001good evening I am here to provide an equity update on restorative practices to the Board of Education during the winter of 2021 District leaders including myself Dr Sarah Clarity and Janet Thomas along with principals at the secondary level and including three elementary school principals from CH Bert Meadowview and west side we were all trained by Dr Tom Cavanagh and his team from restorative justice education on November 21st at the board meeting assistant superintendent of teaching learning and Equity Stephanie Leonard Woody shared that we began this work in our system we added three elementary schools our reason for doing that was because we simply had three additional seats available to us and through a simple ask west side chbert and Meadowview all expressed an interest to participate in the training so our why our current behavior
002and discipline data indicates that our black and brown students are suffering the most they are more likely to receive referrals and face exclusionary practices and disciplinary consequences and our commitment to disrupt inequities that contribute to the school-to-prison pipeline for our students our commitment to social emotional Wellness for all students including through instruction and strategies that prioritize the whole child we understand that learning and implementing restorative justice practices that includes Community buildings our groups repairing the harm circles and alternatives to discipline that result in students out of class and school will lead to more Equitable outcomes for all students and in particular for our black and brown students further it is important that we engage in a process that focuses on the restoration and harm when a previously established relationship or connection has been broken or
003compromised this work restorative justice implementation will represent a positive change and positive culture in the positive culture shift across our system this is a multi-year system-wide implementation plan that is researched and evidence-based to improve students School experience and decrease the disciplinary consequences during the 2021-2022 school year the school district refreshing our strategy our strategic plan and collaboration with our community and our commitment to continuous Improvement has evolved with more significant focus on equity the slide this slide includes our recent updated strategic plan that spans from the 2022 through the 2027 school year it includes our Equity framework and our instructional framework we partnered with ICS and participated in an equity audit and Equity evaluation while there were no surprises from the evaluation it did reveal the need for our continuous commitment to racial Equity work
004within our system and that it is necessary for us to continue to work the dismantle racial inequities and our policies practices behaviors and actions in response to the equity evaluation findings District leaders including myself developed an equity assessment strategic plan that included implementation of restorative justice education beginning in the 2022-2023 school year foreign of 2019 the Board of Education charged the District administration with developing a district-wide task force on student behaviors and bullying the purpose was was to one understand our data and contributing factors in order to identify key issues and two to examine the current prevention response reporting monitoring and communication practices of the 36 recommendations lifted by the task force seven of them were recommended as priorities for immediate action including exploration of restorative practice training joining me joining me for this screencast
005and presentation I have three of our restorative justice coaches who helped to uh put the screencast together those and they include uh Deontay Pruitt Carrie Lundquist and Elizabeth Hardy greetings my name is Deontay Pruitt and I am the restorative justices coach at Patrick Marsh Middle School um thank you for allowing me this opportunity to speak to the board and to the broader community of Sun Prairie I really appreciate it thankful for it um so um you know in year one of my of my um position here um our journey had you know at door restorative justices have Patrick Marsh has been pretty good so far um you know we're still in the first stages you know doing our community building um you know mostly for the most part which is the foundation for everything so
006the kids can get used to you know how the practices work circles um the protocol how we use the talking piece um you know and then that's once they get used to those kind of things then we're able to um tackle tougher um issues um you know and repair harm to the community um some highlights so far um I think um sp30 in our sp30 classes they're happening twice a week um Community Building circles um so the students are getting familiar with each other um they're they're creating that sense of belonging and um you know we're just learning about our diverse student population and developing no strong relationships which is very important as you all know to a student's success and also to be able to redirect them when the time is needed uh um
007so just a small update is like I said we are picking up speed um you know as far as just doing restorative conversations and having circles um you know to restore problems uh resolve hiring uh right now our community continues to work towards getting more familiar with each other learning how very the various practices work and cultivating belief in the positive power and philosophy of restorative justice um so we have a ways to go to be fully immersed as a school but we have a decent start okay um you know as far as you know cultivating the belief in the power and philosophy of restorative justice I think as a coach I've been doing a lot of studying and I think um we all you know as a community need to be grounded in like
008um the philosophy and what it's about and to really understand and know that so I want to touch base on that a little bit so it's three major interconnected components of restorative justice and um the three are creating just and Equitable learning environments um nurturing healthy relationships and also repairing harm and transforming conflict I want to hit on one of them one of them is you know the first one is important um it's creating just an Ecuador learning learning environments and uh you know I got a great example um today at our school we had uh one of our classes had on what they call a cultural feast and you know different cultures represented and students brought dishes from from their background you know from their ethnic background or what their their parents made or
009they got from their grandparents and it was just a great experience because you know all of the students felt prideful they felt um you know respected that they was able to bring their something from there from their culture into the class and teach other people about themselves and also learn about different different cultures so I just think it was a great thing and that that's what needs to happen on the more consistent basis um for us to really be full of fill a connection for those students to feel a sense of belonging in that that I represented um and not just the mainstream culture um and you know along with those things uh we got the core beliefs and values um in the the most important one is the is the core beliefs of like
010every student is worthy of love and healthy relationships um you know uh I I've always been you know even when I was a student I always knew just teachers that love me and care for me and always wanted to perform for them and always felt you know a strong connection with them and that's no different with the students nowadays and they need to really feel that connection and love and warm from a teacher and and have that relationship you know be interconnected so I think that's just very very important to keep in mind we'll be dealing with all of our students um you know um differences and all of that right um you know the values connected with that is respect dignity and mutual concern so you know as far as respect um you know
011that's like putting yourself in somebody else's shoes and looking from things from their point of view I think that's important you know sometimes especially as um staff we kind of look at it from our our side as far as having you know the influence and the power to make decisions but it's also important to kind of put yourself in those students shoes and understand where they're coming from so you can um connect with them also and then so you can uh deal with them appropriately you know it's super important um the dignity piece is also um very important for us to understand just you know everybody is born with a certain level of dignity you know it's like a Birthright you know what I'm saying so in essence um we all should be be able
012to have our dignity upheld regardless of what we do you know it's just it's just super important and um you know it's a human a human need the mutual concern is more than just a common concern between each other it's it's it's more reciprocal and interconnected you know a deeper concern um being that we're in this in this education realm together and uh you know just just making sure that we're really there for each other deeper than the superficial levels it's so important to connect with students that way um I know this is a five-year plan and I know we're only in year one of implementation you know and like I said it's going well but um over time um I know this is what we're trying to get at changing the mindset and in
013the cultural shifts right and some some tidbits I want to add on on to that which is very important for us to um keep in mind it's like um you know when a student does something in school we're looking at it we won't like to look at it as a violation of relationships rather than the old school thought of violation of a rule right um you know it's just important because you know um rules our rules and rules are made to be broken but you know when you're in a relationship when you're looking at it like that it's more deeper it's more personal and relational and you oftentimes um in my experience you get a better response from students when they feel that connection other than just you broke this Rule now what are we
014going to look in this handbooking and kind of like you know deal with it it's more like we're bringing it to a relational personal level in a caring way you know um also looking at wholeness and healing rather than you know just right and wrong you know um you definitely want to you know deal with issues as they come and deal with them in an appropriate way you know so consequences and things like that can be can be administered right but you know we want to make sure that we're talking with both parties the person who maybe harm somebody and also the person who was hard um to become so we can just be more holistic and get healing from both sides you know so both both parties can learn from it um engagement rather
015than control so you know a lot of time as a staff you you got you got power right to weld over a student and uh you know um oftentimes students didn't get a chance to express you know their side of the story or to be engaged in a thoughtful conversation I mean I think that's important you know so instead of like you're going to get this consequence and there's no say if answer buts about it I think it's important to engage the student and ask probing questions um to get their side and to kind of get to the underlying issue of um you know of what's going on with them and this is this forms a better more um you know authentic connection with each other which is what we're looking for um and finally
016the need for healing and Justice rather than a student getting what they deserve um um you know it's just you know that's that's more punitive um that this that saying getting what they deserve and we want to you know like heal we want we want we want Justice obviously but we want to make sure that each person is able to express themselves and be heard and that sense of belonging you still kept intact regardless of if you if you harm the community and that's why we offer um a chance to transform that right um and through all of this um I kind of mentioned this before but our Focus you know should be um repairing harm rather than punishment because we're getting away from the punitive um you know Mr Morgan already talked about the
017why you know and pissing the pipeline and all of that stuff you know we all kind of know about it and and steeped in that that background information but also just showing concern for each person involved um you know the person that harms somebody needs to be taught valuable lessons and also the person that was harmed me to be able to express themselves um and maybe let the other person know how they felt it and then we can just you know communicate with each other in that way um to bring them more on a personal level um and uh just to let you know the source um where I got a lot of these information from is on you know our trainer Dr Tom he um referenced this book and it's called the little book
018of restorative justice and education by Catherine Evans and Dorothy bandering and um it's a great resource um I would advise on people to pick it up if you can um it's it's a great read and uh you know it's just it really goes deeper into the philosophy that restorative justice and now what we're trying to do out here in Sun Prairie uh once again thank you for um giving me your time to speak and I'm looking forward to doing it again hi I'm Carrie Lundquist and I'm the restorative practices coach at Prairie View I'm here to give a brief overview of how it looks restorative practices are looking at pre-admium so at the whole school level we're kind of in the early stages of building capacity for our teachers and students so we're really focusing
019on community circles and building Community within our classrooms and using the restorative practice framework to help continue that Community Building throughout the year on the next level are student services and administration team have been trained fully in restorative practices so they're using those practices to repair and restore once harm has occurred some highlights are that we have weekly and Community circles in our sp30 black we have begun to infuse restorative practices into our PBIS and social emotional learning we have a process of restorative conversations and restorative Reflections that happen in the classroom level so teacher to student using the restorative practice framework then we are starting to implement a way for teachers and students to request restorative services so teachers are able to request either a whole class Circle or a circle for student to
020student or student to teacher and then students are also starting to request that as well finally we have restorative practice training infused into our professional learning throughout the year so by the end of the year our entire staff will be trained in restorative practices along with building their capacity for what that looks like at our building um since our implementation at the beginning of the year some updates are that 41 of our Behavior resolutions are restorative if there's an incident involving two or more students students are given the chance and encouraged to work through a restorative conversation that is facilitated by myself or another member of student services also we are having about four to six um requested practices per week so that's kind of a proactive request by either teacher or student some outcomes
021are that students are learning to advocate for themselves and practicing their communication skills through these conversations conflict is being avoided because students have the opportunity to work through conflict before it escalates we have students beginning to ask for these circles which is so wonderful they're advocating for themselves and then as far as our Behavior data are physical and verbal altercations have dropped this month since we've really started to pick up the restorative practices in our building looking forward we want to continue to infuse our practices and circle models we want to infuse the language into all aspects of per review and then we will start to begin to have our student leadership team take on some ownership of our community circles and start to learn how to facilitate conversations when harm has occurred hi my
022name is Elizabeth Hardy my pronouns are she her and hers and I'm the restorative practices coach at Central Heights my name is James Edison my pronouns are he him his I'm the restorative practice liaison at Central Heights Middle School things are going really well at Central Heights as you know it is a new school for our students and many of our staff we have been focusing on culture and care and getting to know our community better yes when Mr Edison is not busy running restorative circles and conversations he is checking in with students in their classes hanging out with them at recess being the advisor for black student union and coaching the 7th grade boys basketball team he is so loved and has had such an impact on the students and staff here at Central
023thank you Miss Hardy I appreciate all your mentorship and Leadership around the restorative practices we really do make a good team one of the highlights was for the first two weeks in our SB 30 classes we had Community circles every day then on our third week of school we had this big assembly so each SB 30 class could introduce the values that they had co-created and will be using during all of their Community circles they also learned about RJ guidelines we will use in every Circle we have we have as Central like Community Building circles problem solving circles or staff training circles all of our staff and students have learned and used some of the components of RJ circles like the talking piece centerpiece guidelines values another highlight is that we recently took a survey
024and one of the questions asked students if they feel that SB 30 is helping them build community with their classmates and 80 percent said that they agree or strongly agree in our next hunting day plan we are asking students to create their own Community Building Circle scripts and lead them es and I have done 62 problem solving conversations in circles since the beginning of the year that number doesn't even include the many conversations that other staff are having we have restorative justice conversation posters uh posted all over the hallways and in every classroom so those are happening often the circles take a little bit longer and they include a pre-conferencing so we can get an understanding of what each person's story is and occasionally there will be a person who doesn't want to be in
025a circle and then we have to figure out agreements and how to move forward without doing the Circle remember restorative practices are always voluntary when we do do a circle we usually meet again five to ten late days later uh to see how the Agreements are holding up while we try to solve most of our school Problems by making them in for the harm that has been done there are there are also times when a punitive consequence is needed when this happens we try to pair the consequence with the restorative practice in the hopes of meeting needs and repairing relationships another thing we're proud of is the equity work that we are doing with staff we are learning ways to communicate and relate with our students while addressing our own biases and so we can
026disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline and also use less exclusionary practices we appreciate the effort that Sean Perry school district has been bringing RJ practices and coaches into the school we also look forward to the future and having our students work as circlekeepers peer problem solvers thank you so again you're on the 2022-2023 school year our three middle schools began year one of implementation and three elementary schools piloted piloted the restorative justice education implementation for the 2023-2024 school year our three high schools Sun Prairie East Sun Prairie West and Prairie Phoenix Academy along with the three elementary schools will move into year one of implementation which means that they will be working during the winter and spring to repurpose an FTE for a restorative justice coach our three middle schools will be moving on to year two
027which is continued implementation and our work ahead is to onboard the remaining schools and that that's anticipated to happen between 2024 and 2026. I just want to thank you all for listening to this presentation and for all of your continued support [Music]