You Are Warmly Invited to Facilitate and Participate in a Series of Panels and Workshops

In Mid-February, Mayor de Blasio and Chancellor Carmen Fariña announced a new initiative to redefine the K-12 Discipline Code from a punishment-based model to a more restorative justice-based model. Our gathering will explore the issues involved in implementing restorative practices in schools and will imagine ways that teacher education programs can prepare future educators to use restorative practices in their classrooms. Issues discussed will include the building of safe and healthy environments that promote achievement and the prevention or resolution of conflict and harm using restorative justice practices.

You are warmly invited to facilitate and participate in a series of panels and workshops to discuss and explore the need for and the benefits to be gained from restorative practices being implemented in K-12 schools, undergraduate and graduate schools of education, and community organizations and government agencies.

• Preparing current and future educators to implement and sustain restorative practices in collaboration with students, families, and community organizations;
• Building positive peer communities of learning that promote achievement;
• Significantly reducing the suspension of students of color and special needs students;
• Significantly reducing the incarceration of students of color and special needs students;
• Supporting students’ significant academic, social, artistic and emotional development;
• Supporting students being valued by their schools and communities and being empowered to create positive change in support of social justice and equity;

• Supporting students and adults to learn to both prevent and resolve conflict non-violently and creatively;
• Supporting the healthy social, emotional, and intellectual development of educators (teachers, school counselors, administrators, school staff);
• Supporting students’ development of positive cultural, racial, ethnic and gender identities;
• Significantly reducing bullying and cyber-bullying;
• Supporting the achievement and safety of LGBTQ youth;
• Reducing the impact of racism on achievement and learning;
• Reducing the impact of poverty on achievement and learning;
• Building effective collaborations between schools and their communities through community organizations and other means;
• Building restorative collaborations between schools and the justice and criminal systems;
• Advocating for public policy supporting restorative practices; and
• Building a collaborative network of restorative practitioners;

Proposals may include one or many of these inter-related areas of interest.

A personal note by David Fletcher: Over the past three years I have been introducing restorative practices (community building defined by positive peer culture and the prevention and resolution of conflict) into my undergraduate education courses while I have continued to study more deeply the philosophy and research addressing restorative practices. Each semester the future educators have more training and more depth to be prepared to implement restorative practices. They now experience restorative practices regularly, implement restorative practices in their community-based service-learning projects for social justice. and learn from teachers in Teachers Unite. Over the past years I have grown increasingly committed to the need and value of incorporating restorative practices into schools, teacher education programs and community organizations.

Join us on May 8

May 8 Planning Committee

Jose Alfaro, Teachers Unite; Anna Bean, Campaign Coordinator at Teachers Unite; Laurie Bennett, Community Activist; Loren Fisher, Compass High School; David Fletcher, Lehman College; David Forbes, Brooklyn College, CUNY; Shulamith Freedman, CUNY Graduate Center; Dana Fusco, York College; Serigne Gningue, Lehman College; Paul Knotts, Lehman College; Sally Lee, Teachers Unite; Hilary Lustick, New York University; Rachel Pfeffer, Fund for Public Advocacy

Participating organizations: National School Climate Center, Morningside Center for Social Responsibility, International Institute for Restorative Practices, Medgar Evers College Center for Law and Social Justice

May 8 Conference Sponsors