[00:01] Announcer:
Welcome to Principal Center Radio, helping you build capacity for instructional leadership. Here's your host, Director of the Principal Center, Dr. Justin Bader. Welcome, everyone, to Principal Center Radio.
[00:13] SPEAKER_00:
I'm your host, Justin Bader, and I'm honored to be joined today by Dr. Anne Gregory of Rutgers University and Dr. Katherine Evans of Eastern Mennonite University, authors of the new National Education Policy Center paper, The Starts and Stumbles of Restorative Justice in Education, Where do we go from here?
[00:32] Announcer:
And now, our feature presentation.
[00:36] SPEAKER_00:
So Anne and Catherine, welcome to Principal Center Radio.
[00:38] SPEAKER_01:
Thank you. Good to be here.
[00:40] SPEAKER_00:
I'm very excited to speak with you about restorative justice because you have done the work of doing a literature review and a review of the current state of knowledge around restorative justice, which over the last couple of years has rapidly entered the conversation in k-12 public education we're seeing state laws we're seeing district policies around suspension we're seeing a big impact to practitioners and i think we need to catch up in terms of what the research actually says so i wonder if we could start with a bit of a definition and an orientation catherine what is restorative justice properly understood
[01:18] SPEAKER_02:
Yeah, so I think restorative justice looks like a lot of different things to a lot of different people. One of the ways that restorative justice has been introduced into schools is through alternative approaches to school discipline. Within the last several years, however, people have begun to look more broadly at restorative justice in education, not just as an approach to discipline, but also as a holistic way of of understanding the relational nature of learning grounded in indigenous teachings where people lived in communities and they lived, worked, survived together. Uh, the principles, the concepts of restorative justice are being passed down to us now as a way to rethink how we live together, how we work together, how we learn together. So it's, I think it's a relational framework for understanding schools, um,
[02:12]
We need to return to that, I think, if we're going to be effective at not just teaching algebra, for example, but for helping kids grow and mature into the human beings that we need in our society. So for me, it's a very holistic way of understanding school-based relationships.
[02:33] SPEAKER_00:
And that really is what we're talking about restoring with restorative justice, right? Restoring healthy relationships among students, between students and staff members. Is that correct?
[02:42] SPEAKER_02:
Yes, absolutely. So looking both proactively and responsibly at those relationships, how do we nurture them to begin with? And then when things go awry and relationships are broken, how do we mend those? How do we repair the harm that's caused by misbehaviors, by misunderstandings, by conflict? How do we repair those relationships so that we can thrive together?
[03:09] SPEAKER_00:
I appreciate your mention of indigenous communities and small communities where we are going to have to figure out how to work together. There is no new opportunity for people to just move on to a different setting if those relationships are harmed. And I personally live in a small town. And that is how things are here. Everybody is related to someone. Everyone exists in that multifaceted kind of social web that makes it paramount to maintain those relationships even when things happen that disrupt them.
[03:45]
But it would be difficult to speak about restorative justice without acknowledging the history of zero tolerance in the way that other approaches to discipline. We saw a lot of concern about gun violence over the past couple of decades, and we saw a lot of policies around zero tolerance. We heard things like kindergarteners getting expelled for bringing a nail clipper and all of these different kind of overreactions on the one side. How does that context and that history of zero tolerance play into what's happening with restorative justice today?
[04:18] SPEAKER_01:
Across the nation, we're working on transforming school discipline. And part of it has been in reaction to the large body of research showing suspension can actually, in exclusionary discipline, can worsen students' trajectories, right? That if a student's already relationship to school is already somewhat tenuous, it can increase a student's probability of dropout. And on top of that, in terms of the issues around the school-to-prison pipeline and kind of rampant zero-tolerance policies, there's been a focus on racial justice accompanying restorative justice, this idea of increasing equity in schools as being absolutely essential in moving this work forward. So as suspension and exclusionary discipline has been kind of questioned and challenged as a quote-unquote intervention,
[05:09]
Schools are looking for other approaches. Many, many schools are turning to restorative practice and restorative justice, again, in an effort to teach social-emotional learning skills to create more inclusive environments that's kind of relationally oriented, as Kathy said. So schools are really shifting nationwide their school discipline policies to move away from this era of zero tolerance, in which many students were excluded from school for non-safety-threatening activities.
[05:38] SPEAKER_00:
Yeah, no, certainly we've seen, you know, the kind of cycle of negativity that can happen when, you know, a student is removed from school, often for, you know, for longer than necessary, or when there, you know, there could have been an alternative to suspending or expelling the student. And then, of course, a student who is behind academically, a student who's not been in class is going to have a very difficult time reintegrating and catching up. And I'm glad that we're finally starting to see, you know, the foolishness of policies like suspending kids for being tardy. and excluding kids from school for things that are not a safety threat to other people, but are basically a sign that that student needs help and needs to be better integrated and better connected with in order to succeed academically. But I also want to acknowledge that restorative justice is coming into the profession from two different angles.
[06:31]
And I want to make sure that we accurately capture the kind of organic development and the successful functioning of these practices that's happening in many of the schools that have been studied, as well as the policy side that is affecting schools that maybe are not on board. And it's alarming to read teacher blogs, to read in teacher groups on social media, how many people are hearing about restorative justice for the first time as a policy that they really have no understanding of. They've had nothing to do with the development of that policy in their context. And all they're hearing is no matter what kids do, basically they have to stay in class. If they punch somebody, they're going to come back to your room in five minutes. If they kick you in the stomach, they're going to come back to your room in five minutes.
[07:14]
And I'm seeing that that's creating this kind of backlash against restorative justice. So I wonder if we could start with the kind of model as ideally conceived as it's been developed in the schools that have taken it seriously and been successful with it. What is restorative justice in practice properly understood? What are schools doing that actually works, that actually leaves both teachers and students better off?
[07:38] SPEAKER_02:
I think one of the things that you're talking about from my perspective is obviously a misimplementation, right? So when we began to think about that example there of no matter what a child does, they have to stay in class, like there's nothing about restorative justice that would suggest that. This isn't about whether or not we protect students in the classroom. It's not about whether or not we promote school safety. And if someone is suggesting that restorative justice means that there's never a suspension or there's never a consequence, that's a misunderstanding. Restorative justice actually promotes accountability, but it provides the support with that accountability so that we're nurturing students' growth and well-being, that we're helping create opportunities to learn from different situations.
[08:32]
Actually, the accountability for student behaviors might be higher because we're not just looking for a compliance model. Are you in school? But we're actually looking for growth on the part of the students, social, emotional growth, well-being, motivated learning. We're looking holistically at students' needs and their behaviors. Um, so I think that would be a gross misunderstanding of restorative justice to say that there's no consequences.
[09:02] SPEAKER_01:
And I would just add, you were suggesting, um, you know, what do we know about good implementation? It sounds like, what are the component parts in schools? Um, and I would say, first of all, that the kind of science of, um, implementation science has a long way to go. First of all, to say, we've got a lot more to learn about what good implementation looks like. But I would say, um, having, you know, both Kathy and I have studied carefully implementation and learned a lot from the field. Too many practitioners have shared their wisdom around implementation.
[09:36]
And a few things I would say is that some schools are starting with staff, saying we need to think about having a healthy staff community, healthy adult relationships.
[09:46] SPEAKER_00:
So
[09:46] SPEAKER_01:
How do we repair harm among staff, ourselves? How do we build community and connection and our own social emotional competencies? There's a focus to not just kind of this kind of top-down look at students having skill deficits, but to say we all can improve. So there's a real focus on this idea of prevention, building community in schools. Schools are doing, you know, what we often hear about, things like community building circles programs. really intentional focus on having relational supports in schools.
[10:18]
And then they're also very much concretely and clearly developing policy and procedures for communication and skill development for students who are struggling with behavior and dysregulation. Where implementation two can go awry is when it's unclear what teachers are supposed to do when they need support. addressing a student's developmental needs. So in my perspective, when I see it going, working better in schools, there's a lot more clarity around when a teacher might seek outside support with a student and then follow up. So you sometimes hear teachers say, well, I sent my student, someone worked with my student. I don't really know what went on.
[11:03]
And that becomes very disconcerting for teachers to not understand that there actually was an intervention, there was work done with that student, there were some goals set. And so schools that are doing well are making those processes and work with individual students much more clear to teachers so they don't feel kind of left on their own.
[11:23] SPEAKER_02:
Yeah, I think for a while the research would say, are you doing restorative justice or are you not doing? And we have to look deeper into like how those practices are being implemented. And if all we're doing is responding to quote unquote misbehavior without establishing those holistic practices that change the nature and the culture of our school. I think we're going to be missing opportunities to support not only our students, but our faculty and staff. Our teachers are burning out at unprecedented levels and we have staffing issues with teachers. And when we create these toxic school environments where, Everything is punitive and it's hierarchical and it's competitive and it's individualistic.
[12:15]
Nobody thrives in that environment. Teachers don't thrive. Students don't thrive. Administrators don't thrive. Nobody's doing well. Nobody's being healthy in those places.
[12:26]
And so learning gets thwarted on every turn, right? Parents and caregivers feel left out of the process. Like nobody's connected. And so if we can establish some of those relational practices that really pull us together, everybody benefits.
[12:41] SPEAKER_00:
So you say in the paper that restorative justice programs need to be principle-based, comprehensive, and equity-oriented. First of all, what does it mean for a restorative justice approach to be principle, P-L-E, based?
[12:57] SPEAKER_02:
For me, there's a certain set of values involved. that define what restorative justice is, that kind of frame it. At the core of that is this commitment to the worth and value of every human in that learning community. And if we lose that piece, then I don't think we're going to have great implementation of restorative justice in education. I have to be able to look at the child who's melting down right in front of my face and still see value and worth in that child. and have to believe that they are reachable, that they matter, that it's worth my effort and my time to invest in them.
[13:34]
The parent that comes in screaming because they feel like their child was treated unfairly, I have to see that parent as valuable and worthy and honor what they're bringing, even if it's really difficult for me to be able to meet that need in that moment. So at the core, I believe, is that commitment. And then just Treating with one another with respect and dignity and mutual concern, which are three core values of restorative justice and education. If we lose those pieces, I think no matter how many circles we sit in or how many conferences we hold, we will miss opportunities to build the kind of community that we're hoping to build.
[14:14] SPEAKER_01:
Yeah, and I would concur that we have to emphasize this idea of values. You know, some people are talking about the notion of mindsets in the work. that we could go in and count, again, conferences and circles. But if there's not an adherence to the core kind of spirit of the work, You're going to hear students, and I've heard students I've interviewed after they completed conferences saying, that just felt like the same old shaming and blaming. It didn't feel any difference. What was that supposed to be?
[14:43]
A restorative conference? And also you can hear staff saying things like, it just feels like we're putting a new label on this, but the practices are really the same. So it's almost like the heart of the work can get gutted. If there's not a real clear, in my perspective, exploration with staff and principals and and students about the values that really undergird the work.
[15:06] SPEAKER_02:
There's some work right now amongst restorative justice and education folks to look at readiness. And by looking at readiness, figuring out like what is the temperature of the school? And are we ready to start training in circle processes? Or do we need to back up and look at kind of the culture of the school first to determine whether or not implementing restorative justice right now might actually just replicate the punitive models that are already in place? Or do we need to kind of slow up our implementation and actually make sure that we're having those kinds of mindset shifts before we start training everybody in how to do it?
[15:49] SPEAKER_00:
Yeah, I think that's a key point. And I wanted to ask about what's sometimes happening from the other direction. And I'm hearing probably the most about this in the state of California because of recent legislation designed to reduce out-of-school suspensions for basically for low-level misbehavior or for willful defiance. And that, for a lot of classroom teachers and perhaps school administrators as well, is the first kind of required, you must pay attention to restorative justice now, kind of situation that they've been in as educators. And I imagine you share this concern that restorative justice is being misimplemented, that it's being misconstrued as basically Kids can never be sent out of class. Kids can never be sent home.
[16:35]
You don't have to worry about safety. We don't suspend kids for any reason. And educators are being told, or at least maybe they're not being told, but they're at least somehow getting the message that restorative justice is all about doing away with consequences for behavior and doing away with the the safeguards that we've historically had in education that if a student assaults a staff member or assaults another student, if there's a fight, things like that, that those students just have to stay in class. Where do you think those misconceptions about what restorative justice really is are coming from? How did we get to this place where there are these vast kind of widespread misapplications of restorative justice?
[17:14] SPEAKER_01:
One thing I think a lot about is that we've been socialized to think about accountability in a very narrow way. this notion that exclusion and punishment is our go to around consequences that all of us have internalized. I think this notion of just exclusion as punishment as the only way to go. And so to shift, this is no small undertaking to kind of shift an understanding about, um, accountability, uh, being conceptualized very differently related to, um, Putting a process in place where students and staff have an opportunity to think about who was harmed and how to repair the harm is a paradigm shift. And so another reason I think people have gone quickly to, oh, there's a lack of accountability or there's no process, is that there's not enough support for teachers in this work.
[18:11]
That there's not enough support showing them, demonstrating, coaching, giving them the time. This can take time. Relationally oriented schools, it takes time to repair. It can be quicker to kind of move a student out of a room. And so, again, the stresses and strains in the teaching profession, I think, are just heightened in these kinds of moments when programs come in that take more time and resource. And so we're seeing those tensions.
[18:40] SPEAKER_00:
I see restorative justice being something that people are really excited about and really hungry for in contexts where maybe the readiness to invest the time and the collaborative effort are not there. And I almost see restorative justice being used sometimes as a band-aid in schools that really need a lot of things to happen. You know, they need staffing stability, they need funding stability, they need leadership stability. And restorative justice is often kind of...
[19:11]
clung to as this lifeline, like, oh, well, we'll just become a restorative justice school without the investment. So I guess my question is, if properly understood, restorative justice seems like the kind of effort that really does take some effort, that does take certain resources and certain actions on the part of leaders and of classroom teachers to really do right. I think the last thing any of us want is to just slap a new label on old practices and call it restorative justice. What are some of the assets that need to be in place and some of the processes that need to occur for a school to succeed with a restorative justice effort?
[19:51] SPEAKER_02:
One of the things for me is to slow down. If we're really looking for transformational types of processes, we have to slow the process down. And I think Sometimes that means really working with your staff first, working with teachers and educators. I think we need the resources in place to support the practices that we're hoping to see. For example, I don't think it's reasonable to ask a classroom teacher to facilitate a restorative justice conference for two kids that got in a fight. They don't have the time.
[20:26]
They don't have the energy. Their job is to teach math. And so having people in place who can actually do that work to facilitate those kinds of practices. But also, I think not underestimating the support that educators need to just do their work better. That means professional development for them, mentoring practices. I think Anne mentioned some of these earlier, but the support that needs to be there to support the day-to-day practices that they have.
[20:57]
We know that there's a lot of students that are experiencing trauma on a daily basis, and that seems to be a buzzword right now, and yet we continually defund our school counseling practices and other support services that would help students who are struggling with trauma.
[21:14] SPEAKER_01:
I would add that in terms of thinking through implementation, we call for strategic long-term planning. A lot of schools can move to a train and hope model. They send hundreds, sometimes thousands of educators out to multi-day trainings and then hope that there's some uptake. And given the amount of initiatives that all the principals, administrators, and teachers are juggling, that's just not realistic. I think it's strategic when a principal thinks or a district thinks about, let's do a demonstration school, let's pilot this, let's kind of grow the work, grow from that people who are willing and advocates and are ready to move, have that mindset shift. So, and thinking very, very planfully about the need for booster trainings and support And for reflection and tweaking and iterative improvement.
[22:08]
And all of this has to be done in the context of help and moving the school boards along with the work. Because that's also another whole process that needs to be mindfully done is educating school boards. And having them and superintendents supporting the work as well.
[22:24] SPEAKER_00:
Very well said. And I appreciate your comments a moment ago about slowing down. I think, Catherine, you talked about the importance of just taking it one step at a time and really building that work internally. And I think we have to be cautious about hearing about something secondhand or thirdhand and just saying, well, we'll do that here, we'll figure it out. Every school certainly does have to figure it out for themselves, but there is a deliberative process to go through and an intentional process to go through. And I just want to highlight one impressive thing about your review of the literature here.
[23:01]
You cite 97 sources, 97 different studies and publications about restorative justice. So to me, at the moment, this is the definitive kind of jumping off point for anyone interested in restorative justice. So what I've done to make it easier for our listeners is I've created a direct link to where people can download the paper. If you go to principalcenter.com slash rjprincipalcenter.com slash rj for restorative justice.
[23:26]
That will take you to the National Education Policy Center's website where you can download the full paper, The Starts and Stumbles of Restorative Justice in Education. Where do we go from here? And Catherine, before we go, we should mention that you are affiliated with a graduate program in restorative justice. Could you tell us a little bit about that and where people can go to learn more?
[23:45] SPEAKER_02:
Sure. Eastern Mennonite has a graduate program in restorative justice and education. It's a master's level program. There's a master's in ed in restorative justice in education. There's also a five course graduate certificate, which can be done both in an online format and a face to face format. You can find more at www.emu.edu slash RJE.
[24:09] SPEAKER_00:
Well, Catherine Evans and Anne Gregory, thanks so much for joining me on Principal Center Radio. It's been a pleasure.
[24:14] SPEAKER_01:
Thanks for having us.
[24:16] Announcer:
Thanks for listening to Principal Center Radio. For more great episodes, subscribe on our website at principalcenter.com slash radio.
