Giving Compass' Take:

· The California school system is looking to improve the quality of schools by prioritizing restorative justice to create strong bonds between students and teachers. Restorative justice uses mediation and conflict resolution as opposed to traditional disciplinary actions.

· How does restorative justice positively affect the outcome of students and the school system?

· Read more on restorative justice and how it can help students.

Claudia Rojas had a regular routine she followed most days during the 2012-13 school year, the year she took a job as one of three principals at the newly opened Augustus F. Hawkins High School in South Los Angeles. She would get up in the morning, have breakfast and then cry her way to work.

What Rojas thought would be a dream job — starting a new school focused on improving lives in an underserved neighborhood — had become a daily ordeal as gang violence spilled from the surrounding streets onto the school grounds themselves.

Hawkins, as it’s known, is a part of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s Pilot School program, which was established in 2007 to relieve overcrowding at Belmont High School in central L.A. The idea behind the program, which now includes more than 30 schools, is to create small, innovative new schools that devote themselves to a specific mission.

Restorative justice, or RJ as it is commonly called, is an alternative to punitive discipline that focuses on building positive school climates by creating strong bonds among students and teachers. And, when dealing with behavior problems like fights and bullying, the practice prioritizes mediation and conflict resolution among the students involved over traditional punishments.

Read the full article about restorative justice in the California school system by David Washburn at edsource.org