Fix School Discipline Toolkit for Educators | Page 48

students, between students and teachers and
between staff members.
We use the peer court process for students returning
from suspension or students who could receive
discretionary suspensions. This is a student-led
process, and adults don’t speak unless they are
asked to. A student who has committed an offense
sits in front of a panel of his or her peers and the
student’s advocate, an assistant principal, sits next
to the student. The panel – consisting of about 5-7
students chosen from a pool of about 40 trained
students - asks the student restorative questions,
as well as other questions to get a full picture of
what the student is experiencing both in and out of
school. After gaining all the information, the panel
deliberates to determine the restorative “sentence”
and create a restorative contract that the student
must follow to divert his or her suspensions. Some
restorative sentences include anger management
classes, tutoring, getting drug counseling, cleaning
up the mess he or she made, or writing an apology
letter and delivering it. Most students complete
their restorative contract, and when they do, the
suspension is expunged from their record. We’ve
had students who asked to continue their contract;
for instance, one student thought that his anger
management classes were really helping and he
wanted to continue them.

What challenges have you encountered in the
process of changing the discipline practices at
Davidson?

contract don’t want their kid to have to stand up in
front of the whole class and apologize because it
will be embarrassing. In order to overcome these
challenges, we incorporated as many community
members and teachers in the process of finding
alternatives to improve the school. These people
were instrumental in getting their peers on board.
No one listens to the administrator; they convince
each other.

How much does it cost to implement these
alternatives and how do you pay for them?
MacLean: The only real costs are for professional
development and personnel. I use Title I funding.
Since Karen was already trained in restorative
practices, she trained the staff for free but I paid
for the extra time that she spends coordinating
restorative practices and the peer court program.
Junker: I sometimes provide consultation and
training to other schools to help them begin to
implement restorative practices. Training can be
very inexpensive; an entire school can be trained
for a few thousand dollars. The issue is finding one
or a group of staff members who would be willing
to coordinate and continue the restorative practices
and circles. There are many possibilities.

Since implementing restorative practices, peer
courts and the No Bully program, how is the
climate at Davidson?

Junker: There was pushback from teachers, who
were used to the old way of doing things and thought
that restorative practices and peer court would let
students get away with bad behavior. But after they
saw that fulfilling a restorative contract did not
just give students an easy way out and helped the
student behave better and deal with the reasons for
his/her behavior, they were much more willing to
buy-in.

Junker: There is a lot of pride here now. Attendance
is really high and disciplinary actions are way down.
Suspensions have been reduced by 80% and our
API scores increased by 85 points and across all
subgroups. Enrollment has gone up (by more than
100 students during 2010-2012). Kids want to come
to school because they feel good and safe here. They
feel respected because they also know that when they
are having trouble with a teacher or another student
they can call a circle too.

MacLean: It’s a challenge convincing everyone,
including parents and teachers, that doing things
this way, the restorative way, is the better way.
There seems to be a mindset among the public that
punishment works. If, after an incident, students
weren’t absent for a day or two or three, parents of
the “wronged” student weren’t happy. Additionally,
parents of a student who is given a restorative

Teachers are participating much more in the
extracurricular lives of students. Teachers are
providing after school tutoring, teachers are giving
more of themselves. Teachers and administrators
are working together better because they all feel
included and are part of all processes. In the past
some teachers were so frustrated that they would
leave classrooms or send many students out on

46 How we can fix school discipline