Fresno looks at restorative justice program to aid students, defuse powder-keg schools

But in some cases, restorative justice can teach lessons that resonate into adulthood, Hanson said.

“There is a lot of work we can do to help students become stewards of their own behavior and decision-making.”

Ankle-deep in change

The push for restorative justice here started with a group of Fresno youths who came together two years ago to explore alternatives to the district’s zero-tolerance discipline policy that has created sky-high suspension rates in some schools. As the district’s dropout problem came to the fore over the past year, the youth movement gained traction.

During that time, Hanson has met with Oakland Unified Superintendent Tony Smith, the California Endowment and Ron Claassen, a restorative justice trailblazer at Fresno Pacific University, to explore ways to change how Fresno Unified disciplines.

The Graduation Task Force, a group of 38 community leaders selected by Hanson early this year, named restorative justice as one of several recommended solutions to keep kids in school and on track to graduate.

There’s talk of a pilot project, but the timeline is uncertain: “My initial hope was to go much bigger, much faster,” Hanson said. But he’s since realized the district doesn’t yet have the money, manpower or expertise to roll out a full-blown restorative justice program for a district of 74,000 students anytime soon.

For now, the district is “between ankle- and knee-deep” in the change, Hanson said. Coming up will be policy discussions by the school board and new programs at some school sites. Anti-bullying efforts already under way involve some aspects of restorative justice.

Districts across the state, recognizing the societal cost of soaring suspension rates, have adopted restorative justice practices. Students who are suspended are three times more likely to drop out by the 10th grade, according to research from Harvard University.

Los Angeles, San Francisco, Raisin City and Immanuel Schools in Reedley are among the districts pioneering restorative justice practices. Ryan Wood, superintendent of Immanuel, a group of private, Christian schools, said the transition was not simple.

He said finding the right answer to each student’s behavior problems “wasn’t easy and still isn’t easy today.”

Oakland Unified’s Butler cautions school leaders not to overthink it. If you can listen and you can forgive, he says, then you can do restorative justice.

“I think all good people do restorative justice all of their lives, they just haven’t had anything to call it,” he said.

A tradition of suspension

While new to most California school districts, restorative justice has been a long-standing practice in the juvenile justice system here. For the past three decades, Fresno County has used restorative justice through the Victim Offender Reconciliation Program, a voluntary mediation program that teaches youth offenders how to take responsibility for their crimes, change their behavior and make things right with their victims.

Statistics from 2009-10 showed that young people who completed VORP were three times less likely to break the law again than those who did not go through the program.

Restorative justice is trickier to do in schools — particularly in a large, urban district serving kids from some of the nation’s poorest neighborhoods. It requires attitude and behavior changes from the whole district — a transformation of habits in everyone, Hanson said.

Fresno Unified would have to create new discipline policies and train its 10,000 or so employees to react to misbehaving kids very differently than they have for decades. Parents, guardians and the community would have to buy in and do their part, too. It’s a process that demands a lot of time and, for many, a leap of faith.

The kNOw Youth Media
The kNOw works to support and equip young people with the journalism and advocacy skills they need to tell their stories and the stories of their communities.

In 2006, over 25 youth began participating in weekly after-school writing workshops where they congregated in the hallway of a two-story building in West Fresno and learned the essentials of creating media and telling their stories. The group evolved over the next five years and is now proudly recognized as The kNOw Youth Media.

Through our program, we create opportunities for our youth participants, who in turn create long-term positive change in their communities. Our approach weaves youth development and youth media innovation to produce our biannual youth publication, multimedia projects, and community forums.

The kNOw began as a project of New America Media, which was the country’s first and largest national collaboration and advocate of 2000 ethnic news organizations. In 2018 The kNOw became a project of Youth Leadership Institute.

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