communities they work in. And the district began training teachers and administrators in restorative justice, an effort that Greer says required a larger "mind shift." For educators, parents, and other members of the community, having a restorative dialogue instead of a traditional administrative hearing that might precede a disciplinary action can seem unfamiliar, explains Greer.
It took several years for parents and teachers to be able to see that although the process didn't look like typical punishment, the student was not nearly as likely to repeat the offending behavior. Those involved were able to move beyond a need for vengeance to talk about how a student's actions actually caused harm, Greer says.
Denver has experienced gradual success in reducing racial disparities in suspensions, particularly at the elementary level. When the effort began, about 40 percent of the students suspended in the district were black, Greer says. That rate has since dropped to 30 percent. In a University of Denver study, Spotlight on Success: Changing the Culture of Discipline in Denver Public Schools, researchers found that the wide use of restorative interventions was a central factor in lowering suspension rates to between 0 and 3 percent in 36 schools that serve a diverse student population.
Although many of these schools didn't use common elements of restorative justice like "formal dialogues, mediations, or peace circles," according to the study, they did rely on reflective questions to guide the process: What actually took place? How were people affected? What responsibility can you take? How can we come to a solution so that this doesn't happen again? How can we get along better?
Building Cultural Competency
Beyond changing policies, what goes into creating an environment where restorative justice and other alternatives to suspensions can flourish? A key ingredient is what Johnson, of the Tulsa Public Schools, calls "cultural competency," especially for teachers in districts with student populations that have disproportionately faced suspensions, such as black boys.
"There's just certain ways to interact with the generation that we're educating now," she says, "making sure that teachers are patient and listening and proactive rather than reactive in dealing with our students."
Tulsa, where 56 percent of students are Hispanic and 14 percent are black, has begun collaborating with community organizations as it creates a professional development program aimed at building teachers' cultural competency and addressing implicit biases that may inform how they interact with students.
For teachers at all levels of experience, Johnson notes, participating in a restorative dialogue with students can help them better understand the issues their students face and how those issues may influence their behavior. And with its focus on building relationships, restorative justice can be particularly effective at tackling teacher bias that can underlie disparities in suspensions, says Daniel Losen, director of the Center for Civil Rights Remedies at the University of California Los Angeles' Civil Rights Project.
"Most people, if you ask them, are not racially bigoted in any way. There are not that many people in education who would be explicitly racist, but there are ways our minds work that we don't control," says Losen, a former teacher. Training people to recognize implicit bias, he says, "is not ferreting out the racists; it's ferreting out the influence of stereotypes."
A September 2016 study from the Yale Child Study Center found that disciplinary bias can begin early. When asked to observe four young students interacting and flag any signs of challenging behavior, preschool teachers spent more time focusing their attention on the black boy in the group, expecting him to misbehave. The findings align with data released last year from the U.S. Department of Education, showing that black preschool students are 3.6 times more likely to be suspended from school than their white peers.
Implicit bias isn't confined to race, however. Denver Public Schools has also begun looking at suspensions by gender and for LGBTQ students. A particular concern, Greer says, is suspensions for gender nonconforming girls, which may result from how they are unconsciously perceived by the adults around them.
Offering a Cool-Off Period
At North High School in Worcester, Massachusetts, Principal Lisa Dyer says the introduction of a restorative justice program has helped the school reduce suspensions dramatically in a short time. Exceeding 700 when she became principal in 2013, mostly for physical fights, suspensions fell to 170 during the 2015–16 school year.
A critical component in de-escalating conflicts, she says, has been giving students a chance to reflect on why they occurred in the first place. For serious offenses in which the student is deemed to pose a danger to students or the school, the school has an "emergency removal" process, where most students are not suspended but leave the school and return after 24 hours, Dyer says.
In 2014, a provision took effect in Massachusetts aimed at curbing the use of both short- and long-term suspensions, requiring a parent to be present at a disciplinary hearing for a suspension. At North High, Dyer says, these hearings happen within 48 hours of an emergency removal.
"I think tempers are de-escalated by the time you get to sit down and talk about what occurred and why," she notes. Fewer suspensions result "because people have had time to calm down and reflect."
During a hearing, "the parents have a voice, the students have a voice, the administrator has a voice, and I think they usually end up thinking it's a fairer process," Dyer explains. After outlining how the behavior is not acceptable and why, the group can talk about the infraction and what the student can do differently in the future. "A suspension hasn't occurred yet, so in a parent's mind, they're actually part of the process now."
In Denver, Greer says restorative practices are used strategically. For an assault or another act of violence, schools may do a mediation session with the student, but not a peer-to-peer restorative intervention.
Seeking Alternatives
Denver Public Schools has also explored different responses at the elementary level, including banning suspensions for K–3 students. California adopted this approach for K–3 students in cases of "willful defiance" or disruption, and a K–2 ban is currently being debated by lawmakers in Baltimore.
Tulsa has begun applying restorative principles more broadly by creating a series of volunteer opportunities for students as an alternative to suspensions. Johnson says this helps students "give back to the school what [they've] taken away from the school."
Since the effort began last year, Johnson has received an increasing number of calls from principals seeking suggestions for projects, including cleaning up the school (in the case of property damage) or reading to an elementary school student.
Thinking Beyond the Numbers
Schools that have made strides in reducing suspensions say approaches such as cool-off periods and restorative justice can have a larger impact beyond discipline. In 2012, when Ricci Hall became principal of Claremont Academy, a public high school in Worcester, Massachusetts, he began searching for a way to strengthen the school's academic culture, with a particular emphasis on preparing students for college or other postsecondary education.
His solution was to begin a restorative justice program that focused on holding a "deeper conversation" between students, teachers, and administrators. The program not only helped decrease suspensions from 300 in 2011–12 to 64 in 2015–16, but also improved the school culture.
"I didn't bring restorative justice to the school solely to reduce suspensions. We can reduce suspension rates simply by not suspending kids," Hall says. "What spoke to me about restorative justice was that it was a paradigm shift for both students and teachers in terms of language, and [for students it could] help them grow as learners and as people."
For example, he says, "We had students here who literally told me 'Just give me the suspension, let me go home for one or two days,' rather than work to right their wrongs." With a new peer-mediation program in place, if a student is in an altercation with another student, for instance, he would have to reflect, "'How do I look them in the face and deal with them?' and that is actually much more uncomfortable and, as a result, much more effective in terms of modifying the behavior."
Each week, the school holds restorative circles to build communication between students and teachers. "It's not just when students do something wrong; we do a circle and do exercises as a way to communicate and help stop some of the destructive behaviors," Hall says.
"My administrative team often uses restorative conferences with students that are not necessarily geared toward consequences. For a student who has been thrown out of class, it's not just getting a detention slip. It's beginning a much deeper conversation."
