Restorative Discipline Practices as a Relational Approach to Building School Climate and Addressing Student Behavior

Presentation given at the National Youth At-Risk Conference. Relevance Restorative Discipline fosters belonging over exclusion, social engagement over control, and meaningful accountability over punishment. Fostering these social and emotional skills within our school community addresses the Heart conference strand, and equipping the school community with strategies to effectively respond to challenging behavior addresses the Hands conference strand by making schools a safer place. Brief Program Description This session provides insight into the moral commitment schools have to their students, how Restorative Discipline Practices can assist in building a campus climate and culture that supports this commitment, and how to facilitate the circle process to cultivate positive relationships amongst the school community. Summary According to Boyes-Watson and Pranis (2015), schools are the single publicly funded social institution where children grow up in the company of adults. This unique circumstance provides schools with an opportunity to redress social inequality by serving as centers of stability, continuity, and community that care for our most fragile and challenging students. According to Claassen and Claassen (2008), 10% of one’s life experience is dependent on what happens to them and 90% is based on how they respond. Everyone responds, in some way, when conflict arises. Often times, the response is unconscious and predictable, based on patterns learned in our daily life, and without an arsenal of effective strategies, teachers, school leaders, and students get caught up in an unmanaged cycle of conflict. Restorative Discipline Practices transforms the traditional school discipline structure into a process that invites accountability and responsibility for one’s own actions (Claassen & Claassen, 2015). Restorative Justice, defined as “a process to involve, to the extent possible, those who have a stake in a specific offense and to collectively identify and address harms, needs, and obligations in order to heal and put things as right as possible” (Claassen & Claassen, 2008), serves as the foundation for Restorative Discipline in schools. Restorative Discipline fosters belonging over exclusion, social engagement over control, and meaningful accountability over punishment. Basic principles, values, and processes of Restorative Discipline Practices and interventions in school settings is necessary to build community and for responding to challenging, behavior through open dialogue, coming to an understanding, and creating opportunities to set things right. This session provides insight into the moral commitment schools have to their students, how Restorative Discipline Practices can assist in building a campus climate and culture that supports this commitment, and how to facilitate the circle process to cultivate positive relationships amongst the school community. Evidence Restorative Justice dates back more than 1,100 years as an effective technique to foster caring relationships within a community of people. The indigenous people used the concepts and techniques outlined in Restorative Justice to teach accountability and responsibility for one\u27s behavior. More recently, the concepts and practices of Restorative Justice have been adapted to provide a restorative and caring discipline structure for schools. There is a growing body of research to support this structure that fosters belonging over exclusion, social engagement over control, and meaningful accountability over punishment as an effective way to turn around some of the toughest schools in our nation