The Le Grand Union High School District is comprised of just over 500 students. Dissatisfied with the impact such traditional, punitive discipline was having on the school climate, educators and administrators decided to try a different approach and began to implement a “restorative” model of discipline. Rather than banishing the offending student from school, “restorative” strategies aim to help identify personal or family issues a student may be having that often are the root cause of the disciplinary problems at school.
Restorative discipline is a research based technique for handling conflict, emphasizing accountability by addressing the harm caused by disruptive behavior and providing each party to a conflict the opportunity to listen and try to find collaborative solutions to prevent future disciplinary issues. By listening and learning more about what might be going on in a disruptive student’s home or personal life rather than simply responding with punishment, a student’s negative behavior can frequently be vastly improved.
Besides improving the atmosphere on campus, restorative discipline programs pay many other dividends. Researchers at UCLA and UC Santa Barbara recently concluded that over 4,600 high school students statewide drop out from each graduating class because they were suspended. This costs California an estimated $2.7 billion in increased criminal justice costs and lost revenue over the course of these dropouts’ lives.
In Merced County the study estimated that suspensions were to blame for 69 students dropping out of school, which will ultimately cost the county and state $41 million in criminal justice services, reduced economic productivity and higher health care costs.
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