Restorative Justice Practices

My district and site both use restorative justice practices. I think it is a great proactive strategy to help students understand the consequences of their actions and resolve conflicts amongst students. Instead of dealing with behaviors with punitive consequences (detention/suspension etc) there is a huge focus on empowering students with communication tools to have difficult conversations with each other. I also like how restorative justice allows students to reflect on their behavior choices and how to make better choices in the future. I think it has made a huge difference with the students at my site and although there are still behavior issues, there is huge improvement with communication and problem solving skills. After just one year of implementation, my district reported that there was a significant reduction in expulsion rates (reduced by 60%) but this was in conjunction with our school board decision to reducing the number of automatic expulsions. This gave sites more discretion in recommending for expulsions. They credit both the shift in discipline policy for expulsion and the implementation of restorative justice practices both impacted the significant reduction in expulsion rates. Here is an article below: http://www.kpbs.org/news/2015/jul/30/new-approach-discipline-san-diego-unifed-proven-su/