America


‘Restorative’ Discipline Fails to Curb School Violence


New softer, kinder policy aims to curb student suspensions but critics say it isn’t working.


T BY VINCE BIELSKI


he fight outside north High School in Denver was about to turn more violent as one girl wrapped a bike chain


around her fist to strike the other. Just before the attacker used the


weapon, school staff arrived and restrained her, ending the fight but not the story. Most high schools would have


referred the chain-wielding girl to the police. But North High brought the two girls together to resolve the conflict through conversation. They discovered that a boy was play-


ing them off each other. Feeling less hostile after figuring out the backstory, the girls did not fight again. This alternative method of disci-


pline, called “restorative practices,” is spreading across the country — and being put to the test. Many schools are enduring sharp


increases in violence following the return of students from COVID-19 lock- downs, making this softer approach a higher-stakes experiment in student safety.


“Kids are getting into more fights


and disturbances because they are struggling,” says Yoli Anyon, a profes- sor of social work at San Jose State University. “So schools are relying on restorative


practices as a way to help young people transition back to the classroom.” Long pushed by racial justice groups,


the method aims to curb suspensions and arrests that, critics say, dispropor- tionately affect students of color. Orange County, California, is spear-


heading an expansion of the program into 32 schools, and Iowa City just start- ed its own. Many other large districts — including Baltimore, Chicago, Kansas City, Miami, New York City, Oakland, Pittsburgh, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. — intro- duced the alternative in recent years. Denver, which pioneered restor-


ative practices more than a decade ago and inspired districts to follow its lead, seems a good place to ask: Is the kinder approach working? Yes and no, and often the answer


depends on the eye of the beholder. Suspensions have fallen significant-


ly, in keeping with the intent of the changed discipline policy. But fighting


and other serious incidents have not meaningfully declined, the district says. Critics point to the


massacre in Parkland, Florida, as a chilling example of what can go wrong. Nikolas Cruz, who


killed 17 fellow stu- dents and staff mem- bers in 2018, was able to stay in school — and pass a background check to pur- chase the weapon he used — because the district tried to address his violent behavior before the shooting through counseling instead of referring him to authorities. Some teachers and administrations


CRUZ


don’t buy the restorative philosophy. In schools struggling with low test scores and overcrowded classrooms, it seems like another time-consuming educa- tional fad. And students who are demoralized


by school sometimes see a restorative conversation as an easy way to escape suspension rather than a learning expe- rience.


“Restorative practices aren’t a silver


bullet that alone fix behavior problems,” says Don Haddad, the superintendent of Colorado’s St. Vrain Valley School District, which has used the program for years. “It only works as part of a compre-


hensive improvement of schools, with better academic programs that give stu- dents hope for the future.” The debate continues over why stu-


dents of color are more likely to be sus- pended: Are they really misbehaving more often than whites?


The question isn’t merely academic,


RESTORATIVE A school in Alexandria, Virginia, uses a ‘community circle’ as a new method to reduce suspensions and arrests. Yet after COVID-19 closures, cops had to be called back.


26 NEWSMAX | APRIL 2022


since students who are suspended or expelled are about three times as likely to be involved with the juvenile jus- tice system the following year, research shows.


CRUZ/AP IMAGES / COMMUNITY CIRCLE/ALEXANDRIA CITY PUBLIC SCHOOLS


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