The vast majority of the behavior issues at Lawrence middle and high schools are now dealt with using restorative justice practices, and the school district is planning to expand the discipline approach to elementary schools next school year.

The Lawrence school district has been working for years to address disproportionate discipline rates among white students and students of color, and Cynthia Johnson, the district’s executive director of inclusion, engagement, and belonging, said restorative practices — which focus on directly addressing the harm caused and mending relationships — are a tool in doing so. Johnson said educators have learned that punitive consequences such as suspensions don’t work and disproportionately affect students of color, and that the goal is to see suspensions decrease and discipline rates become more equitable.

“I’ve been doing this 35 years,” Johnson said. “We know what doesn’t work. So let’s look at what does work.”

The district has also been focused on achievement gaps between student groups, and Johnson said restorative practices complement the district’s equity goals and its efforts to prevent behavioral issues. Johnson said there are more opportunities to close the achievement gap in reading and math when students are in classes more often. She said serious behavioral incidents — such as those involving weapons, discrimination, sexual harassment, bullying or fighting — can still result in out-of-school suspensions, but the district is using restorative practices to address all behavior problems, including those more serious issues.

The district also put in place new policies this school year to address subjective behavioral issues that students of color are more likely to be disciplined for, and training in restorative practices for elementary teachers and other actions to fully integrate the approach in Lawrence schools are forthcoming. One community group, the faith-based advocacy group Justice Matters, has long pushed for restorative practices in both schools and the criminal justice system, and is stressing the importance of communication as the district continues its implementation.

Restorative practices

Lawrence teachers have been receiving training in restorative practices through the Kansas Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution (KIPCOR), and the district has been tracking the percentage of behavioral incidents that are addressed using those practices.

KIPCOR defines restorative justice as a framework of principles and values that responds to harm by addressing the needs of those harmed through processes of accountability and repair. The practice also works to prevent harm through community building and problem solving. According to KIPCOR, when applying restorative justice to an incident of harm, the core questions are: who was hurt?; what are their needs?; who has responsibility to address those needs?; and what process should be used including those who have been affected?

The district began training teachers and school staff in restorative practices in 2019, and all middle and high school staff have since been trained in the method. As a result, approximately 87% of behavioral incidents at the district’s four middle schools this school year and 88% at the district’s two high schools have been handled using restorative practices, according to a district report prepared for the district’s equity advisory council. Elementary staff has not yet gone through formal training, and about 26% of incidents at the elementary level so far this year have been handled with restorative practices.

Discipline rates

The school board received an update on disparities in discipline rates at part of its meeting Monday. Though the report showed some improvement in disparities between the first quarter of this school year and the fourth quarter to date, the data continues to show that students of color are disciplined at higher rates than white students.

For example, one of the most disproportionate data points from the fourth quarter indicates that even though only about 6.4% of high school students are Black, they account for about 16.8% of behavioral incidents logged by teachers. White students, on the other hand, make up about 67% of high school students and account for about 48% of behavioral incidents. Disparities also exist for Native American, Hispanic and multi-racial students.

A district presentation slide shows discipline rates for different student groups for the fourth quarter of the 2021-2022 school year.

As restorative practices are meant to replace some punitive discipline and help reduce future behavioral issues, another metric is the district’s suspension rates. Monday’s report did not total up the number of out-of-school suspensions districtwide or compare those figures to past years, but adding up the out-of-school suspensions from various graphs indicates that so far this school year, there have been 802 out-of-school suspensions districtwide. That includes 87 at the elementary level, 484 at the middle school level, and 231 at the high school level. That graphs indicate that some of those suspensions involved the same student being suspended more than once within the same quarter.

The school district is not alone in taking note of the disparities in discipline. Justice Matters has also highlighted the issue and pushed for a full implementation of restorative practices in schools and a shift away from punitive disciplinary practices.

Justice Matters Co-President Cynthia Eubanks, who is also church administrator at Ninth Street Missionary Baptist Church, said punitive discipline such as out-of-school suspension impedes children from succeeding in school. Similar to the school district, Justice Matters sees restorative practices as a way to address disparities in discipline and keep more students in school.

“When our children are successful in the school then our communities are stronger because our children learn and they graduate from high school,” Eubanks said. “… When our children are kicked out of classrooms and miss classes, then they are less likely to be interested in continuing in the class.”

Eubanks said the biggest issue for Justice Matters is the district having open lines of communication. She said regular reports from the district with data to help measure progress will help indicate how successful the program has been and make sure the community better understands restorative practices.

“I think more than anything, the biggest request is open communication on a regular basis with them on how this program is going and where it’s going, and how we can assist if necessary,” Eubanks said.

A district presentation slide shows elementary out-of-school suspensions for different students groups so far for the 2021-2022 school year.

A district presentation slide shows middle school out-of-school suspensions for different students groups so far for the 2021-2022 school year.

A district presentation slide shows high school out-of-school suspensions for different students groups so far for the 2021-2022 school year.

Changes to behavior policy

Another significant change in the way the district disciplines students was also put in place this year.

In a comment to the school board on Monday, Superintendent Anthony Lewis said that the district was seeing racial inequities in suspensions for behavioral issues that were more subjective, and so those behaviors were removed from the behavior matrix that teachers use to discipline students.

“When we were looking at discipline, what we were finding was many of our students of color were being suspended or disciplined at higher rates for those subjective-type things that we’ve removed from our discipline matrixes,” Lewis said. “So we’re seeing the numbers decline as it relates to discipline.”

In a follow-up email to the Journal-World, Zachary Conrad, executive director of data and technology, said that behaviors that were not well defined and could be subjective were removed from the logs teachers use for student discipline. Examples of behaviors removed from the discipline matrix were: disrespect, argumentative behavior, classroom behavior, refusing directions, and hallway behaviors.

Conrad said that the behaviors that staff may log are now defined. Those behaviors include sexual harassment, bullying, vandalism, weapon possession, alcohol/tobacco/drugs, discrimination, threat to injure person, violence, violation of technology acceptable use policy, fighting, theft, violence against staff, and attendance issues.

The process going forward

Johnson said the district was committed to fully implementing restorative practices in all schools, and that training for elementary staff will take place throughout the year next school year and additional components of the process will be integrated into classrooms at all levels. Johnson said future steps include the development of an implementation guide and the incorporation of other restorative practice elements into the regular routine of classrooms.

For example, Johnson said restorative practice focuses first on building relationships, which is done in part through regular classroom discussion circles, or community circles, with particular prompts. When conflicts occur, a staff member trained in restorative practice facilitates a restorative discussion circle among those involved.

“So that particular process would engage getting both parties in the same room and leading them through a conflict resolution process to restore the harm,” Johnson said. “It focuses on conversations and then from those conversations what actions are we going to do differently.”

Johnson said that staff at Liberty Memorial Central Middle School and Billy Mills Middle School received training in restorative practices during the 2019-2020 school year and staff at Southwest Middle School and West Middle School received it in 2020-2021. Staff at Free State High School, Lawrence High School, and the College and Career Academy received training this school year. Johnson said that beginning next school year, student teams at the district’s middle and high schools would be trained in how to effectively lead restorative circles.

Johnson said staff at the district’s 13 elementary schools will receive training throughout the 2022-2023 school year, and that by the end of the school year all district staff would be trained and the method would be implemented districtwide.