School Culture & Restorative Practices
Providence
Restorative practices are used in schools to improve climate and culture, and to provide alternatives to exclusionary discipline (types of discipline such as suspension and expulsion that remove students from school).
Research studies have shown that exclusionary discipline is both ineffective in changing student behavior, and harmful to young people. Additionally, research has shown disparities in exclusionary discipline, with students of color (particularly Black students) and students with disabilities disproportionately subjected to suspension and expulsion, often for minor offenses. [4] In contrast, restorative practices aim to help students understand the root of their behavior and work to restore the relationship between the student and the victim of that student’s offense.
Our Providence SCORE Community Research Team was particularly interested in measures that show the degree to which restorative practices are integrated into school live in Providence Public Schools, including:
Teacher training in restorative practices and the quality of restorative practices at the classroom level;
The extent to which students are supported in resolving conflicts .
See below for more information about the SCORE Instructional Equity goals and indicators, and click on the links to see available indicator data!
The SCORE School Culture and Restorative Practices indicators are separated into three goal areas that focus on the degree to which restorative practices are integrated into school life in Providence Public Schools:
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Research on restorative practices suggests that they are much more effective when built into the daily life of the school, rather than having teachers add on individual practices to narrowly address student misbehavior.
The indicators in this goal focus on the level of satisfaction with restorative practices at the classroom level, from students as well as school staff.
| Number | Indicator |
|---|---|
| 1 | Student satisfaction with teacher’s classroom restorative practices. | 2 | Administrator, peer educator, and/or staff Satisfaction with teachers’ classroom restorative practices. |
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Because restorative practices focus on repairing harm, they are designed to help students to better understand how to handle conflict. Support from educators and/or other school staff as well as other students is crucial for this to be effective.
Two of the indicators in this goal area use Rhode Island SurveyWorks data to understand how well students feel supported when they have problems and conflicts.
A third indicator looks at the rate of discipline referrals at the district’s schools. While this is not a direct measure of if/how restorative practices are implemented, it is a proxy measure – lower rates of exclusionary discipline indicate a higher likelihood of restorative practices, even though these rates don’t measure restorative practices directly.
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For restorative practices to truly be integrated into school life and culture, educators must have robust training and support to implement them. The 2019 review of the Providence Public School District by researchers at Johns Hopkins University named poor implementation of restorative practices in Providence schools, citing specifically the lack of teacher training and professional development.
The indicator in this section aims to show how widespread restorative practices training is among the district’s teachers.
| Number | Goal |
|---|---|
| 6 | % of teachers trained in restorative practices. |
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Currently, the active indicator links represent data that is publicly available (i.e., enrollment data and SurveyWorks climate survey). However, in many cases, our community-identified indicators differ from those that are publicly available. We are working to request data that the school district collects but is not yet made public. As new data and visualizations are ready, we will add them to the SCOREcard.
Additionally, some of what community members have asked to be measured in the SCOREcard is, to the best of our knowledge, not currently being collected In these cases, this SCOREcard represents a call to action for the school system, in partnership with community organizations, to collect data in areas that matter to the community, and to make it publicly accessible. As we get access to more data, more indicators will be populated and our SCOREcard will be stronger.