The concept of Restorative Practices in schools is fairly new. There are challenges in the early stages of anything new, and Restorative Practices are no exception. The greatest challenge is refuting the idea that Restorative Practices should replace traditional consequences and punishment should be eliminated. Ideally, this makes sense, but realistically, it cannot work. There will always be a need for traditional consequences in schools because there will always be situations that require us to use strategies such as in-school or out-of-school suspension. The key word to remember here is strategy. Suspension is a strategy, not a solution, and a strategy is derived from an intended goal.

Although Restorative Practices are necessary, they can be just as flawed as traditional consequences if executed in isolation. Restorative Practices focus on explicitly teaching behavior to students to change undesired behavior. In contrast, traditional consequences are used to punish inappropriate behavior when we believe students should have known that what they were doing was wrong. Our goal in both instances is accountability, and the path to accountability in schools can be achieved only by making restorative practices and traditional consequences work hand in hand.

If we're being honest, in-school suspension has some benefits. By and large, most students resent being assigned in-school suspension primarily because of the social isolation. Most administrators can corroborate this from firsthand experiences of students pleading for out-of-school suspension instead of in-school suspension. Many students would prefer to serve their punishment at home rather than being isolated from their peers at school. The greatest flaw of ISS is that you are removing the student from the learning environment, and it is relatively impossible to replicate the learning environment from which you are removing the student. We convince ourselves that we are still educating these students by providing them with work from their teachers and a staff member in the room, usually a paraprofessional, to "teach" students as needed. In reality, the overuse of ISS serves as a temporary solution that often compounds the underlying problem, eventually creating irreparable harm to the school. We have to find alternatives that extract the benefits of ISS but also compensate where ISS is deficient.

Almost everyone can agree that parenting today is drastically different from years ago. Many educators believe parents of students today are responsible for why we are currently seeing such widespread adversarial behavior in schools. You can debate whether we have a parent problem or a societal problem in our country, but we know that pointing fingers or playing the blame game doesn't solve this problem. The lack of trust between schools and parents is the primary barrier preventing educators from getting a handle on this problem. Leveraging partnerships with parents is paramount if educators hope to solve the behavior problems in our schools today. This can only be accomplished if we can convince parents to partner with us to work together in the best interest of their child rather than act as their kids' defense attorneys, as many parents currently do.

A school can have all the frameworks and strategies in the world, but the key to the success of any initiative will always be implementation. Having the right plan and team to execute the plan is essential. This training is designed to provide participants with specific guidance and support to help campuses develop an implementation plan for their campus's needs.

Throughout my tenure in education, every year, there is something new that is supposed to be the answer to the challenging behaviors we face today. The only constant of these initiatives is that they're all flawed. If we're honest, we also must admit that they all have some good qualities. We've all come to understand that no perfect solution will solve the behavior challenges we face in schools today. Restorative practices, social-emotional learning, positive behavior interventions, and support can all positively impact the climate and culture of your campus. With all initiatives, there will always be deficiencies. One can look to any of these frameworks and determine that they alone will not meet the diverse needs of their campus.

When implementing any initiative, everyone must understand their role. Restorative practices are no exception, but they present an even greater challenge because most educators struggle to integrate restorative practices into a school's traditional structure. Because of this, most people think you must hire additional staff even to consider implementing Restorative Practices. Everyone would agree that adding additional staff to support any new initiative is ideal and welcomed. But if you've been in education long enough, you know you have a better chance of winning the pick-three lottery than consistently getting the staffing allocation you need. Therefore, we have to make the best of our staffing, which requires being strategic and efficient. To be efficient, everyone must understand their roles and buy into the concept that the sum must be greater than the parts.

A school can have all of the frameworks and strategies in the world, but the key to the success of any behavior initiative will always be implementation. Regarding behavior initiatives, there are commonalities from school to school as to why they failed. If you want to give yourself a chance at being successful in the future, you need to start by looking at your past. Why were some of your past initiatives successful, and why did some of your past initiatives fail? This is a question that everyone needs to ponder before they take on what could arguably be the most challenging behavior initiative ever. What makes implementing Restorative Practices so challenging is that you are challenging a mindset that has existed for over 100 years. To complicate things even more, Restorative Practices has a branding problem. Many believe Restorative Practices mean you will let students do whatever they want without accountability. Your version of Restorative Practices can and will hold students accountable by synergizing Restorative Practices with traditional consequences. This may be your intention, but it needs to be communicated in your implementation plan. Having the right plan and team to execute that plan is essential.

Most people would agree that the three most important behaviors that need to be learned to be an effective teacher are delivering quality instruction, managing a classroom, and building relationships with students. If one had to pick two of the three as most important, most would choose the ability to manage a classroom and build relationships with students. I ask this question at nearly all my training sessions, and this is always the consensus. So, we understand that the ability to manage a classroom and have a relationship with students are the two most important behaviors a teacher needs to be effective. Why do schools and districts spend over 90% of their professional development solely on training teachers to deliver quality instruction? Most teachers who struggle do so because of their inability to manage their classrooms and connect with their students. Too often, the blame is placed on these teachers, but this is more of an issue in how we have chosen as an industry to support teachers. If we want struggling teachers to become better classroom managers and build relationships with their students, we must teach them how to do those things. And we must learn the difference between telling someone to do something and teaching them how to do it. This training gives participants practical experiences that will allow them to integrate Restorative Practices with their classroom management strategies. This should enable teachers to create structures to manage behavior and proactively build relationships with students in their classrooms by understanding their diverse needs.

Although Restorative Practices are necessary, they can be just as flawed as traditional consequences if executed in isolation. Restorative Practices focus on explicitly teaching behavior to students to change undesired behavior. In contrast, traditional consequences are used to punish inappropriate behavior when we believe students should have known that what they were doing was wrong. Our goal in both instances is accountability, and the path to accountability in schools can be achieved only by making restorative practices and traditional consequences work hand in hand.

If we're being honest, in-school suspension has some benefits. By and large, most students resent being assigned in-school suspension primarily because of the social isolation. Most administrators can corroborate this from firsthand experiences of students pleading for out-of-school suspension instead of in-school suspension. Many students would prefer to serve their punishment at home rather than being isolated from their peers at school. The greatest flaw of ISS is that you are removing the student from the learning environment, and it is relatively impossible to replicate the learning environment from which you are removing the student. We convince ourselves that we are still educating these students by providing them with work from their teachers and a staff member in the room, usually a paraprofessional, to "teach" students as needed. In reality, the overuse of ISS serves as a temporary solution that often compounds the underlying problem, eventually creating irreparable harm to the school. We have to find alternatives that extract the benefits of ISS but also compensate where ISS is deficient.

Almost everyone can agree that parenting today is drastically different from years ago. Many educators believe parents of students today are responsible for why we are currently seeing such widespread adversarial behavior in schools. You can debate whether we have a parent problem or a societal problem in our country, but we know that pointing fingers or playing the blame game doesn't solve this problem. The lack of trust between schools and parents is the primary barrier preventing educators from getting a handle on this problem. Leveraging partnerships with parents is paramount if educators hope to solve the behavior problems in our schools today. This can only be accomplished if we can convince parents to partner with us to work together in the best interest of their child rather than act as their kids' defense attorneys, as many parents currently do.