Restorative justice at Demarest school

Demarest Elementary School has been recognized by the New Jersey Educational Association as a restorative justice community and is one of only a few schools in the state receiving this distinction.

First, what is restorative justice? This is a method of mitigating disputes between students, and is based on the personal reflection by the students involved. According to the NJEA website, this is “a philosophy borrowed from indigenous cultures with a strong emphasis on building relationships rooted in the strength of community.”

Secondly, for Demarest, being deemed a restorative justice community qualifies a group of its educators to introduce the concept to other educators at an NJEA conference scheduled for Aug. 5-6, in Princeton.

Michael Sullivan, the school principal, said his teachers have received training in this method to help disputing students to advocate for themselves and make amends, if necessary. Two educators from the NJEA, Angie and John Gray, provided Demarest educators with training, coming to the school four times since September.

“What we noticed,” Sullivan said, “was that with the Covid pandemic, there’s been an impact on students’ emotional and social growth. This method is an opportunity for the students to improve their skills.”

His Demarest staff, from the start, wanted to hear more about restorative justice and invited the Grays to return frequently. This impressed the NJEA representatives.

“They provided training using peer and restorative circles,” Sullivan said. “The teachers will now be able to run lessons for the children.”

Sullivan said a peer circle is what some schools call a morning meeting between teacher and students. The kids, basically, are given the opportunity to express, in a classroom situation, how they feel that day. A restorative circle, Sullivan said, occurs when a problem between or among students is brought to the teacher’s attention. The kids caught up in the problem would explain what occurred, from their perspective, and express their feelings and thoughts. A restorative circle may be witnessed by only the teacher or the group involved or the entire class. The training occurred during staff meetings in the school media center. Teachers would sometimes divide into groups specifically for K-3 or 4-6 students.

Sullivan hopes to have the restorative justice process implemented in September. Peer circles he thinks can be done twice a week.

“It would be brief, at the beginning of the day on Monday, and then check in with the kids again on Friday,” he said.

The process, Sullivan said, will approach student discipline in a new way with teachers, as facilitators, guiding students, in conversation with each other, to discover a path
through their differences.

“It is expected that all Demarest teachers will use this philosophy when resolving conflicts,” he said. “A restorative circle is not an end-all and be-all or a stand alone. It’s part of the teacher’s tool kit.”

The process does make sense to his teachers, he said, because it shows students that no problem is intractable provided you keep an open mind about the other person, and about yourself.

“Students very often go to adults to solve their problems,” Sullivan said. “The goal here is for students to advocate for themselves.”

Claire Keller, the director of Bloomfield student achievement, said the district continues to foster a restorative justice community through ongoing diversity and equity training.

“The district is dedicated to supporting its diverse students, staff, and community,” she said. “Schools have formed, this year, diversity councils to address specific concerns such as celebrating the diverse school community and revising discipline methods to be more restorative. Additionally, a number of staff members who received training from the NJEA on creating restorative communities significantly aided in the implementation of these practices across the district.”

In addition to Principal Sullivan, the Demarest educators who will be advocating for restorative justice at the Princeton conference will be the school guidance counselor Jenifer Beesley; third-grade teacher Hetal Desai, who will be teaching fourth grade in September; fourth-grade teacher Lyn Goldsworthy, who will be teaching first grade and first-grade teacher Maritza Perez, who will going to the middle school as an ESL teacher. Perez received restorative justice training from the Grays last year, Sullivan added.

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