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Q&A
Restorative justice programming in NYC schools
3:32:46
ยท
11 min
Council Member Rita Joseph discusses the implementation and expansion of restorative justice programming in NYC schools with DOE representatives. The conversation covers current programs, plans for expansion, and addressing various issues through restorative practices.
- 972 schools currently have restorative justice support
- The DOE is conducting a needs assessment to deepen and expand restorative practices
- Discussion on using restorative justice to address bullying and support students with special needs
- Improvements to the Manifestation Determination Review (MDR) process for students with disabilities
- Plans to train deans in restorative justice practices and engage parents in the process
- Challenges in implementing training while considering school contexts and staff well-being
Rita Joseph
3:32:46
Okay, thank you.
3:32:48
And the students were texting me along for this next topic because it's very near and dear to their heart, restorative justice.
3:32:55
And it's near and dear to my heart as well.
3:32:58
How many schools currently have restorative justice programming?
Sandra Mitchell
3:33:09
Good afternoon Chair
UNKNOWN
3:33:10
Joseph and thank you for your advocacy of course for restorative justice programs.
3:33:15
We currently have nine seventy two restorative justice that we support across New York City public schools.
Rita Joseph
3:33:22
How many students have received these services in the current year and in the last school year?
UNKNOWN
3:33:27
So this current year FY '25, I don't have the number of students, but every student it's touched through the nine seventy two schools we support citywide.
3:33:37
But if you want the numbers I can get you those numbers.
Rita Joseph
3:33:40
Is there a plan to expand as we see suspension rates are up?
3:33:45
How do we address that?
UNKNOWN
3:33:48
Well I hope we can expand but I would defer to
Melissa Aviles-Ramos
3:33:55
So one of the things, Chair Joseph, that I'm doing right now is actually meeting with Doctor.
3:33:59
Davson and her team to really talk about the work that restorative justice team does across New York City and what that looks like in the specific districts.
3:34:07
In the coming weeks, we are going to announce some changes, some initiatives in how we're furthering and deepening this work, but also defining practices look like.
3:34:19
What do I mean by that?
3:34:20
Reentry plans for our young people when they come back into buildings after suspension.
3:34:25
So we know that there are consequences, and we know that the restorative practices have to work in collaboration.
3:34:31
It's not necessarily one or the other.
3:34:33
And so we are doing a needs assessment as to what this work currently looks like, where it needs to deepen across districts and schools, particularly, and I'm sure you would attest to this, just because a district has really low suspension rates and really high attendance that doesn't mean that when you disaggregate that you don't see certain schools that have practices that need to be supported.
3:34:54
So what we're doing, Cher, just to put a finer point on it, is making sure that through this needs assessment our restorative practices team is actually working with the right schools in the right ways and that we're centralizing what some of that those good practices look like.
Rita Joseph
3:35:08
Because we do get a lot of calls around bullying still happening in schools and that's part of the restorative justice, right?
3:35:15
Sometimes you may cause harm and don't know it.
3:35:17
How are we using restorative justice practices to address those situations?
3:35:21
And are we also including students with special needs?
3:35:24
And we talked about that in my last hearing through MDRs, when students are also suspended with special needs and then their services are not being met if I'm at home or at a suspension center, how are you addressing that?
UNKNOWN
3:35:38
Sure, so we continue to provide training citywide for our schools on bullying.
3:35:43
We continue to lift and share with our communities about the multiple ways in which bullying can be reported.
3:35:49
We actually this year have targeted specific schools that have high incident rates in bullying and or incidents to provide individualized case by case professional learning and training for those school communities in partnership with our vendors.
3:36:06
And in terms of special education and students with disabilities, we work really closely with Christina Foti and John Hammer and our advocates and remedy and a lot of those issues that come up case by case.
3:36:19
For example, specifically with our team, I can well, in collaboration, we have made some changes in some documentation that we sent to families to let families know they have access to an advocate at hearings and at MDR processes.
3:36:38
Also, we have extend professional learning and training not only to our internal teams but for schools on how to use progressive discipline and how to decide on appropriate disciplinary actions for each and every student, especially our most vulnerable students.
3:36:57
And I'll let Christina talk a little bit more about our work with MDRs.
Christina Foti
3:37:08
Thank you, chair.
3:37:08
We read your op ed this morning, beautifully written.
3:37:12
Just to address some of what you spoke about in the op ed, oftentimes our students with disabilities are given an unfair shot.
3:37:22
The reasons why they are acting out are sometimes, most times, part of their disability and or linked to their feeling of not being successful in the classroom.
3:37:35
And so we did engage a group of advocates, administrators, teachers to make adjustments to the MDR process, and we've been out in the field training.
3:37:47
So far we've done CSE staff, districts eight, seventeen, eighteen, twenty, and we plan to train all district special education teams on these modifications and changes to the process.
3:37:58
Namely we're talking to them about examining the impact of suspensions, a deeper dive into positive behavior supports and getting in front of these issues, best practices for building trust with families.
3:38:09
Parents should not have to rely advocate in an MDR process.
3:38:13
The school should be the advocate on behalf of every child.
3:38:16
And at the end of the day, if a child's not succeeding, that's on the adults that are supporting them.
3:38:20
And so this training is really intended to be a call to action for people to support students with disabilities before taking on disciplinary processes that are not necessarily gonna be helpful.
Rita Joseph
3:38:33
Are parents notified or made aware of MDRs, or do they know what it is?
3:38:37
Is there training provided for parents?
Christina Foti
3:38:39
Yeah, we updated the family letter to be much more family friendly, but also to give access on the discipline process.
3:38:51
We're hoping that this more family friendly notification is gonna land as supportive to families.
Melissa Aviles-Ramos
3:38:57
And Cher, we are going to share with you in the coming weeks an additional layer of support for families so that way beyond the written communication and social media communication, we are really training myriad topics that are going to allow for parent leaders to share shoulder to shoulder information with other parents in the communities, including topics such as these.
Rita Joseph
3:39:20
Thank you.
3:39:21
Can you provide a list of which schools have restorative justice programming for the 2024 and '25 school year?
UNKNOWN
3:39:27
Yes, we provided that list to council.
3:39:28
Okay,
Rita Joseph
3:39:29
thank you.
3:39:30
And looking at the terms and condition on restorative justice spending and programming in fiscal twenty twenty four, Can you explain why the utilization rate on spending for OTPS costs was lower than personnel costs?
Seritta Scott
3:39:44
Sure, so last year that was due primarily due to late allocations going out, but I can say for this year we've gotten it together and at year to date we've expensed about 80% of the budget and on track to spend it down.
Rita Joseph
3:40:03
How can we make all deans restorative justice practitioners with deep knowledge of media mediation and conflict resolution?
UNKNOWN
3:40:10
We can certainly provide those trainings to deans.
3:40:13
We currently provide trainings to all school staff citywide who are interested in restorative practices, and we can certainly provide those training for deans.
3:40:21
Actually, through our suspension and hearing offices, we do train school staff who issue disciplinary consequences to students and that does include deans, but we can certainly do it wide scale.
Melissa Aviles-Ramos
3:40:34
Again, doing the needs assessment to see when principals again, just having done this work chair, when I was a small school principal and someone told me, you have to send 12 of your staff members to be trained on restorative justice circles.
3:40:48
Circles.
3:40:48
Not that I wasn't bought into it because I absolutely understand the power of restorative practices, specifically restorative circles.
3:40:56
That being said, if you have a staff of 25 people and 12 people need to be out at the same time, it is unmanageable.
3:41:03
And so what we're doing in our needs assessment is really thinking about how do we get the job done while taking into account a specific school's context so principals can actually send the people who need the training to the training.
3:41:15
Because if I'm being lunch chair and I have my dean out of the building for a training for five weeks, that's debilitating.
3:41:23
And so this needs assessment is really thinking about not lessening it, but actually expanding in a way that makes sense for schools to be able to take advantage of these trainings.
Rita Joseph
3:41:35
And those who have been trained already getting refresher courses as time change, the needs are changed, the needs of students have changed also, in what we're seeing as our students are coming back post pandemic.
3:41:47
I hope we stay on top of our
Melissa Aviles-Ramos
3:41:49
Well, Chair, if I can add, we also need to marry that with trauma informed care and caring for the caregiver Because compassion fatigue is real, and we need to make sure that the people who are trained on these restorative practices are also being given the grace to have them practice with them as well, because we want This is a part of retaining good teachers, right, and good staff.
3:42:09
We want to make sure that they're taken care of as well.
3:42:11
And so I have to commend the UFT for doing amazing work with us and our partnership with MindsUp and Mindful Breathing.
3:42:19
They were instrumental in making sure that the mindful practices were happening not only in schools, but with quality.
3:42:26
And so I made my six month anniversary this week.
3:42:31
I'll be also toddler as chancellor, but we're getting to the work.
3:42:36
But what we do want to do, Chair, is we wanna make sure that it's in a purposeful and intentional way.
3:42:41
It's not just to do the thing.
3:42:42
We have to make sure that we're looking at school programs, we're talking to school leaders, we're talking to teachers, and getting things done in the way that suits the school's context.
Rita Joseph
3:42:50
One other partner I want to bring in restorative justice, visited an outward bound school and one of the things they've done is include parents in restorative We can train students, right, And what they and remember they live at home.
3:43:05
So those we wanna make sure they're applying those same techniques with parents and with students.
3:43:11
How are you engaging parents in restorative justice?
UNKNOWN
3:43:14
Thank you for mentioning that, Chitos, because last time we the last testimony, that's what you and councilman Stevens pushed.
3:43:22
Restorative communities.
Rita Joseph
3:43:24
That's my part.
UNKNOWN
3:43:25
Restorative communities.
3:43:26
And as such, we have prioritized doing professional learning for parents.
3:43:31
First, we're starting out this spring with our district facing staff, our FLCs, our FCLs, also our district training parent coordinators.
3:43:40
And this spring, we're trickling it down to parent coordinators and families, and we're also proud to share that we're going to have our first family restorative justice summit in May.
Rita Joseph
3:43:50
I would love to see we're
UNKNOWN
3:43:54
You're already on the list.
3:43:56
Okay.
Rita Joseph
3:43:56
Chef Stevens and I were attending.
Mamuna Dumbia
3:43:57
Absolutely.
Rita Joseph
3:44:00
Our immigrant oh wait.
3:44:02
Jess Stevens had a question.
3:44:04
Go.
Althea V. Stevens
3:44:04
A really quick question and this is this is pertaining into the immigrant population and the gang database.