Restorative justice: Program makes leap to Vt. schools

A part of the Vermont correctional landscape for years, restorative justice is making the leap to schools.

www.rutlandherald.com    

Restorative justice: Program makes leap to Vt. schools By Lola Duffort STAFF WRITER | May 22,2016 A part of the Vermont correctional landscape for years, restorative justice is making the leap to schools. The model is touted as a way to improve school climate, keep kids in class, improve educational outcomes and reduce inequities in the way discipline is meted out. Educators in the Green Mountain State are lining up to hear about it. Restorative justice consultant Jonathan Kidde, alongside South Burlington Community Justice Center Director Lisa Bedinger, has been putting on a series of workshops for educators, hosted by the University of Vermont. With each new training, the next wait list grows longer. “I actually don’t have the capacity to meet all the interest right now,” Kidde said Thursday. Kidde explains the difference between traditional school discipline and restorative justice as a different set of questions. “Our current questions that we ask are: What rule or what law was violated? Who broke that rule or who broke that law? And what consequences do they deserve?” he said. Restorative justice, on the other hand, poses a different, often trickier set of queries. “Who was affected? How were they affected? What needs have arisen? And who has an obligation to address those needs?” he said. And the questions aren’t just different; the people answering them are. Restorative justice models also require the perpetrator, their victim and others involved to answer those questions, typically in a conversation. The consequences for an action are determined by the result of that conversation — not by a predetermined consequence assigned to an infraction. As the model gains traction nationwide, its proponents, like Kidde, point to a growing body of research that shows impressive outcomes. In Oakland, California, schools with restorative justice programs saw absenteeism and dropout rates decline while staff and students reported a better school climate. Test scores in reading went up. Educators reported similar results in Minnesota, Colorado and Texas. Restorative justice works, proponents argue. But it takes training, buy-in from participants and time. “I don’t want to make it sound like this is some sort of magic bullet. It takes a lot of work, and it’s not easy. ... It’s not going to achieve those outcomes right off the bat,” Kidde said. Will to try Many Vermont educators appear willing to invest the effort. Kidde estimates that about 250 Vermont educators have taken one-day restorative justice trainings this year. Long-standing restorative justice programs are in place in a smattering of schools statewide, including Vergennes and Essex. Schools in Burlington and Springfield are readying to roll out programs, and the practice has piqued the interest of administrators in Clarendon, Fair Haven and Proctor. Jodie Ruck came to Mill River Union High in Clarendon, where she is dean of students, from New York City. She said nearly every school there had a restorative justice program. She’d seen success with the model, and finding enthusiasm for the concept with Mill River administrators started this year with an incremental rollout. “Character learning is a key piece of middle and high school. We’re not just making doctors and lawyers — we need to make good people,” she said. “The restorative practices cycle really teaches (students) to dissect their feelings and say ‘I felt really frustrated when you did this, because I thought it meant this.’ And teaching people to do that just means a more functional society. And definitely less time out of class.” The school now has a “restorative practices room” and a “restorative practices coordinator,” who replaced a different discipline-related staff member. This year, it has done about 15 restorative justice “circles” where the offender, their victim, and others involved — often parents, staff members and sometimes entire classrooms — will gather to talk out the incident. Speaking one by one, participants answer simple questions posed by a moderator: What do you think happened? How did you think it impacted you or others? What could make the situation better? “We’ve found that this is really powerful for students who just acted in the moment of anger, without thought, to think about how wide-reaching one event can be on the whole community. And to me, it’s been really great to see the restoration that takes place in those relationships,” Ruck said. Ruck emphasized that while it is less punitive, restorative justice doesn’t skip accountability. “On the ground, it’s so much harder for a student to sit in a circle with somebody that they might have been aggressive toward, and staff members, and take ownership than it is for them to be alone in a room for a day and then walk back out,” she said. Local reaction Kidde said many Vermont educators cite a Vermont Legal Aid report as a catalyst for their interest. The report, released last year, found that Vermont students had lost a minimum of 8,000 school days to suspension during the 2011-12 school year. It also found that students with disabilities were three times more likely to be suspended, and that black or Native American students were two to three times more likely to be suspended than white students. Restorative justice is often cited as an effective way to address discrimination in discipline. Kidde said he believes it’s because the approach requires building trust and relationships. “Our standard discipline is about social control. And restorative justice is about social engagement,” he explained. Research shows that white youth tend to be disciplined for concrete infractions — like bringing a knife or drugs to school — while youth of color tend to be disciplined for more subjective offences, like insubordination. “(If you can) just say, ‘You’re out, get out,’ that tends to happen when we don’t really understand students,” Kidde said. “Rather than push kids away when things go wrong, we advocate for drawing them in closer and understanding the context and what’s actually going on.” At Fair Haven Union High School, where administrators are just starting to look at the model, Assistant Principal Jason Rasco pointed to the Legal Aid report as evidence that the traditional discipline model needed to go. “We know it doesn’t work. We know it,” he said. And while equity was a concern at Fair Haven, Rasco said the impetus for revisiting discipline at Fair Haven was really about bringing that part of schooling in line with an evolution in education that prizes the whole child. “I think education in the 21st century is less about the discipline of math, English, and social studies — and rather maturation. And that’s a big task.”