Restorative practices gain ground as a way to discipline students
Adele Bovard, a consultant on restorative practices, speaks Wednesday at a training session for staff at East Middle School in Brentwood. Credit: Newsday / Alejandra Villa Loarca
Last spring, a Comsewogue High School junior was caught vaping in school.
In the past, the student would have faced five days of out-of-school suspension. But because the district two years ago started a new disciplinary approach known as restorative practices, he was sent to the Alternative Learning Center, a schoolroom decorated with inspirational quotes, for three days to work on his regular class assignments and research vaping’s harmful side effects.
The 17-year-old, now a senior whose name is being withheld to protect his identity, recalled seeing the disappointment on a teacher's face when she handed him his worksheets. He said he wanted to prove to those around him — his parents, teachers and the principal — that he would do better. That motivation helped him quit vaping altogether weeks later.
“ALC is better than sending you home to go smoke more,” he said, referring to the supervised room. If left at home, “What are you going to do? You're going to play games all morning, wait for your friends to get out of school and go hang out with them.”
School officials in the Comsewogue district and a growing number of others on Long Island have introduced elements of restorative practices as alternatives to suspensions. The traditional exclusionary measures have troubled many educators, they say, because such punitive methods often isolate students and deprive them of the emotional and behavioral support they need.
“You struggle in geometry; we give you a tutor,” said Wayne Loper, superintendent of the Valley Stream Central High School District. “You struggle with your behaviors; we throw you out of school. That doesn't make any sense.”
The use of restorative practices in educational settings began in Australia in the 1990s and later spread to schools in the United States.
Over the years, more schools have embraced them as alternatives to “zero-tolerance” disciplinary policies that studies have shown have disproportionately affected students of color. Research also showed that exclusionary discipline does not serve as a deterrent but often has long-term, cumulative impacts on students. Those who are suspended are more likely to drop out of school and less likely to enroll in postsecondary education.
“If you continuously do that isolating discipline, you're giving them a very strong message that you're not welcome here,” said Christina Moran, principal of Elwood Middle School in Greenlawn, which is part of the Elwood school district.
At least 21 states plus the District of Columbia have enacted legislation supporting the use of restorative justice in schools, according to a 2020 analysis by Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality. New York is not one of them, but the state offers a grant to districts to shift discipline from punitive models to alternative measures, including restorative practices.
When done effectively, these programs can help drive down suspensions and improve school culture, preliminary research shows.
At Comsewogue High, which enrolls more than 1,100 students in Port Jefferson Station, the number of out-of-school suspensions dropped to 16 from September through November, from 33 in the same period in 2019-20, Principal Michael Mosca said.
In recent years, many Island districts have sent staff to workshops or brought trainers to schools. At least one, Valley Stream Central, has hired more counselors to implement the program.
Vincent Caravana, interim superintendent of Lindenhurst schools, went to one session on the topic during a conference in Manhattan last year. Before he walked into the room, he said, he was skeptical.
“I thought it was some sort of ‘Kumbaya,’ ” he said. “We will just sit in a circle and talk about our feelings?”
Caravana changed his mind after he participated. As the session went on, he began to see differently the strangers he had just met. “You started to see the humanity in one another,” he recalled.
Since then, Lindenhurst has brought in Adele Bovard, who led the session Caravana attended, to train others. In recent years, Bovard has trained staff from about two dozen Island districts.
The pandemic interrupted the momentum, but advocates said they see more urgency now as educators nationwide reported a rise of misbehavior and declining engagement in the aftermath of COVID disruptions.
Loper, in Valley Stream Central, said his schools saw more bullying and an increase in fights after the pandemic. He saw restorative practices as one way to help the school community heal.
“Our students and community overall has been suffering,” Loper said. “At the heart of it, it's about building community. It's about building relationships.”
Much of that work also is meant to be preventive. “If we're teaching students how to build community, less harm is going to occur,” said Nakeshia Smith-Farnum, a former math teacher who oversees the program in Valley Stream Central.
Much of the policy debate, however, is not over whether the restorative approach in theory is a better alternative but whether it can be implemented effectively, said Jay Worona, deputy executive director and general counsel of New York State School Boards Association.
“If it's not going to be effective, they're going to yield the result of placing teachers in a position to have unruly students,” he said.
The effectiveness of such practices could be tied to how the program is implemented, whether districts have the resources to continuously train staff, and whether they have buy-ins from teachers and parents, researchers noted.
When the program was introduced in Comsewogue, Superintendent Jennifer Quinn said, the district faced a lot of criticism.
“It was essentially … ‘Oh, we're not going to suspend kids. Our kids are going to run amok and do whatever they want, and there's going to be no rules and procedures,’ ” Quinn recalled.
But teachers came onboard once they saw it was beneficial, she said.
Smith-Farnum in Valley Stream Central said the district is not replacing traditional discipline with restorative practices. “We are adding value to the discipline process," she said.
School officials noted the limits of such an approach. It may not work in cases of severe violations or in situations where not everyone involved wanted to participate in the process.
In deciding when to introduce alternative discipline, administrators said they weigh the severity of the transgression, the harm that resulted from it, whether the student had a prior record, and other circumstances.
If it was a conflict among students, educators said, they would consider whether there was a relationship that could be repaired through restorative conversation.
“If a student pulled a fire alarm, that's not going to be a restorative-practices [approach] since that concerns the health and safety of our students,” said Moran, the principal from Elwood. But a tussle at recess? Maybe, depending on the circumstances.
Even if traditional discipline was applied, educators said, restorative tools could still be used to help students understand the larger impact of their actions and help them adjust back to school after a suspension.
In October, a 14-year-old at Comsewogue High was upset over something a peer did that he didn't like. As a new period was starting, he walked into the other student’s class, pushed past the English teacher and confronted him with his fists balled up.
His emotions were running high, and he let his anger get the best of him, the teen said in an interview at the principal's office. His name is withheld to protect his identity.
He was given two “structured days” — a tool the school introduced this fall. Students who have structured days attend their regular classes but are escorted by staff to the Alternative Learning Center for any free periods or breaks.
With the help of a social worker, the ninth-grader thought about what he could do to repair the harm his actions had caused. He realized that his behavior disrupted a class, disrespected the teacher and instilled fear in the other teen, who thought he was going to fight him.
“I really didn’t want people to think that that's how I am — that I'm aggressive and mean,” he said. “I didn't mean no harm.”
Later, he apologized to the teacher and had a conversation with his peer in the presence of an assistant principal. They reconciled and have gone back to talking normally.
Looking back, the teen said, he has learned that he could have approached things differently. "I should either talk to him about it at lunch, or outside of school more calmly," he said.
He sees that he had other options.
Last spring, a Comsewogue High School junior was caught vaping in school.
In the past, the student would have faced five days of out-of-school suspension. But because the district two years ago started a new disciplinary approach known as restorative practices, he was sent to the Alternative Learning Center, a schoolroom decorated with inspirational quotes, for three days to work on his regular class assignments and research vaping’s harmful side effects.
The 17-year-old, now a senior whose name is being withheld to protect his identity, recalled seeing the disappointment on a teacher's face when she handed him his worksheets. He said he wanted to prove to those around him — his parents, teachers and the principal — that he would do better. That motivation helped him quit vaping altogether weeks later.
“ALC is better than sending you home to go smoke more,” he said, referring to the supervised room. If left at home, “What are you going to do? You're going to play games all morning, wait for your friends to get out of school and go hang out with them.”
WHAT TO KNOW
- A growing number of Long Island school districts have introduced restorative practices to discipline misbehavior, as alternatives to traditional methods such as suspensions.
- The new approach aims to help children grow from past mistakes, repair harm and restore relationships.
- One administrator compared it to helping students learn an academic subject: “You struggle in geometry; we give you a tutor. You struggle with your behaviors; we throw you out of school. That doesn't make any sense.”
School officials in the Comsewogue district and a growing number of others on Long Island have introduced elements of restorative practices as alternatives to suspensions. The traditional exclusionary measures have troubled many educators, they say, because such punitive methods often isolate students and deprive them of the emotional and behavioral support they need.
“You struggle in geometry; we give you a tutor,” said Wayne Loper, superintendent of the Valley Stream Central High School District. “You struggle with your behaviors; we throw you out of school. That doesn't make any sense.”
A shift from 'You're not welcome'
The use of restorative practices in educational settings began in Australia in the 1990s and later spread to schools in the United States.
Over the years, more schools have embraced them as alternatives to “zero-tolerance” disciplinary policies that studies have shown have disproportionately affected students of color. Research also showed that exclusionary discipline does not serve as a deterrent but often has long-term, cumulative impacts on students. Those who are suspended are more likely to drop out of school and less likely to enroll in postsecondary education.
“If you continuously do that isolating discipline, you're giving them a very strong message that you're not welcome here,” said Christina Moran, principal of Elwood Middle School in Greenlawn, which is part of the Elwood school district.
Practices like suspending students "send a very strong message" that they are not welcome in school, said Elwood Middle School Principal Christina Moran. Credit: Rick Kopstein
At least 21 states plus the District of Columbia have enacted legislation supporting the use of restorative justice in schools, according to a 2020 analysis by Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality. New York is not one of them, but the state offers a grant to districts to shift discipline from punitive models to alternative measures, including restorative practices.
When done effectively, these programs can help drive down suspensions and improve school culture, preliminary research shows.
At Comsewogue High, which enrolls more than 1,100 students in Port Jefferson Station, the number of out-of-school suspensions dropped to 16 from September through November, from 33 in the same period in 2019-20, Principal Michael Mosca said.
Comsewogue High School Principal Michael Mosca in the school’s Alternative Learning Center. Credit: Newsday / John Paraskevas
In recent years, many Island districts have sent staff to workshops or brought trainers to schools. At least one, Valley Stream Central, has hired more counselors to implement the program.
Vincent Caravana, interim superintendent of Lindenhurst schools, went to one session on the topic during a conference in Manhattan last year. Before he walked into the room, he said, he was skeptical.
“I thought it was some sort of ‘Kumbaya,’ ” he said. “We will just sit in a circle and talk about our feelings?”
Caravana changed his mind after he participated. As the session went on, he began to see differently the strangers he had just met. “You started to see the humanity in one another,” he recalled.
Since then, Lindenhurst has brought in Adele Bovard, who led the session Caravana attended, to train others. In recent years, Bovard has trained staff from about two dozen Island districts.
The pandemic interrupted the momentum, but advocates said they see more urgency now as educators nationwide reported a rise of misbehavior and declining engagement in the aftermath of COVID disruptions.
Loper, in Valley Stream Central, said his schools saw more bullying and an increase in fights after the pandemic. He saw restorative practices as one way to help the school community heal.
“Our students and community overall has been suffering,” Loper said. “At the heart of it, it's about building community. It's about building relationships.”
Much of that work also is meant to be preventive. “If we're teaching students how to build community, less harm is going to occur,” said Nakeshia Smith-Farnum, a former math teacher who oversees the program in Valley Stream Central.
Where it can and can't work
Much of the policy debate, however, is not over whether the restorative approach in theory is a better alternative but whether it can be implemented effectively, said Jay Worona, deputy executive director and general counsel of New York State School Boards Association.
“If it's not going to be effective, they're going to yield the result of placing teachers in a position to have unruly students,” he said.
The effectiveness of such practices could be tied to how the program is implemented, whether districts have the resources to continuously train staff, and whether they have buy-ins from teachers and parents, researchers noted.
When the program was introduced in Comsewogue, Superintendent Jennifer Quinn said, the district faced a lot of criticism.
“It was essentially … ‘Oh, we're not going to suspend kids. Our kids are going to run amok and do whatever they want, and there's going to be no rules and procedures,’ ” Quinn recalled.
But teachers came onboard once they saw it was beneficial, she said.
A message in the Alternative Learning Center at Comsewogue High School. Credit: Newsday / John Paraskevas
Smith-Farnum in Valley Stream Central said the district is not replacing traditional discipline with restorative practices. “We are adding value to the discipline process," she said.
School officials noted the limits of such an approach. It may not work in cases of severe violations or in situations where not everyone involved wanted to participate in the process.
In deciding when to introduce alternative discipline, administrators said they weigh the severity of the transgression, the harm that resulted from it, whether the student had a prior record, and other circumstances.
If it was a conflict among students, educators said, they would consider whether there was a relationship that could be repaired through restorative conversation.
“If a student pulled a fire alarm, that's not going to be a restorative-practices [approach] since that concerns the health and safety of our students,” said Moran, the principal from Elwood. But a tussle at recess? Maybe, depending on the circumstances.
Even if traditional discipline was applied, educators said, restorative tools could still be used to help students understand the larger impact of their actions and help them adjust back to school after a suspension.
Student's road to reconciliation
In October, a 14-year-old at Comsewogue High was upset over something a peer did that he didn't like. As a new period was starting, he walked into the other student’s class, pushed past the English teacher and confronted him with his fists balled up.
His emotions were running high, and he let his anger get the best of him, the teen said in an interview at the principal's office. His name is withheld to protect his identity.
He was given two “structured days” — a tool the school introduced this fall. Students who have structured days attend their regular classes but are escorted by staff to the Alternative Learning Center for any free periods or breaks.
With the help of a social worker, the ninth-grader thought about what he could do to repair the harm his actions had caused. He realized that his behavior disrupted a class, disrespected the teacher and instilled fear in the other teen, who thought he was going to fight him.
“I really didn’t want people to think that that's how I am — that I'm aggressive and mean,” he said. “I didn't mean no harm.”
Later, he apologized to the teacher and had a conversation with his peer in the presence of an assistant principal. They reconciled and have gone back to talking normally.
Looking back, the teen said, he has learned that he could have approached things differently. "I should either talk to him about it at lunch, or outside of school more calmly," he said.
He sees that he had other options.
Dandan Zou covers education for Newsday. Previously, she worked for a community newspaper in Maryland and a personal finance magazine in Washington, D.C.