The San Antonio Express featured the restorative discipline project that Dr. Marilyn Armour and the Institute for Restorative Justice and Restorative Dialogue are implementing and evaluating at Ed White Middle School in San Antonio’s North East Independent School District.
Read the full San Antonio Express article here.
Restorative discipline is a prevention-oriented approach that fosters consensus-based decisions to resolve school conflict such as bullying, truancy and disruptive behavior.
Armour’s work at Edward White Middle School is part of a three-year research project initiated in 2012 by principal Philip Carney. Armour and her team have been training teachers at Edward H. White Middle School in restorative discipline methods, supporting them through implementation, and evaluating the results.
In the program’s first year, in-school suspensions dropped 30 percent, and the more severe off-campus suspensions fell a stunning 84 percent (see report here, pdf). Data for the pilot’s second year, which wrapped up in June, aren’t fully compiled but show a continued overall decline in suspensions.