Makini Niliwaambieni:
Restorative Justice is an approach
to building community and responding to harm with roots
in indigenous traditions. Schools across the country
are applying these strategies to manage classrooms
and create inclusive,
socially connected, and supportive
learning environments. Yazid Jackson: D.C. is facing
a lot of transition in a multitude of ways that
really impact our community. We're facing retention. We're facing the evaluation
system of teachers. We're facing gentrification. We're facing poverty.
We're facing violence. Niliwaambieni: Restorative
Practices can be used to address many needs
in a school. Proactive practices
include community building, academic instruction, and social-emotional
skill building. Nicole Gill: As a teacher,
I try my best to think of Restorative Justice as a way of communicating
better with my students, so every Monday,
we had a morning circle, so whether it was
just a check-in for about 5 to 10 minutes, we use it
as a proactive circle. Abby Sondak: The idea is that
they're creating a community within their classrooms that
everybody feels accountable to, and so when things do go wrong,
they come back to the circle, and they're able
to discuss it in a way that helps repair any damage
that has been done to keep things like that
from happening again. Shavonne Gibson:
We are teaching children to advocate for themselves
and the communities in which they will
eventually serve and lead. By allowing voice
to the conversation, we're teaching young people
that your feelings are genuine and important. Kayla: Well, before
I did the program, I didn't really feel
comfortable talking in front of a lot of people
and tell them-- like, expressing
how I felt about stuff, but when I did
when I started the program, like, it's easier to be open
and, you know, explain how I feel about
a certain topic and stuff. Niliwaambieni: Responsive
Practices bring together those involved in
a significant incident of harm to understand what happened,
agree on how to repair harm, and rebuild trust. Gibson:
Schools are really rethinking, "What does discipline mean, and when does it need to be
utilized and for what purpose?" We realized that a student
who is outside of the school is not learning,
and if we continue to exclude students
from their learning environment due to discipline,
we continue to put the students often who need us most
further and further behind. Restorative Justice has been
used as an alternative to exclusionary practices
by really thinking about how to restore the harm that was caused
to the community. Sitting at home
never restores the harm. It never allows you to sit
across the table from your peer and talk about what led you
to the actions that you did. What we've learned
is that in schools that are implementing
Restorative practices with fidelity, it's often not
the students who need changing. It's actually the adults
in the building. Charlotte Butler Strickland:
This work really required me to be reflective
about the things that I say, things that I do, and how I interact
with kids and adults. McGill: A lot of times
with Restorative Justice, someone is offended,
and there's offenders, but a lot of times,
things are misconstrued because of miscommunication. Natasha Williams: And it
opened the conversation and dialogue for students to
begin to talk to one another and resolve conflict
effectively. Nadia: You just see what's
going on, but you don't know what's actually going on
in a person's life or, like, what they're
going through, so it was like, "Be open
and hear people out." Strickland: Part of the
Restorative Practices training is learning
what your biases are so that you aren't
using your bias as a way to punish, as a way
to exile and not be inclusive. Jackson: In one of the schools
that we work with, you know, a Caucasian student, you know,
stated to a student of color they didn't belong
at that school because of misconduct
and violation of rules, and what we were able to do
was to have a conversation with the staff about
what was our feelings about, you know, hearing that and what work
needed to be done. Gentrification
is an issue in D.C., and what does that look like? What's the impact
on the community? Janice Carroll:
If you have no prior knowledge of dealing with someone
in a certain culture, you come with your own
preconceived ideas, same thing with children
with learning differences. Again, you can come
with your own ideas behind ADHD, for example,
you know-- "That child doesn't know
how to be still." Niliwaambieni:
Restorative Practices ensure that students who experience
trauma receive vital support to address harm
and make necessary connections to academic
and social services. Kia Matthews: The trauma cycles
from generation to generation, but what we see
in the classroom-- anger, depression,
and with kids, especially this age, the
depression looks like anger. Carroll: We have children who are helping parents
with babysitting. We have children
who are seeing abuse at home. We have children who have
drug abuse going on at home. Williams: The use
of R.J. practices can be used to help students
who have experienced trauma to be able to talk about that, to be able to share
their experiences, I think for a lot of students,
the beginning of an emotional release
and emotional healing. Matthews:
It helps with that key element of bringing humanity
back into the schools, assisting with
the belongingness that kids are struggling with
at this stage of life. How Restorative Justice helps
with that is just acknowledging that, sure,
you made an infraction. You made a mistake.
We all make them. You're not that mistake.
You're not that infraction. Nadia: If you did something,
it's probably something that's, like, at home
or somewhere else, and it's not even the school. It's just,
that's how they reacted because, like,
some people keep stuff in, some people don't talk,
some people, like, vent, so different people handle
their issues different. Jackson: We have to bring
humanity back to education, and I think that's one thing
that's really missing. We're looking at students
like a number, which is replicated
in our justice system. I think when we're
able to do that, I think we'll actually
see the positives. Like, it is painful
in the beginning because you have
to do some stuff that you're uncomfortable with. Gibson: What is a challenge
to Restorative implementation is not only mindset, but time. It is much easier
to send a student home by writing a letter
and attaching it to the child's file
for a suspension, and I think that school leaders
have to position themselves as to what is the greater
investment of time. Is the greater investment
to do the quick fix that continues not to work,
or is the greater investment to spend the time up front,
setting the conditions for long-term success
that actually will sustain you into the future? Niliwaambieni: Restorative
Practices reduce suspensions, expulsions,
and loss of instruction time that have a disproportionate
impact on minority students. Restorative Practices also
increase teacher retention, create a positive
school climate, and improve student
satisfaction and safety. Strickland:
When I first got here, this was the most challenging
middle school in DCPS, had the highest suspension rate of every other
middle school in the city. We are now, I would say,
at the top where the schools in the other part of town who
don't have discipline issues, we rank up there with them
as it relates to school climate and culture.