Sunday, January 12, 2014

Restorative Justice



Our school’s mission includes,  “We are committed to ensuring each person fulfills his or her potential."

In prior years, our discipline model was pretty scripted. Incidents were reported to administrators, we investigated the matter and dispensed the appropriate consequence according to our Code of Condct.  We conveyed information. When a student did x, y was the consequence.

This year, we’ve made greater use of restorative justice. Restorative justice teaches. Students look deeply at themselves, and their mistakes. They examine why they made them and truly think about what they could have done to avoid them—both in the past and in the future.

I entered education not to simply convey information or to dispense consequences, I entered education to shape character, to, as our mission statement reads, “ensure each person fulfills his or her potential.”


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