Unit 4: Building Long-term Restorative Communities

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Unit overview

Every teacher who has been working for more than a year will tell you there is always the next trend, the next thing that will come in and fix the education system. Many have heard of and dismissed restorative practices as just another trend. Honestly, it may be, but that doesn't change the fact the current social-cultural climate needs it. There has been a notable increase in hate and emotional dysregulation in our society, I would argue people feel isolated because we have lost our sense of community. Academics matter, but kindness matters too. Teaching a culture of care to students can go a long way in creating safe, welcoming, and happy communities. Schools that work to create a restorative culture of care have been shown to foster more inclusive and meaningful learning, social-emotional growth, positive behaviors, and better outcomes for students personally and academically.

The goal of unit 4 is to set ourselves up for success with RP in the long term. Simple but consistent restorative acts can add up over time. Learners can expect to conduct an analysis of practice, specifically focusing on the ways they are and are not restorative. Then create a realistic plan focused on the things they can do consistently that can be built upon and carried out to foster a long-term restorative community.

Learning objectives

Analyze their current classroom practices and identify the ways they are and are not restorative.
Create a foundational plan that can be built upon and carried out consistently to foster long-term restorative classroom communities.

Unit Activities

Step 1: Case study benefits of creating a Restorative Community and long-term practices that create a culture of care.

Step 2: Conduct an in-depth analysis of their own practice and the ways it is and is not restorative.

Step 3: Write a reflection focusing on setting goals for the long-term changes they can enact to build toward restorative practices

Step 1: Case study benefits of Restorative Justice

After all this, you may wonder does RP actually work? The answer is yes, when it works it really works. Partnering with the Chicago school district the University of Chicago's Education lab recently completed one of the most comprehensive studies analyzing the impacts of RP in schools. Their research examined data spanning from the 2008-2009 school year to the 2018-2019 school year. Encompasses both pre- and post-implementation of RP programs with implementation starting in the 2013 school year. By assessing student behavior before and after exposure to RP across various school contexts, the study offers unique insights into the causal impact of restorative practices programming.

You can watch the project brief below:

Some of the key findings include:

RP decreases out-of-school suspensions, as well as in- and out-of-school arrests for non-violent and violent offenses; specifically, the introduction of RP in CPS high schools reduced out-of-school suspension days by 18 percent and student arrests by 15 percent.
There is no evidence of corresponding increases in in-school suspensions, suggesting that students receive more in-school instruction time in response to policy adoption.
Evidence that RP results in significant improvements in perceived school climate, in combination with the authors’ analysis of Chicago Police Department data, affirms that these positive results reflect genuine changes in underlying student behavior rather than solely changes in how teachers and school administrators respond to behavioral challenges.
There is no evidence that reductions in out-of-school suspensions lead to increased classroom disruption, as predicted by some advocates of more traditional punishment practices.
Finally, the authors also explore heterogeneity by student gender and race, among other attributes, to find that Black male and female students experience the largest absolute reductions in arrests and out-of-school suspension days. Black male students are also absent fewer days after RP is introduced. It was observed that the programmatic benefits were particularly large for Black students, although the authors also found evidence that Latino male students’ test scores may have declined in response to RP adoption.

(Anjali Adukia et al., 2023)See the research brief or the full working paper below.

Step 2: Analyze your practices

Now that we know more about Restorative practices, you learned some approachable everyday practices that are restorative. Spend a week teaching/ working with students, treat this week like any other normal week. As you work keep track of your practices, restorative or otherwise. The goal here is to start noticing our habits. Once you have that information you can use your current practices as the foundation for our long-term goal. Looking for ways we can tweak your current practice to include intentional and consistent restorative acts or to slowly fade out punitive practices. Use the note-taking guide linked below as a means of daily reflection on practice then complete the analysis of practice.

Step 3: Goal Setting

Making the switch to RP might sound daunting but we are going to focus on what we can do and start small by setting goals toward a more restorative future. Make a plan for yourself in creating a more restorative future by using the data from your analysis of practice and filling out the goal-setting form linked below.

Goal Setting

Whats Next?

In this unit, we looked at a case study showing just how well RP can work. Analyzed our own practices and set goals toward a more restorative future. What's next is up to you.