Restorative Justice (RJ): Approach to building community and responding to harm with roots in indigenous traditions.
Application in Schools: Used to manage classrooms and create inclusive, socially connected, and supportive learning environments.
Challenges Facing D.C. Schools
Yazid Jackson's Overview: Schools are facing issues such as teacher retention, evaluation systems, gentrification, poverty, and violence.
Proactive Restorative Practices
Community Building: Creating a sense of community within the classroom.
Academic Instruction: Integrating RJ into teaching methods.
Social-Emotional Skill Building: Helping students develop emotional intelligence.
Example: Morning Circles
Nicole Gill: Conducts a morning circle every Monday for check-ins and proactive community building.
Responsive Restorative Practices
Addressing Harm: Bringing together those involved in significant incidents to understand what happened and agree on how to repair harm and rebuild trust.
Reevaluating Discipline: Moving away from exclusionary practices (e.g., suspensions) to more inclusive methods.
Key Points by Shavonne Gibson
Students excluded from school are not learning; exclusionary discipline often harms those who need support the most.
Restorative Justice as an Alternative: Focus on restoring harm and community trust rather than exclusion.
Implementation and Reflection
Charlotte Butler Strickland: Emphasizes the need for adults to reflect on their actions and interactions.
Miscommunication and Bias: Important to address and understand biases to avoid unfair punishment.
Real-Life Applications
Natasha Williams: Restorative practices open dialogue among students to resolve conflicts effectively.
Nadia: Encourages openness and understanding of others' experiences.
Addressing Trauma
Support for Traumatized Students: Ensuring that students who experience trauma receive support and connections to services.
Kia Matthews: Classroom behaviors often reflect deeper issues like anger or depression stemming from trauma.
Real-Life Experiences
Janice Carroll: Discusses challenges faced by students such as babysitting responsibilities, exposure to abuse, and drug abuse at home.
Emotional Healing: Encouraging students to talk about their experiences as a step towards healing.
Restorative Justice Outcomes
Improvement in School Climate: Reduction in suspensions, expulsions, and loss of instruction time, particularly benefiting minority students.
Positive Impacts: Increased teacher retention, improved school climate, and higher student satisfaction and safety.
Successful Case: Significant decrease in suspension rates and improved school climate at a once challenging middle school in DCPS.
Challenges to Implementation
Mindset and Time: Implementation requires a shift in mindset and a significant time investment.
Shavonne Gibson: Emphasizes the long-term benefits of investing time in setting up RJ practices compared to quick disciplinary fixes.