There will inevitably be challenges and pushback. Here are a few common concerns that come up and ideas on how to address them.

Staff Pushback Against Restorative / Desire For Punishment

It is incredibly common that people have only ever known a criminal justice approach to school behavior. Inside of this world view, anything that doesn’t conform to the crime/punishment dyad can appear dangerous. “Where are the consequences,” people ask. The worry behind these fears is that in the absence of exclusionary punishments as the first line of response to non-compliant behavior, chaos will emerge, children will not learn how to function in a healthy manner, and the well-being of all will be put at risk by children who have no internally or externally imposed controls.

These are reasonable fears, if in fact there are no consequences for engaging in harmful behavior. What people with these fears need is clear insight into how non-compliant behavior is addressed and what the escalation process looks like. It also tends to help when it’s clarified that restorative practices do not eliminate the possibility of retributive practices, but instead only migrate them away from being tier 1 interventions.

Staff Pushback Against Student-Led / Desire For Adult Authority

Racism is oppression targeted at people who are not white or not white enough, and is often expressed as believing that some people are inherently less than because they are not white. Sexism is oppression targeted at people who are not male or not male enough, and is often expressed as believing that some people are inherently less than because they are not male. Classism is oppression targeted at people who have less access to wealth, resources, and opportunity, and is often expressed as believing that some people are inherently less than because they do not have great access to wealth, resources, and opportunity. Adultism is oppression targeted at people who are not adults or not adult enough, and is often expressed as believing that some people are inherently less than because they are not adults. As part of the student-led restorative practices implementation process, the adultism that is rampant without our educational institutions must be confronted and addressed.

As an aside, it is not adultist to expect students to adhere to societal obligations that apply to everyone (in this case, the rules within a school) any more than it would be racist to expect people of color to adhere to societal obligations that apply to everyone.

Insistence That Restorative Does Not Work

A major intention of this manual is to provide schools with an implementation integrity instrument for evaluating the extent to which restorative practices have or have not been employed within the school. By having a 0-100 scale self evaluation rubric, schools can easily identify whether the lack of results is due to restorative practices being ineffective or implementation being ineffective. It is ideal for schools – assuming strong support from central administration – to progress from 0 to 80+ over the course of two complete school years. Communicating this norm, combined with the RLT conducting quarterly self evaluations, can bring comfort to those worried that there will be no measurement of effectiveness.

Parent/Family Discomfort With Restorative

Include information and permission forms about the school’s restorative practices in your enrollment paperwork. The earlier you communicate with families about the school’s student-led restorative practices, the better.