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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Nicholas L., Youth Leader from Circle Keepers, on Restorative Justice in Schools
8:06:32
ยท
3 min
Nicholas L., a youth leader from Circle Keepers, testifies in support of investing $80 million to hire school-based restorative justice coordinators in as many schools as possible. He shares his personal experiences with bullying and punitive discipline measures, contrasting them with the positive impact of restorative justice programs in his current school.
- Advocates for redirecting funding from school policing to restorative justice practices
- Highlights the importance of creating safe spaces where youth have a voice and input
- Calls for ending surveillance technologies that make students feel like criminals
Nicholas L.
8:06:32
Hello hello and good afternoon chair Joseph.
8:06:34
My name is Nicholas O'Ryan Lipscomb, and I was born in Puerto Rico and raised in Downtown Bronx.
8:06:38
I'm a part of the youth leadership nonprofit organization called the Circle Keepers and Dignity in Schools Coalition.
8:06:43
I'd for like I would first like to say that I appreciate you for hearing me out today as today we are demanding that the city invest $80,000,000 to hire school based restorative justice coordinators within as many schools as possible.
8:06:54
Today, I am I am here to help advocate the expansion of of the system of school discipline and safety that is based of understanding and community communication.
8:07:05
And to end how schools are ran like prisons.
8:07:08
We as a community need for the city to fund restorative justice programs and and redirect funding from school police policing into restorative justice practices because school is to learn and feel safe so why does every day feel like a prison being ran under security?
8:07:23
I am not here speaking from preference nor persuasion but encounters and personal experience.
8:07:29
When I had first went to middle school I had encountered bullying and I was person I personally thought it was something that would have went away if I had told or informed staff, but in reality it never changed or helped anything.
8:07:40
I felt unsafe and unheard by anyone in general as if I was just another voice in an echoing room full of people, unheard and unimportant.
8:07:48
Currently, going into my freshman year of high school, I quickly realized that the feeling of being unheard and unimportant was something wasn't something that within the school due to my due to my school incorporating a restorative justice program, making me feel at making me as a person realize that restorative justice should be something incorporated into many of other schools.
8:08:09
I joined my restorative justice team because I wanted to make a difference.
8:08:12
I wanted to be within a safe space where the youth had some sort of voice, some sort of input, and some sort of power.
8:08:18
I've been in I've been in schools that had extreme punish punishative measures where being suspended was something that happened quite often.
8:08:25
I personally got put into positions where that actually happened.
8:08:28
Where what actually happened wasn't important but how many people saw and say what they saw.
8:08:36
There was never a clear fair investigation where both sides of the story were heard and put into account when punitive measures were taken into account.
8:08:45
For all I often looked and I looked like overall just a bad kid for anything and everything I did or didn't do.
8:08:52
Now going to a mostly restorative justice school where issues were discussed upon both sides of what happened and are taken into account, where teachers first first result isn't to call parents to give punishment but to sit down with the kid and have the kid explain what's wrong and This is why I'm here fighting for the funding within restorative justice practices within as many schools as possible.
8:09:13
We are demanding that the city invest 80,000,000 to hire school based restorative justice in 500 schools, but this for this to happen, we'll shift the funds away from school policing by seizing all police hiring and teaching of school policing and stopping the growth of surveillance technology to make our future our future generation feel like criminals.