Tag Archives: zero tolerance

Restorative Practices in Response to Bullying Gain a Slight Foothold in Schools

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School has been back in session in the U.S. for awhile now and officials are dealing with bullying issues once again.

There is spotty evidence that some districts are looking beyond Zero Tolerance policies and automatic expulsion or suspension of kids who bully their classmates. In these districts, there is a conscious policy choice to use restorative practices first instead of punitive practices such as expulsion and suspension.

In the Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, School District, schools are implementing a comprehensive change program to address bullying, known as the SaferSanerSchools Whole School Change Program, developed by the International Institute for Restorative Practices (IIRP).

Rather than reflexively opt for immediate expulsion or suspension of kids who bully others, these districts are attempting to bring the bullied and the bully together with all their classmates into restorative circles to address the misbehavior as a community. The goal is accountability and community restoration rather than isolation, alienation, suspension, expulsion and stigmatization. It’s a first step toward interrupting the schools-to-prison pipeline.

It’s a risky proposition, and it takes more time than a rigid “throw the bully out” approach. But it holds the real possibility of keeping the bullying offender and the bullying victim together in community, rather than placing one more child in the school-to-prison pipeline. The statistics on expulsion and suspension are clear: each incident of suspension or expulsion increases the child’s chances of ending up in prison.

Programs such as SaferSanerSchools requires participation of the entire school community, from students and teachers to administrators, parents and even cafeteria and janitorial staffs. Successful implementation requires involvement of the entire community, since bullying affects everyone in the school community.

In one dramatic example:

Suspensions, expulsions, fights, bullying and other forms of poor student behavior dropped at Freedom and Liberty high schools during the 2011-12 school year, documents show.
The improved discipline picture is a reversal of 2009-10 and 2010-11 when infractions went up in the Bethlehem Area School District‘s two high schools as part of a district-wide increase of 36 percent.
Compared with the 2010-11 school year, suspensions dropped 20 percent to 978 in 2011-12. The number of students in suspension three times or more went down 43 percent to 493 at the two high schools over the same time frame, according to the Code of Conduct report, which separates offenses into three levels of severity.

Restorative practices and restorative circles allow the victims to be heard, the harms done to them to be recognized. Restorative practices even permit the bully to say why he or she was aggressive in the first place. Using restorative practices, all members of the community share in the process, expressing their experiences of the harms that have been done by the bullying of their fellow community members. All members of the community, all stakeholders, share a part in the communal response.

Ideally, even the parents of the bully and the bullied are present for the restorative circle conference. For restorative practices to have their maximum effect, all parties participate in these restorative circles, or accountability sessions, as the community asserts its values. Ideally, the bully and the bullied are restored to community and neither is stigmatized or ostracized.

For more information about restorative practices, contact:
IIRP Graduate School
531 Main St.
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA
(610) 807-9221

‘Zero Tolerance’ of bullies? Hungary’s schools offer another response to conflict mediation

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As school boards, state and local governments draft legislation to respond to increased reports of bullying, the term “zero tolerance” often comes up. When New Jersey recently implemented its sweeping “Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights,” the “zero tolerance” formula appeared in several news reports.

I posed a question to a restorative justice discussion group on LinkedIn.com, asking if a zero tolerance approach is the wisest choice for conflict management. Not surprisingly, the RJ practitioners and volunteers who responded were unanimous: No, it is not the wisest approach.

One member, writing from London, England, pointed me to a video — Intertwined –produced by a school-based conflict management program in Hungary. When he added that the video includes English subtitles, I gave it a click, and I include the link here and embed the video below.  The fairly fast-paced video includes a lively music track.

Readers who are familiar with restorative practices will immediately see those practices acted out in the various scenarios by the students and faculty. Instead of isolating, stigmatizing and expelling troublesome students, the program emphasizes creating an inclusive climate through peer support and engagement. Conflicts aren’t ignored or dismissed, but they are not reflexively handled through heavy-handed discipline or ostracism.

Special thanks to Martin Wright of the Lambeth Mediation Service, and contributor to the website RJ Online.

Intertwined – community conflict resolution in school from Balazs Benedek on Vimeo.

Anti-bullying bill: Did NJ go too far?

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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32545640

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 Reporter Chris Jansing posed the question on NBC Nightly News last Wednesday (Sept, 7, 2011).  Her report focused on the implementation of New Jersey’s Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights, signed into law January 6, 2011, by Gov. Chris Christie.

Both houses of the New Jersey legislature passed the anti-bullying bill in November 2010, with strong bipartisan support and wide margins.  Driven by the highly publicized case of homophobic cyber-bullying, resulting in the suicide of Rutgers University student Tyler Clementi, the law is considered the strongest, most comprehensive anti-bullying legislation passed so far in any of the 50 states, as governments attempt to address  social problems with stringent laws.

Several sources included in Jansing’s report cited the unintended consequence of adding strain on school systems imposed by the new anti-bullying bill — systems already dealing with a host of social problems in addition to violence and bullying in schools.  Specifically, they pointed to the additional training requirements, the appointment of anti-bullying specialists in each school and the manadatory requirement to report all incidents of bullying.  [pullquote]Is zero tolerance blocking flexibility right up front?[/pullquote]
The issue not addressed so far is whether yet another “Zero-Tolerance” policy is the wisest approach to social problems.  In its laudable, swift passage of the Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights, did the legislators have to impose a zero-tolerance policy, which inherently diminishes the ability of teachers and administrators to use wisdom and discretion in incidents which are unique and complex?

Is the zero-tolerance approach to social problems just another example of “get tough on crime” laws which provide emotional satisfaction to voters and policymakers, but which bring a host of unintended results and court orders?  One need look no further than the crisis in prison overcrowding, which can be traced directly to the passage of “get tough” policies such as “three strikes and you’re out,” or mandatory sentences for specific offenses.

Certainly, bullying in schools and communities, cyber-bullying and violence of all kinds demand swift and wise responses.  But the question should be asked:  why not address child welfare through a range of options — including mediation, peer counseling, anti-bullying curricula such as this and this,  and books — as part of broader focus on creating what Dr. Tom Cavanagh has called a “culture of care” in schools?

Raising these issues about zero tolerance policies is not intended to detract from the value of the landmark legislation now being implemented in New Jersey.  I applaud this bold and comprehensive effort to address the range of social problems posed by bullying, harassment and violence system-wide. In fact, maybe these actions in New Jersey will play a role in “helping seat-of-the-pants peacemakers see they are not alone.”