The Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) found that punishing students for fighting or breaking rules was ineffective. As a result, schools in Oakland are implementing new methods for dealing with misbehavior, reported the Rockridge Patch.
Now students involved in fights or other disciplinary infractions go into a Restorative Justice program where they work to resolve their problems. The program emphasizes that violence is never a solution to conflict.
According to the OUSD website, Restorative Justice is a set of principles and practices employed to build community and respond to student misconduct, with the goals of repairing harm and restoring relationships between those impacted. Restorative Justice promotes dialogue in order to solve indifference and to avoid violence.
The pilot program in Oakland schools uses a three-tiered model of prevention, intervention and supported reentry in response to conflict or inflicted harm.
Edna Brewer Middle School is one school in the district using the program, according to a National Public Radio post late last year.
“Instead of throwing a punch, they’re asking for a circle, they’re backing off and asking to mediate it peacefully with words,” said Ta-Biti Gibson, the school’s Restorative Justice co-director. “And that’s a great thing.”
District Superintendent Antwan Wilson and other officials at Lakeview Elementary School said the Restorative Justice programs have had a measurable impact on school behavior and educational outcomes, reported the Rockridge Patch.
According to Wilson, keeping the students in class instead of sending them home as a disciplinary measure has increased graduation rates by 60 percent and has had a 128 percent increase in reading levels for students at schools that use Restorative Justice.
NPR said that the percentage of students suspended at OUSD schools that have fully adopted the Restorative Justice program “has dropped by half, from 34 percent in 2011-12 to just 14 percent the following two years.”
“Children involved with the program have been willing to resolve their differences with words,” NPR reported.
Schools throughout the U.S. are exercising the Restorative Justice program. The cities of Chicago, Minneapolis, Palm Beach County and Denver are among several implementing their versions of such a successful program.
