Alternative disciplinary approach shows mixed results in city schools

At Allegheny 6- 8 Traditional Academy in the North Side, suspension rates have plummeted since 2015, when the school introduced restorative practices — an educational alternative to traditional punishments that encourages reflection and dialogue — as part of a pilot project by Pittsburgh Public Schools.

But only 9 miles away at Mifflin Elementary School in Lincoln Place, suspension rates have more than doubled since implementing restorative practices, and at least 12 children withdrew from the school, citing an environment that is not conducive to learning.

In 2015, Allegheny 6- 8 and Mifflin Elementary, along with 20 other schools in the Pittsburgh Public Schools district, implemented restorative practices and trained teachers to foster constructive conversations when students misbehave. The Rand Corp. conducted a federally funded study assessing the effectiveness of restorative practices and found that schools with the new disciplinary method overall reduced suspension rates and racial disparities on how students are disciplined for misbehavior. In fall 2018, Pittsburgh Public Schools adopted restorative practices throughout the district.

While restorative practices have improved educational climate at schools like Allegheny 6- 8 — where suspension rates went from 28.7% in the 2016- 17 school year to 11.9% in the past academic year — critics say poor implementation can allow misbehavior to go unaddressed.

When school administrators and teachers don’t respond to wrongdoings — either with traditional disciplinary techniques or with restorative practices — disruptive students remain in the

classroom and impede learning for other students, the critics say. Critics and supporters alike point to insufficient time, training and resources as a reason for failures in restorative practices.

Four years after Mifflin introduced the program, several parents blamed it for what they termed the school’s chaotic learning environment that they said threatens student safety. The parents referenced incidents in which their children were hit, choked, scratched or bullied by other children — and, they claimed, the misbehaving students were let off the hook.

For example, Jenny Perrino, of Lincoln Park, said her son was beaten up multiple times and her daughter was groped on her buttocks but that the school made “minimal efforts” to address the incidents.

Tara Campbell, another Mifflin parent, said restorative practices are used as “an excuse for not doing things properly,” referencing a time a chair was thrown at her child and — to her knowledge — no disciplinary action was taken.

Christine Cray, Pittsburgh Public Schools’ director of student services reforms, declined to comment specifically on individual cases but said parents often only see “bits and pieces of discipline that took place.” Behavior change takes time, and parents and teachers shouldn’t expect restorative practices to fix all problems, Ms. Cray said. She added that there is “a spectrum from buildings that have been incredibly restorative to the ones … that had more traditional punishment.”

District spokeswoman Ebony Pugh said she was made aware of the parent concerns at Mifflin because the PPS parent hotline got several calls complaining about disciplinary issues there, and because some Mifflin parents voiced concerns during a public hearing in June about “the lack of discipline” at the school.

“I believe that, if implemented appropriately, restorative practices can have positive impacts,” said Nicole Anderson, president of Mifflin Parent Teacher Association. “But what was happening in Mifflin was not restorative practices. ... Parents complain that offenders offend and nothing happens. Everything was 10 times worse because no rules were enforced.”

Mifflin and Morrow Elementary in Brighton Heights are the only two schools that do not have a licensed restorative practices trainer on site, Ms. Cray said.

The International Institute for Restorative Practices partnered with Rand while it did its research and built a team of licensed trainers to be stationed at schools across the district and help teachers with restorative practices.

Ms. Cray said about 85% of the Pittsburgh district’s teachers have gotten restorative practices training so far. The two- day training includes presentations about the theory behind restorative practices and discussions on ways to conduct productive conversations, or what educators call “restorative circles,” Ms. Cray explained.

Restorative practices training also was introduced to the new teacher induction process for the district.

Both Ms. Cray and Keith Hickman, who is the director of continuing education at the International Institute for Restorative Practices, emphasized that the effectiveness of restorative practices depends heavily on the support from school administrators, teachers and parents. For younger children, having their parents understand restorative practices is crucial to transforming the school culture, Mr. Hickman added.

Yarra Howze, principal of Allegheny 6- 8, said her school sought additional ways to encourage teachers to use restorative practices and enhance the community’s understanding of the new program. For example, the school trained a group of students to be peer mediators to teach them how to restoratively manage their own relationships and “make sure that [ the school is] not just going through the motions,” Ms. Howze said.

She added that many teachers and parents often misunderstand that restorative practices allow misbehaving students to avoid the consequences of their actions and said schools need to put in additional time and resources for their buy- in. Allegheny 6- 8 was able to reduce suspension rates — and now has fewer than five students with multiple suspensions — because members of the school community fully understand how restorative practices work, Ms. Howze said.

Several schools like Allegheny 6- 8 and Concord K- 5 have seen substantial reductions in suspension rates since introducing restorative practices. While suspensions in PPS overall have been decreasing in the past few years, there was a small increase in the percentage of students suspended in the 2018- 19 academic year, from 10.9% to 11.1%. Ms. Pugh attributed the slight uptick to incidents that involved many students and an increase in marijuana- related discipline.

At Mifflin, however, the percentage of the student body suspended increased from 2.3% in 2016- 17 to 7.9% in the most recent school year. The argument that Mifflin is having problems because it is not using traditional discipline is not borne out by the data, which suggests that the school is using suspension more frequently than the district- wide average.

Mifflin principal Edward Littlehale said the school held multiple presentations about restorative practices last year to address parent skepticism.

Nina Esposito- Visgitis, who is the president of Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers, said schools have received various levels of support to introduce restorative practices. While the 22 schools that participated in the Rand research “got the best deal possible,” there were great discrepancies in the amount of resources those schools received, the quality of the trainers assigned and the enthusiasm from school administrators, Ms. Esposito- Visgitis said.

She added that failing to properly implement restorative practices can result in teachers getting burned out and students feeling unsafe in schools.