Fix School Discipline Toolkit for Educators | Page 74
What did you do with the survey data and the
information you received from the focus groups?
MaryJane: We then spent a year teasing out the
themes of these focus groups, learning more about
data analysis, analyzing data, and setting goals.
YLI worked with the members of SUCCESS on
team building. We went slowly, which is good so
members of the collaborative group have a good
sense of what is happening and what their roles
are. We had a team retreat that was so important.
Things can fall apart quickly if you don’t remind
yourselves about your goals and message. Other
people and organizations were coming to us asking,
“Do you want to take on the Superintendent?” and
that’s another political issue that was not ours. We
wanted to work with the school district, schools and
Superintendent to increase student attendance,
graduation and the rates of students going to
college.
Miriam: We also spent that year, meeting for at least
an hour after school, once a week to be trained in
research, how to talk to school board administration,
and what we wanted to change. Then, after that year
we had a SUCCESS Conference. About 110 people,
students of all ages, teachers, FUSD administration,
courts, police enforcement, and community members
attended the Conference.
MaryJane: There was a data board with charts and
graphs detailing what we learned with focus groups.
We had a panel presentation about rights and
responsibilities. For instance, people from the school
district explained the suspension/expulsion and
attendance rules while people from the American
Civil Liberties Union talked about due process and
civil rights. A police officer and judge also spoke
about their experiences with students in the juvenile
and criminal justice area. We also learned about
Restorative Justice from a professor from Fresno
Pacific University who wrote a book called Discipline
That Restores.
After this conference and receiving all of this
information, what did YLI and SUCCESS do next?
Miriam: After the conference, SUCCESS decided
on pursuing Restorative Justice as a policy that
the Fresno Unified School District should adopt
and decided that we wanted to meet with the
Superintendent.
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How we can fix school discipline
How did you convince the Superintendent to
meet with a group of students and community
organizations?
MaryJane: Our district had a sense that discipline is
a problem and could admit that publicly to a certain
extent. Fresno Unified views students as a powerful
force so it was pretty easy to get a meeting with the
Superintendent because we had done our homework
and knew our issue. SUCCESS caught the District’s
eye because people who worked at the District
attended the SUCCESS conference. It also helped
that news stories were coming out in the Fresno Bee
about suspensions and the drop out rate in Fresno.
Additionally, we had also built the relationship, so all
we did was send an email and work out scheduling.
It’s really important to develop relationships. To
build the relationship, you should go to every
Board meeting and have a conversation with the
administrators there, including the Superintendent,
and talk to them as humans. The District people and
Superintendent have to be at these Board meetings
and you have their attention during the down times
while nothing is happening; they can’t go anywhere.
Tell them who you are and your goals. Keep
conversation grounded in the bigger goal. We aren’t
coming after anyone; we just want to focus on what’s
good for our children and youth.
What happened in the meetings with the
Superintendent and what were the results?
MaryJane: At the first meeting with the
Superintendent, we presented the data to him in a
PowerPoint. He saw that we had really done our
homework and understood the problem, and he
realized that we were a legitimate group.
The Superintendent was very receptive. He said,
“We know about these problems too but there are
considerations and barriers to fixing the problem.”
For instance, scalability was an issue. The big
question with scalability is, “How do you implement
a solution for 74,000 students and 8,000 staff?” But
that’s always an issue and that’s why he’s in charge,
but we are willing to help prepare students and
families to embrace the changes that were about
to result. We had an honest conversation about
the lack of will to take on the drop out crisis and
racial disparities in discipline. We also proposed
Restorative Justice as an alternative. This first