Fix School Discipline Toolkit for Educators | Page 39

phase of implementation and offer greater support,
coaching, modeling, and training to the schools
as they move through the implementation plan.
Our approach isn’t to just to provide RP trainings
to school site staff. We aim to support schools in a
sustainable way that builds internal capacity of the
school community, including students, families,
and community partners. Our goal is for the RP
principles, concepts, values, and practices to become
embedded in the culture of our schools and district.
This requires a shared commitment among all
members of the school and district community.

A Day at a School
Implementing
Restorative Practices:
Rosa Parks Elementary School, Principal
Paul Jacobsen and Teachers Cecily Ina and
Emily Geiges
Rosa Parks Elementary
School is located in
San Francisco Unified,
near downtown San
Francisco. The school
serves a population of
391 students. Of these
students, 34% are
African American, 22%
are Asian, 15% are
Hispanic or Latino, 13%
are white, 8% are
multiracial, 4% are Filipino, and less than 1% each
are American Indian and Pacific Islander. Before
the implementation of Restorative Practices (RP)
at the school, there were 40 out-of-school and
in-school suspensions during the 2008-2009
school year. During the 2013-2014 school year,
there were 2 uspensions. Rosa Parks Elementary’s
Academic Performance Index (API) has similarly
improved. API has grown from 713 points in 2009
to 799 in 2014.
On Thursday, October 11, 2012, during the lunchtime
recess period, Principal Jacobsen made his routine

rounds of the playground. A game of tag and play
fighting had become far too rowdy and a teacher
intervened and sent some of the students to a timeout away from the playground. One of the students
had become increasingly sullen and complained
that the group of boys “messed with” him every
day. Principal Jacobsen escorted the unhappy
student, Arnold, to his class so that they could have a
restorative conference with a student involved in the
altercation.
Principal Jacobsen explained, “Restorative
conferencing usually occurs after lunch because
that’s when two different grades mix and a lot of
altercations occur. We have about 2-3 of these
restorative conferences a day. We could just take
the kids off the yard when this occurs but they would
just simmer and we would not get to the bottom of
the issue. RP doesn’t just eliminate conflict. It is an
approach to dealing with conflict. Conflict is a part of
life. Sometimes that conflict is caused by something
at home, which can result in some serious acting out.
After consulting Arnold’s teacher, Principal Jacobsen
told Arnold that he would be back to pick him up for
a restorative conference with Elvin.
On the way back to the 5th grade classroom, First
Grade Teacher Emily Geiges was leading her class
of students to another classroom. She told one of
her students, “It makes me sad when I have to keep
telling you to keep your arms by your sides when
we’re walking in a line.” Principal Jacobsen explained
that this teacher was using another feature of wholeschool RP implementation, “affective statements,”
which are personal expressions of feeling in
response to others’ positive or negative behaviors.
“Using affective statements helps us to specify the
behavior that a student is exhibiting and encourage
or discourage that behavior while improving or
maintaining the relationship between the teacher and
student.”
After retrieving Arnold from his classroom and Elvin
from a 4t