Pushout

by Monique W. Morris

  PBIS has been noted to have a positive effect on student disciplinary outcomes, in that schools that have been trained in PBIS report a significant reduction in the percentage of children with major and minor office disciplinary events and in the overall rate of these events.13 Existing research found that schools that have implemented PBIS with fidelity experienced decreases in office discipline reports (ODRs) and total suspensions (TS).14 The researchers also found that over time, fidelity was less a factor in the rate of office discipline reports.15 According to the investigators of this research, “regardless of fidelity, schools experienced decreases in ODRs over time, but time alone did not lead to overall decreases in [out-of-school suspensions] or TS.”16 So, it takes time to shift the decision-making climate within a school, which might directly impact the number of discipline reports filed, but other interventions are needed to reduce the disparities associated with the use of exclusionary discipline.

  PBIS has also been found to positively impact academic achievement. In New Hampshire elementary, multilevel, and high schools, the implementation of PBIS with fidelity produced “associated gains in math achievement.”17 The researchers of this study found that the math scores improved for 20 percent of middle schools. These scholars also found that in these same schools, 41 percent of the schools that implemented PBIS with fidelity saw improvement in reading and language scores. This is not surprising. When children are in class and focused on learning, they experience better academic outcomes.

  In alternative educational settings, typically those that include “alternative middle/high schools, day treatment schools, residential facilities, self-contained schools, and secure-care juvenile justice facilities,” PBIS has been found to reduce problem behavior among youth.18 The use of temporary, second-tier interventions such as check-in, check-out (CICO) or “check, connect and expect,” both of which target conflict resolution, social skills development, and mentoring, decreased problem behavior in the “most problematic classroom.”19 According to researchers, “The public health model and logic can be applied seamlessly with implementation of PBIS in alternative educational settings when behavioral supports are matched to student needs, beginning with universal supports and interventions.”20

  Initial attempts to understand the impact of PBIS and the factors associated with its effective and/or ineffective implementation are limited by a dearth of student data captured by referral processes and incomplete documentation of school- and evidence-based interventions.21 While the populations included in studies on PBIS certainly included Black and Latino youth, studies were not designed to examine the specific behaviors for which PBIS interventions (by tier) were determined and whether those interventions varied in effectiveness by levels of youth cognition, perceived racial bias, stereotype threat, law enforcement reactivity, or other attributional features that may impact student behaviors in schools. PBIS and its outcomes are outliers in comparison to other conditions associated with the disproportionate discipline, exclusion and marginalization of youth of color (e.g., implicit bias in school discipline decision making, or the impact of a school’s structure of dominance on students structural change or leadership development to reduce the use of exclusionary discipline). So we still have little information about how PBIS specifically impacts responses to Black girls.

  We can imagine how a PBIS-based intervention might have helped to create a climate for the establishment of behavioral norms that would have provided an alternative for Mia when she was agitated by a teacher or student, or how it may have helped Stacy, the self-described “problem child,” find language and actions that could help her to present as a more constructive member of the school community. Each of the these girls had developed actions in response to feeling disrespected—cursing and fighting—that a PBIS approach could isolate and provide opportunity to correct (without academic marginalization or criminalization). Taking the time to invest in the development of behavioral adjustments and expectations prevent later outbursts that can negatively impact student achievement. But these interventions, in focusing on modifying the behaviors of children, still might miss the oppressive conditions—present in institutions and in society at large—that place these girls in harm’s way.

  In our efforts to create conditions to support the learning of Black girls, it is important to understand the intention of each intervention. PBIS is aimed at correcting student behavior (largely in association with the use of school discipline), but as we will explore, restorative justice aims to shift the paradigm of accountability. Because PBIS is a federally supported intervention, there is a more supportive legislative environment for the adoption of policies and practices that fall under the PBIS rubric.22 Restorative approaches are well suited as a community- and school-based intervention that may improve the overall climate for PBIS and other behavior modification programs among students.23

  Restorative Justice and Black Girls

  Restorative justice is a process by which individuals involved in a crime or harmful incident are brought together to repair their relationship.24 Rooted in indigenous paradigms of justice from the United States, New Zealand, and other world cultures, restorative justice provides an alternative structure by which to correct negative student behaviors and to build accountability and community.25 Research on the school-to-prison pipeline shows an underutilization of restorative approaches in schools where Black students predominate, but there may be growing anecdotal and local evidence that restorative approaches are a promising strategy by which to build leadership skills and repair relationships between and among Black youth in schools and communities.26 While these studies on restorative justice have typically lacked an intersectional lens, there are aspects of the restorative approach that inform this discussion.

  Restorative justice is a paradigm that emphasizes the repair of relationships when a harmful incident has occurred. The repair of relationship(s) comes by way of tending to obligations, engaging stakeholders, using cooperative and collaborative processes, and focusing on harms and needs.27 Restorative practices prioritize the relationships that exist in people’s conscious and spiritual domains. Howard Zehr, a leading source on restorative practice in the United States, has cautioned against the labeling of all retributive or discussion-oriented processes as inherently “restorative.” In other words, just talking out an issue and assigning an action to hold someone accountable does not automatically restore or transform the relationship that has been harmed. According to Zehr, three questions are central to a restorative process:

  Who has been hurt?

  What are their needs?

  Whose obligations are these?28

  These questions are associated with the core pillars of restorative justice: (1) a focus on harm, (2) the understanding that wrongdoing results in certain obligations, and (3) the understanding that restorative justice requires participation and engagement.29 Ada Pecos Melton has offered the view that restorative justice is an extension of the “indigenous paradigm” of justice that is based on a “holistic” philosophy, in which “a circle of justice . . . connects everyone involved with a problem or conflict on a continuum, with everyone focused on the same center. The center of the circle represents the underlying problems and issues that need to be resolved to attain peace and harmony for the individuals and the community.”30 This holistic philosophy is consistent with the norms of the African diaspora as well—but this is a practice that has been forgotten and/or obscured by poverty and cultural subjugation in the United States.

  While restorative justice is considered an approach, as opposed to a program, there are a number of activities that are typically associated with it. These include victim offender reconciliation programs/victim-offender programs, family group conferences, and restorative circles or conferences.31 Each of these strategies occupies a unique space in the restorative paradigm. However, some believe that restorative approaches are neither new nor revolutionary. According to University of California, Berkeley, law professor
Mary Louise Frampton, “For most of human history, the response to what are now called ‘crimes’ was restorative justice because people understood that crime results in injuries to victims, neighborhoods, even the offenders themselves.”32

  Numerous efforts have been made to create restorative environments in schools—particularly in states where the restorative justice movement has been implemented as an alternative to punitive school discipline and the common paradigm of criminal and juvenile justice in the United States. In Illinois, Minnesota, California, Massachusetts, and other states, comprehensive and restorative efforts have been adopted and/or touted by state departments of education as effective reforms to school-based discipline processes. According to Zehr, “Schools have become an important place for restorative practices. While there are some similarities to restorative justice programs for criminal cases, the approaches used in an educational setting must be shaped to fit that context.”33 School-based restorative practices such as circles, mediation and counseling, family group counseling, and peer juries have been found to produce restorative school cultures that seek to provide a space for the reparation of harm.34 These programs have been found to be effective strategies to interrupt student and staff conflict, negative youth behaviors in class, and other problems that might require the involvement of a parent.35 Restorative practices have been found to enhance youth leadership qualities and to increase accountability, school safety, and the development of prosocial skills.36

  Research on implicit bias reveals that by virtue of our existence in a racially stratified society, there are certain ideas, racial stereotypes, and norms that affect how we make meaning and decisions.37 These biases are rooted in our subconscious behaviors, and manifest in our implicit reactions to individuals based upon latent, involuntary preconceptions.38 Studies have found that in schools where the population of students is predominately African American and/or Latino, educators and administrators perceive a “racial threat,” which has been shown to affect their reactions to problematic student behaviors.39 Indeed, a recent national study found that the greater the concentration of students of color, the greater the likelihood of a school’s reliance on punitive exclusionary discipline in response to disruptive and problematic student behaviors.40 The use of punitive responses to student behaviors is especially prevalent in schools where principals and other school leaders believe that “frequent punishments help to improve behavior.”41 In short, while some research has found that restorative practices may reduce discipline disparities associated with disproportionate contact with the juvenile justice system,42 a racial threat “reduces the use of restorative discipline and increases the use of harsh discipline in schools.”43

  The use of restorative practices in urban schools has been found to support a reduction in suspension (even when the rate of suspension is increasing district-wide), to avert expulsions, to resolve conflict between students, and to increase students’ skill sets.44 Researchers acknowledge that restorative practices in response to school discipline may be difficult for both the children and adults involved.45 The social discipline window, as described by Costello, Wachtel, and Wachtel, captures the “interplay between two axes, one for ‘control’ or limit setting and another for ‘support’ or nurture.”46 With respect to striking a balance between these axes, Costello and colleagues wrote, “By engaging with young people, we can hold them accountable in an active way. Then we are doing things WITH them. But when we simply hand out punishments, we are doing things TO them. Or when we take care of their problems and make no demands, we are doing things FOR them. And when we ignore their behavior, we are NOT doing anything.”47

  While zero-tolerance approaches represent the most extreme aspect of the school punishment continuum and are known to facilitate future delinquency and criminalization among youth of color, the use of restorative justice may be related to the willingness of the teachers and administrators to apply sound discipline in schools and raise expectations for children of color, including those among them who are Black girls.48

  As with PBIS, studies presented in the literature on restorative justice have typically not included a rigorous gender/race analysis, so there is no strong discussion about how racial threat may be informed by gender, or by intersections between race and gender. However, it is important to note that the lack of restorative and holistic approaches (i.e., conferencing circles, mediation and counseling, and peer juries) in the schools where Black populations predominate could be exacerbated by the presence of law enforcement in these environments.49 Girls in the Bay Area, Southern California, Chicago, New Orleans, the Northeast, and other places I have visited have discussed contentious relationships with security officers and other school-based disciplinarians. They long for “something else.” But implementing that “something else” is a challenge, especially when there are so many models of the alternative at play.

  According to sujatha baliga, director of the Restorative Justice project at Impact Justice, there are many models of restorative justice; some are more scripted, others are more flexible. However, she has found that the more hands-off the process, the more culturally responsive the practice.

  “I train folks on how to facilitate with very little intervention, because we read things that aren’t there,” sujatha said. “We all bring our cultural biases to whatever work that we do, and for me, the intersectionality of gender and race is powerful in terms of how we are uncomfortable when women and girls step out of the boundaries of what we think a proper girl is. . . . Aggression can be read into situations. If folks are going to read aggression into the [behavior of a girl], then they are limiting her full expression, which is actually damaging to restorative practice. We need to be comfortable with all of the ways that discomfort expresses itself.”

  In other words, if a Black girl is rolling her eyes, sucking her teeth, or even elevating her voice in a circle, she is demonstrating discomfort that should be engaged by the restorative justice facilitator, rather than punished.

  “The other thing is to know yourself,” sujatha said. “That’s really important as a facilitator. To have an awareness of where you might be missing stuff or seeing things that aren’t there—and with Black girls, [society] sees things that aren’t there a lot.”

  School administrators, security guards, teachers, and restorative justice facilitators are not the only ones who are still adjusting to this new paradigm. Black girls also struggle to fit their current expectations into new paradigms that are not being implemented with consistency, or in some cases, with fidelity to the best practice.

  In our Chicago conversation about restorative justice circles, Nala offered, “I’m not going to lie, [restorative justice] never worked for me . . . but I’d just forget about the situation anyway.”

  “Why didn’t it work for you?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. . . . I’m the type of person where I’d [like to] forget about the situation anyway. It happened. It’s over with.”

  In restorative approaches, all parties involved agree to come together and discuss the incident. But for Nala, it appeared that this fundamental practice was dissuasive.

  “So, sometimes having the conversation was prolonging it?” I asked.

  “Yup . . . I think it makes the altercation go longer. You sit up in a room with people [and] y’all both still beefing right now. If you say something wrong, something’s going to happen. I just don’t listen. . . . If she wants to keep going off at the mouth, let her do her.”

  To sujatha, this remaining conflict is the perfect reason to bring the young women together in conference. “If they’re still beefing, we should lead them through a restorative process . . . we need an intervention. We want to bring them into the circle, but we can’t police their behavior in the circle. We’re not going to have active threats, but [we need to acknowledge] that the only way out is through.”

  Leila also saw this example as an opportunity for healing.

  “What if y’all have continuo
us meetings?” Leila asked. “I’m pretty sure it didn’t take one incident for y’all to be beefin’. So, maybe if they had continuous meetings . . . ’cause in circle, you’re supposed to express yourself, she’s supposed to express herself, and a few other of your classmates express themselves about how it felt. And so, at least you get your point across, like ‘Why don’t you like me? What is the issue?’ Like, hopefully, it’s supposed to break through . . . I don’t know how your circle went, but I feel like if maybe we don’t get the results, then we should try again. ’Cause we’ve been doing prisons for over four-hundred-something years, and they clearly don’t work. So, let’s try restorative justice for about one hundred [years].”

  The young women laughed, but Leila had a point—and others agreed. Imperfect implementation should not lead to an abandonment of the idea.

  “We did circles at my school,” Michele offered. “It was two cliques . . . they didn’t like each other. [The school administrator] brought all the girls together downstairs . . . I could have been in class learning. They brought all the girls downstairs. Nothing was accomplished. They made us leave because the girls was finna fight. . . . They wanted to start another circle, but they were like, never mind because the girls were too heated. They wanted to fight.”

  I wondered aloud whether the girls were forced to join the circle. An important principle in restorative practice is that participation is voluntary, although I concede that people respond to the options set before them. If they don’t really know restorative practices, then they may not feel confident choosing them.

  “I was forced,” Michelle said. “[We all went], whether or not you had anything to do with the situation, because they wanted to sit down and talk with all of the girls anyway. So, you had to go down there and they were just telling us what a young lady should do and then they got onto the situation [about] what was going on in the school . . . Then people started speaking up. Some people were like, ‘This is a waste of time, because it’s not going to get to the real issue at all. I’ma tell y’all right now.’ And it didn’t.”