Artifact 2

School Business Management Challenge:

Implementing Restorative Practices with Fidelity at the Elementary Level

Diya Blanchard, Amy Quinn, Kristy Wiegand

EA 8840

March 22, 2020

 Restorative Practice Facilitator Memo

To: Sue Sample, Superintendent of Fraser Schools

From: Teaching and Learning Team

Date: 3.22.20

Re: Recommendation for Restorative Practice Facilitators in all Elementary Buildings

The purpose of this memorandum is to make a formal recommendation for

implementing Restorative Practice Facilitators across all six Fraser elementary schools.

Restorative Practice is a term that is making a big name for itself in the field of education, law

enforcement, and mental health. According to Restorative Practices: Fostering Healthy

Relationships and Promoting Positive Discipline in Schools, Restorative Practices build healthy

relationships by allowing individuals who committed harm to sit down with the other person(s)

and discuss the wrongdoing, gain an understanding of how that wrongdoing affected others,

and reflect on ways to make it right (2014). The article goes on to state that such meetings are

effective in repairing relationships and preventing problems from escalating further (2014). We

have spent the last year training school administrators, psychologists, social workers, teachers,

and support staff about how to implement Restorative Practices in their jobs and this extensive

training will continue into the upcoming year and will need to be supported. In Fraser Public

Schools, we make mental health a priority and this initiative would support this focus.
 Building administrators spend a large part of almost every day centered around reactive

Restorative Justice. Herein lies the problem. The biggest components to Restorative Practices

are the proactive pieces: students having circles within their classrooms to gain a sense of

empathy and school staff following up with students who have had a prior conflict to check the

status of their relationships. We implement Restorative Practices in our schools to promote

conflict resolution amongst students, as according to Wachtel, O’Connell, and Wachtel (2010)

Restorative Justice can change the way that society responds to wrongdoing in schools by

benefiting the victim(s), offender(s) and community (p. 163-164).

In Fraser, teachers are being trained to conduct whole-group circles in their classrooms

to prevent conflict from brewing, but elementary schools require additional support personnel

to help facilitate Restorative Justice practices at the building level. That is why we are

recommending the addition of 3.0 FTE Restorative Practice Facilitators. It is very time

consuming to run Restorative Justice meetings with fidelity and to provide students with the

follow up that is often necessary. In addition, part of Restorative Justice meetings involves

helping kids make better choices when problems arise. This includes notifying school staff

members that problems are brewing again. The kids ARE doing that, but they need to have a

consistent go-to person who will likely have time to work through the minor issues that they're

reporting within 24 hours. Also, having the principal, who assigns the discipline and

consequences, trying to run these meetings tends to send mixed signals to kids- because we're

telling them we're helping them work through their issues, but are also telling them that they

aren't allowed to have such issues.

 In Fraser, at the secondary level, there are non-administrative staff members

responsible for facilitating many of the Restorative Justice meetings. These staff members

include a Restorative Practices District Trainer at each building, along with counselors, a liaison

officer, and social workers. Also, at the secondary level, there are multiple administrators

present to help support these meetings too. The secondary-level Restorative Practices trainers

connect with students on a deeper level and are often the student's first line of defense as

additional issues begin to brew- a relationship that students at the elementary level need too.

At the elementary level, we thankfully have a school social worker that can assist with some

Restorative Meetings, but she has her caseload just like the secondary social workers. Aside

from occasional help from the social worker with Restorative Meetings, the building principal is

responsible for conducting all of the meetings. This includes all of the initial investigation,

which is quite similar to how an issue has ever been investigated- meeting with all parties

individually to piece together the information. It then includes bringing the parties together

and going through what often has the potential to be multiple hours of questioning and

discussion, then assigning consequences for specific actions, contacting parents of all parties

involved, then trying to follow up with the students involved periodically in the coming weeks

and months.

The elementary schools in Fraser have slightly over half of the number of students as the

middle school, but the support staff available for conflict resolution is disproportioned.

Specifically, in my building, there are 394 students- a smaller enrollment number than some of

the other elementary schools in the district. We have a building administrator and a social

worker to help sort out issues. Richards Middle School has roughly 750 students and they have:
2 building administrators, 2 counselors, 1 social worker, and 1 district Restorative Practices

Facilitator available when issues arise. The elementary buildings need an additional staff

member to help implement Restorative Practices with fidelity.

Elementary parents tend to come in more emotionally charged than secondary parents

when issues arise between students. They beg for assistance in helping their young children

work through some of the pressing issues that they're facing, due in part to the fact that the

kids don't seem to have the means necessary to solve the problem themselves. Also, at the

elementary level, when kids are having issues with other students, the issues tend to cause

non-stop anxiety because students are cooped up in the same classrooms as their classmates all

day, every day. They don't get the breaks from each other that kids at the secondary level get.

With many students, Restorative Justice meetings are effective in solving present problems, but

without the follow-up component consistently in play, many new problems begin to re-arise.

Having a Restorative Practice Facilitator would give students a consistent person to follow up

with them regularly.

In Fraser, there is a relatively non-invasive potential solution to this problem that would

help to allow the elementary buildings to implement Restorative Practices with more fidelity.

This plan would initially include the hiring of three additional instructional staff members at the

elementary level. These staff members would serve as the Restorative Practice Facilitators.

Currently, each of our six elementary schools has a 0.5 FTE “HEART” teacher. HEART

class teaches all classes about health and safety, along with social skills and is a 40-minute

weekly special for all elementary students. The three elementary “HEART” teachers share the

six buildings. We believe that this role could be reconfigured to allow for one “HEART “teacher
 per building. Half of their time would be teaching the “HEART” curriculum to the building's

classes, the other half of their time could be spent serving as a Restorative Practice Facilitator.

The Restorative Practices component to their job would allow them to do the following:

coach teachers in the implementation of proactive Restorative Circles in their classrooms;

conduct daily/weekly conflict resolution check-ins with the highest needs students during a

given time; and handle Restorative Justice meetings that arise throughout each day.

The timeline for this plan could feasibly be as early as next school year. It would involve
the business office, human resources, and central administration reconfiguring this particular
job description. A large part of this plan would involve the budgeting necessary to account for
three additional instructional positions in the district. The table below outlines the benefits and
drawbacks of program implementation:

Implementation of Restorative Practices

Pros Cons

Focus on mental help Justifying training cost for elementary staff

Proactive pieces Providing coverage by using Restorative Practice Facilitators with

● Empathy fidelity to the remaining six elementary schools who currently
● Someone to follow up with have none

Allows Principal to be an instructional leader Providing funding to maintain program

Empowers students to problem solve and be Educating staff, students and parents on the proper
resilient implementation of restorative practices

Helps student make better choices Scheduling of the three shared employees that will be
responsible to cover the six schools fairly and equally

Prevents conflicts from starting Program Evaluation

Coach teachers on restorative circles The cost of 3.0 FTE to implement this program at the elementary
level

Eligible for Title 1 money Approval from the District, Schoolboard & Union
Restorative Practices is a powerful element to combat the mental health crisis in

education and society, in general. In Fraser Public Schools, we're dedicated to putting systems
in place that are best for kids and are committed to bringing Restorative Practices to our

students. An additional way that this can be accomplished with fidelity, would be to add a

minimum 0.5 FTE instructional staff member to each elementary building in Fraser. This would

lay a strong foundation at the elementary level that would hopefully allow for the stronger

mental wellness of all Fraser students in the long-run.

 References

Restorative Practices: Fostering Healthy Relationships & Promoting Positive Discipline

in Schools A Guide for Educators. (2014, March). Retrieved from

http://schottfoundation.org/sites/default/files/restorative-practices-guide.pdf

Wachtel, T., O’Connell, T., & Wachtel, B. (2010). Restorative justice conferencing: Real justice &

the Conferencing handbook. Bethlehem, PA: International Institute for Restorative

Practices.