This year, Butler is determined to have zero suspensions. Never mind the iron bars across the windows, security guards blocking the school entrance and police officers who stroll the hallway. Fresno Unified, in its own effort to repair chronically high dropout and suspension rates, has paid close attention. Fresno may be ready to dream up its own “Peace Land.”
Jane wishes she had restorative justice, because she feels like teachers would have heard her side of the story.
John Alex is in a program that uses restorative justice and says through it, he was able to take responsibility for his actions.
“The best advice I can give is only to say, don’t hold back,” says John Gonzalez as he takes his student’s hand. John, 35, is a para-educator (aka special-ed teacher) at Sunnyside High School in Fresno. He tells me that out of his 35 years of living he never would’ve thought he’d end up where he is today.
On Nov. 6, Lawrence Jones shot and killed two co-workers, and then himself, at a meat processing plant here in Fresno. The shooting at the plant, Apple Valley Farms, is just the latest in a rash of gun violence in our city, and it hits close to home.