(Photo credit: Getty Images)

School security officers outnumber counselors in four out of the 10 largest public school districts in the country — including three of the top five — according to data obtained by The 74.

New York City, Chicago, Miami-Dade County and Houston schools all employ more security staff than counselors. New York City, Chicago and Miami-Dade are all among the nation’s five biggest school districts.

Not one of the top 10 districts, where counselors may be particularly beneficial for low-income students, meets the American School Counselor Association’s recommendation of one counselor for every 250 students — most weren’t even close. The nearest to the standard was Hawaii with 274 students for every counselor.

Los Angeles Unified, which has the largest school police department in the nation for K-12 schools, has less than one security staffer for each 1,000 students and one counselor for every 824 students.

“To give a ratio of our total police force numbers can be misleading,” said Steven Zipperman, LA Unified’s chief of police. “We have a 24/7 police protection” that goes beyond school yards and school hours to include detectives and officers assigned to asset protection and specialized units.

The 74’s analysis comes as the debate over school safety, classroom violence and the school-to-prison pipeline continues to dominate national headlines and inform federal policy.

“I’m not surprised, but it still concerns me really deeply,” Dennis Parker, director of the ACLU’s racial justice programs, said of the officer-to-counselor ratios. “It reflects an approach to school discipline and school safety that is ultimately counterproductive.”

The ACLU has called attention to federal data showing that public schools disproportionately discipline students of color — especially black males — and disabled students. Students subjected to harsh discipline are more likely to end up in the criminal justice system.

The school-to-prison pipeline “has nothing to do with police officers being on campus,” Zipperman said. What’s needed is “understanding the reasons why we’re there. In most cases our officers are there to be part of a team, to coach, mentor and keep [students] safe. Our job is not to arrest them but to keep them safe and keep intruders out.”

Zipperman said LA Unified’s force, which includes 400 sworn police officers of all ranks, has not increased since the 2012-13 and 2013-14 school years, when officers were added to catch up with the last district build-out of bond-funded new schools.

His officers patrol all district high schools, numbering about 90, and about a third of all middle schools. Independent charters are not included unless they are co-located with district schools or contract with LA Unified. The four charter high schools that contract with LA Unified police are Palisades Charter, El Camino Real Charter, Granada Hills Charter and Birmingham Community Charter.

“I don’t know if there is a correlation right now between police officers and restorative justice,” a new district discipline policy, Zipperman said. But he pointed to the district’s “very successful” diversion program, begun in 2014. “Many who would have gotten a citation are now in the diversion program,” he said, adding, “We have done a lot of collaborating with [social justice programs] to get to the root of problems,” including the Community Rights Campaign and Dignity in Schools Campaign.

(More at LA School Report: Restorative justice program drastically lowers days lost to suspensions in LAUSD)

Counselor Cory Notestine works in Colorado Springs School District 11 and was named school counselor of the year by the American School Counselor Association for 2015-16. “I do find it alarming that we would have more resource officers in [some] schools than we would have school counselors,” he said.

Mike Petrilli of the conservative Fordham Institute, who has generally been skeptical of efforts to limit tough discipline, said, “We’ve got to be really careful about drawing conclusions from these data. [But] I certainly think that these data raise an important question, that they demand further investigation.”

School counselors’ roles vary depending on where they work, but often focus on helping students deal with academic, behavior, and social issues. High school counselors play a key role in helping students get into college.

School security can range from uniformed personnel employed by the district to maintain school safety to armed police officers who can make arrests. Los Angeles Unified has its own police force, as does Houston. Other districts, like Hawaii, have no police presence in its schools, employing only safety personnel.

SCHOOL CLIMATE CHANGE

New York City and Hawaii have high numbers of both security staff and counselors; while Houston and Los Angeles have low numbers of both. New York City added 250 counselors in the last two years and is planning to add more, according to the Department of Education.

“Our goal is to provide a safe, respectful and supportive environment for students to thrive academically and socially. We are working across city agencies, including NYPD and FDNY, to ensure the safety and security of students and staff,” Toya Holness, a DOE spokesperson, said of New York’s security-to-counselors ratio.

The recent public debate in New York City has veered between safety concerns and criticism of harsh discipline, with three reports in the past two weeks of students bringing guns to school and a related battle ensuing over whether city charter schools suspend students too freely. Charter schools are public schools but their enrollment numbers were not used in The 74’s calculation of staff per pupil because they are independently run, including hiring their own staff¹. In some instances, such as when they are in the same building, charters and traditional public schools can share security.

(More at The 74: Confronting too many cops in the classroom)

The national average of school counselors per students as of 2013-14 was about 2 counselors per 1,000 students and six of the top 10 districts — New York City, Chicago, Clark County, Miami-Dade, Hillsborough County and Hawaii — did beat that.

A spokesperson for the Houston Independent School District, where it seems a student is more likely to encounter a cop in the hallway than a counselor, said the district is committed to making sure “every child has access to counseling services.” That could be through a school-based counselor or the district’s partnerships with Texas Children’s Hospital and the Memorial Hermann healthcare network. The district also pointed out that while the school system’s police department are Houston ISD’s “law enforcement agency, they’re also taking on the role of mentoring and supporting students.”

Miami-Dade employs more than six security staffers for every 1,000 students, though about 40 percent are part time. New York City employs more than five security personnel for every 1,000 students and Chicago over four.

Nevada’s Clark County has the most counselors per security staff at a ratio of 4-to-1, while Miami-Dade has the lowest, at about 0.4 counselors for each security personnel.

There was significant variation from district to district for both sets of numbers, but it was much wider for security staff than counselors. That suggests districts have a good deal of discretion when deciding how much they want to spend attempting to maintain order, prevent crimes or respond to in-school incidents.

David Osher, a vice president of the American Institute of Research has studied issues that affect what’s called “school climate,” a broad term that encompasses everything from how safe a school feels to how well students relate to the adults to how high teachers set expectations for learning. He said he found it “troubling” that districts might employ more security staff than counselors. Osher emphasized that what matters isn’t necessarily the titles that different adults in schools have, but whether they played a positive role in strengthening school climate.

The records requested by The 74 did not include social workers or psychologists, who may also help students who are struggling academically or emotionally.

However, in Chicago, New York, and Houston, three districts that provided the number of social workers, even adding them in did not alter the big picture. Each still employed more security staff than school counselors and social workers combined.

RETURN ON INVESTMENT: SECURITY VS. COUNSELORS 

There has been increased attention in recent years to the idea that schools contribute to over-incarceration, particularly among students of color. Viral videos of police officers assaulting students in schools has brought anger and outrage over cops using excessive force in classrooms.

“I don’t think schools are an oasis from the racial problems that affect the rest of society,” said Parker of the ACLU.

Students of color make up the majority of all 10 of the largest school districts. Federal data show that black students in particular are significantly more likely to receive harsh discipline, including out-of-school suspension and expulsion, particularly from white teachers. National data also reveal that schools with high proportions of students of color are significantly more likely to have security personnel.

Parker said that adding security to schools has led to some normal school infractions, like dress code violations, being handled by law enforcement rather than school staff. That can result in a student being arrested and having to appear in court.

Many school security officers receive minimal or inadequate training, particularly in dealing with special education students. As previously reported by The 74, the majority of states have no specific laws mandating that officers deployed to classrooms receive special training in dealing with children.

(More at The 74: Why so many school cops are unprepared for the classroom)

Parker argues that investing in reactive methods over proactive ones is a mistake.

“If there were more emphasis on preventing problems rather than dealing with them when they happen, schools would ultimately be safer and students performance would be better,” he said.

One study found that even after controlling for poverty levels, schools with more resource officers had higher arrest rates for the subjective offense of “disorderly conduct.” However, the same study showed that arrest rates for assault and weapons charges actually dropped with security staff present.

Many districts across the country — including New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago — are working to reduce punitive discipline in schools, including suspensions, expulsions, and arrests, fearing that those punishments contribute to the school-to-prison pipeline.

Critics have argued that such efforts can make schools less safe and learning more challenging. But it’s not clear that there is any evidence, beyond anecdotes, to support these claims. Little, if any rigorous research, links an increase in school security to improvements in school climate. It’s difficult to know what value security staff bring to schools and what the appropriate level of staffing might be.

Some see their role as vital to protecting order in schools. In a March 2015 article in the Houston Chronicle examining how many times school police used force on students, the head of the teachers union said district police were “critical in protecting classroom teachers from violent attacks by students.”

“There are situations, especially in high school, where the use of force becomes necessary,” said Gayle Fallon, president of the Houston Federation of Teachers. “What we find with Houston ISD officers is generally they can reason with the kids. If they use force, they’ve been pushed.”

Meanwhile, research has generally found that school counselors have a positive effect on students, including increased achievement, and decreased discipline incidents, particularly for low-income students of color.

Notestine, the school counselor of the year, said, “The benefit of school counselors is that they’re at the front lines of identifying student issues, whether that be a behavioral issue, an academic issue, or even social emotional issues around mental health.”

Counselors may be particularly valuable in large urban districts — like the top 10 — where the enrollment is heavily low income, and the need may be greater. A lack of counselors may leave students struggling, without professional support, to deal with out-of-school challenges that affect learning or to navigate complex and unfamiliar college admissions processes.

Osher agreed with the ACLU’s Parker that schools should emphasize strategies to avert discipline issues rather than those that deal with them after the fact.

“The best way of preventing violence … is by creating an environment that is rich in supports for students,” he said. “Counselors play a really important role in that.”

Disclosure: In reporter Matt Barnum’s previous job at Educators for Excellence — New York, he worked with teachers to advocate for less punitive discipline practices in New York City schools.

BY THE NUMBERS

Note: Enrollment numbers do not include students who attend charter schools, except Houston where charter school enrollment could not be broken out.

Los Angeles Unified School District
Counselors: 658 counselors (Source: spokesperson)
Security: 526, including 400 sworn police officers and 126 non-sworn school safety officers³ (Source: spokesperson)
Students: 542,433 (Source: spokesperson)

New York City Department of Education
Counselors: 2,850, including 2,742 full-time and 108 part-time (Source: publicly available)
Social workers: 1,193, including 1,170 full time and 23 part time (Source: publicly available)
Security: 5,200, including 5,000 school safety agents and 200 uniformed NYPD police officers (Source: publicly available ²)
Students: 984,130 (Source: publicly available)

Chicago Public Schools
Counselors: 733 school counselors (Source: publicly available)
Security: 1,416 security staff (Source: publicly available)
Social workers: 323 school social workers (Source: publicly available)
Students: 336,138 (Source: publicly available)

Clark County (Nevada) School District
Counselors: 659 counselors, including 207 elementary school counselors, 150 middle school counselors, and 302 high school counselors (Source: spokesperson)
Security: 163 police officers (Source: spokesperson)
Students: 320,400 (Source: publicly available)

Miami-Dade (Florida) County Public Schools
Counselors: 743 counselors, including 663 full time and 80 part time (Source: public records request)
Security: 1,839, including 189 police officers, 920 full-time security monitors/specialists, and 730 part-time security monitors/specialists (Source: public records request)
Students: 290,902⁴ (Source: publicly available)

Broward County (Florida) Public Schools
Counselors: 409 counselors (Source: spokesperson)
Security: 125, including 109 school resource officers and 16 sworn police officers (Source: spokesperson)
Students: 225,554 (Source: publicly available)

Houston Independent School District
Counselors: 167 counselors (Source: spokesperson)
Social workers: 32 social workers (Source: spokesperson)
Security staff: 250, including 210 classified police officers and 40 security guards (Source: spokesperson)
Students: 215,157 (Source: publicly available)

Hillsborough County (Florida) Public Schools
Counselors: 445 counselors (Source: public records request)
Security staff: 220, including 29 Tampa Police Department Officers, 68 Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Officers, and 123 armed school security (Source: public records request)
Students: 194,317 (Source: spokesperson)

Orange County (Florida) Public Schools
Counselors: 336 counselors (Source: public records request)
Security staff: 118, including five police and 113 school resource officers (Source: public records request)
Students: 187,254 (Source: publicly available)

Hawaii Public Schools
Counselors: 621 counselors (Source: spokesperson)
Security staff: 287, including 275 school security attendants and 12 school safety and security officers (Source: spokesperson)
Students: 169,987 (Source: publicly available)

About the data

The data come with a number of important caveats, and should be interpreted carefully.

Districts may have different standards for what counts as security staff. The 74 requested records showing the number of police officers and school resource officers or school safety agents⁵. Districts may also have different proportions of part-time staff, which are generally not broken out in these data. In Miami-Dade, for instance, about 40 percent of personnel were part time.

In some districts, like New York City, school-based security are part of the New York City Police Department; other districts have both police and school safety staff. The numbers reported here are the total of police officers and security staff.

The data was collected over the course of several months, in late 2015 and early 2016, so it’s possible that some of the numbers have changed slightly since they were received. This also applies to student enrollment data that was used to calculate the number of staff per student. It is unlikely, though, that any of the data has changed dramatically.

Footnotes:

1. Charter school enrollment could not be broken out for Houston. (return to story)

2. This estimate is based the New York City Police Department’s website which states that there are “over 5,000 school safety agents and more than 200 uniformed police officers” in the city’s public schools. Efforts by The 74 to obtain precise numbers have not been successful to date. Spokespeople for the city Department of Education and New York City Police Department said they were not able to provide that information. A response to a public records request directed at the Department of Education stated that since security staff were employed by the police department, it could not provide the number of security staff in schools. A January public records request to the New York City Police Department has not been filled. The most recent response, dated February 18, stated, “Before a determination can be rendered further review is necessary to assess the applicability of exemptions.” (return to story)

3. 34 civilian support staff to the security office were not included in this count. (return to story)

4. This number was calculated by subtracting the district’s charter school enrollment (58,966) from the district’s total enrollment (349,868). (return to story)

5. Different districts often have different names to refer to school-based security staff. (return to story)

This article was published in partnership with The74Million.org. 

Days lost to suspensions have dropped 92 percent.

LA Unified posted a 92 percent decrease in the number of days lost to suspensions as a result of its Restorative Justice program and the district’s new approach to discipline.

In the 2007-2008 school year, a total of 74,765 days were lost to suspensions, but that number plummeted to 6,221 in the 2014-2015 school year, according to a report issued last week to the Successful School Climate committee of the LA Unified school board. Expulsions were down by nearly half, from 141 in 2011-2012 to only 77 in 2014-2015, according to the district data.

“This is incredible news, and it shows that our approach to Restorative Justice and a new look at discipline is working, even though there were many people who were very skeptical about it,” board member Monica Garcia told LA School Report. Garcia, who chairs the committee and sponsored the program, added, “We want to get this to all the schools as soon as we can.”

The district voted in 2013 to bring Restorative Justice into all schools by 2020. The data now show that the plan is working, according to Associate Superintendent of School Operations Earl Perkins.

Earl Perkins introduces the 45 Restorative Justice teachers.

“We are aggressively training school site staff to implement this in more sites,” said Perkins, who asked the 45 full-time Restorative Justice teachers to stand at the board meeting. They started off working at 150 schools (paid for by Local Control Funding Formula money) and now have trained staff at 423 schools (nearly one-third of all district schools). “These are still baby steps, nothing can be fixed overnight,” he said.

Other district teachers and staff remain skeptical, because ultimately the new approach makes it harder to remove problematic students from the classroom. Keeping students in class, however, saves the district money that would be lost if they don’t attend.

“When this thing first unrolled there was a lot of skepticism, especially on our end,” LA Unified police chief Steve Zipperman said to the teachers. “These numbers we are seeing here would not be possible without your involvement. The data show it’s working.”

Suspensions and referrals over the past four years.

Restorative Justice has been catching on across the country, particularly in urban areas, and takes an approach to discipline that moves away from punishment. It involves restoring a sense of harmony and well-being for those affected by a hurtful act and provides families, schools and communities a way to solve problems as opposed to the student being tagged as the problem that adults must fix.

“We have stopped sending kids home,” Garcia said. “We understood when we started this that we helped create a better solution, there was more learning and guess what? Our budgets were better.”

Four students from University High School talked about their experience with Restorative Justice along with Principal Eric Davidson, who said suspensions dropped from 22 to zero in just a year. “A lot of it has to do with just listening,” Davidson said.

Student Brian Brass said he didn’t believe the program would work, and when someone stole personal items from gym lockers while his team was running track, Brass said he was angry. “I thought it would not work and thought it was like everyone coming together and holding hands and all, but going through the program made me understand that the person has problems and what they’re going through,” Brass said. “It was amazing how this program worked.”

DeJuan Shelton and Brian Brass from University High.

He said that before going through the program, “I wanted to be judge, jury and executioner,” but he said he realized the culprit’s situation and “that he comes from hard times.”

Fellow teammate DeJuan Shelton said he thought things would turn out poorly but was able to sit down and listen. “To hear [the person who stole from them] being honest really opened my eyes to why people do what they do,” Shelton said.

The students said that some of their teachers are still not on board with the Restorative Justice practices, and others seem resistant.

But Deborah Brandy, discipline foundation policy and restorative justice coordinator for the district, said, “We are doing better, absolutely. Are the students staying in class? Absolutely!”

Garcia added, “Hearing these students tell their stories is the best part of the job. You can see and hear what’s working directly from their mouths, and that’s great.”

This week, an article in Cabinet Report noted restorative justice techniques may also boost school climate by strengthening relationships between students and teachers, according to a recent study.

The report, “Restorative Justice in U.S. Schools,” from WestEd, found that in 70 percent of cases, teachers’ respect for students improved, and in 75 percent, students’ respect for teachers increased.

Overall, approximately 70 percent of participants saw a reduction in suspensions and an improvement in the overall climate at their schools, and almost 60 percent reported increased academic achievement. Many said it was too early in the implementation process to be able to report results.

WestEd’s report is based on 169 surveys and 18 interviews across 18 states, including California. Many of the respondents, who practice restorative justice techniques at their schools, were teachers, counselors, assistant principals, social workers and school psychologists – the majority of who had less than 10 years’ experience in leading restorative exercises.

( From L) LAUSD’s Earl Perkins, Jasmin Malinao, Jose Huerta, board member Mónica Garcỉa and Antonio Márque attend a White House conference on school discipline. (Credit: LAUSD)

LA Unified’s efforts at reforming its school discipline policies were applauded at a White House national conference yesterday attended by school administrators from around the country.

The day-long “Rethink Discipline” conference held up LA Unified as one of five districts that has seen positive results by moving away from “zero tolerance” disciplinary rules.

LA Unified board member Mónica García and several district staff members were invited to attend or speak at the conference.

“There was engagement, there was openness,” García told LA School Report today. “There was a starting of the sense of capacity building and learning, and there was a lot of gratitude to President Obama, who has been a leader of focusing on the civil rights of students and the need to have quality education everywhere.”

The conference literature pointed in particular to LA Unified’s School Climate Bill of Rights, a 2013 resolution authored by García that ended “willful defiance” suspensions, which was a zero-tolerance approach that had led to skyrocketing suspension and expulsion rates, particularly among African American students.

As part of the conference, the White House released data that shows suspended students are less likely to graduate on time and are more likely to repeat a grade or enter the juvenile justice system.

By taking on “restorative justice” techniques, which focuses on giving students counseling instead of suspensions, LA Unified and other districts have seen rising graduation rates. Last year, the district continued its efforts by significantly reducing the amount of tickets and arrests students received from school police for low-level offenses.

The Obama administration has taken up the cause of restorative justice, and the conference featured a number of high-level speakers, including Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

“[Duncan said], ‘We all have an opportunity to do something.’ And the whole idea of revisiting school discipline was married to the idea of civil rights, and mass incarceration,” said García, who also chairs the board’s Successful School Climate: Progressive Discipline Safety Committee. “There was hope in the room about doing something.”

Garcia said Jose Huerta, operations administrator for the district’s Local District East, addressed the conference about Garfield High School, which has seen increased graduation rates tied to new restorative justice techniques. Garfield, located in East LA, was featured in the 1988 film “Stand and Deliver,” which famously dramatized the real-life success story of calculus teacher Jaime Escalante.

“Huerta told the audience about ‘Stand and Deliver,’ and when a kid asked him, ‘Are we as good as the ‘Stand and Deliver’ crowd?’ And he said, ‘You know, that was about 26 kids, and today I am telling you a story about 2,600 kids,’ so it wasn’t just a classroom, it was the whole school,” García said.

When asked what LA Unified could do to continue to improve its discipline policies, García pointed to the need for better data collection.

“Our community partners have been telling us that we need better data around suspensions and around incidents, and I think LA Unified is moving that way,” she said. “But I think we can do better, and it has to be public, the accessibility of it to the public needs to be something that is not laborious and outdated.”

García also said as the board searches for a new superintendent, she wants to make sure it hires someone who understands the role that community partner organizations play in restorative justice. García’s school climate committee includes members representing CADRE, Public Counsel and InnerCity Struggle.

“We need a a superintendent who understands that LA Unified has leadership in our community partners, and no one cares more about our children than our family, and we have to work with each other,” she said. “That’s another thing that came out of yesterday, which is no one does this alone. You need partners. You can’t just put it one that one teacher or that one counselor or that one officer, it is everybody’s business.”

UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl speaks outside LAUSD headquarters

A small coalition of community organizations rallied at LA Unified headquarters today, urging district leaders to invest in more restorative justice programs and alternative schools.

The Dignity in Schools Campaign joined with leaders of the parent group, CADRE, Public Counsel and the teachers union, UTLA, to celebrate, what they called “a minor victory.” Beginning next year, the district will stop spending $13 million in state money allocated for the neediest students on school police programs.

But, while some of that funding will now be directed toward the intended population — English learners, special education, and low income students — social justice advocates say it’s not enough.

The district’s 2015-16 budget of nearly $7.1 billion includes an additional $2 million to support restorative justice programs, which officials have said will boost the ranks of counselors throughout the district, and another $1 million for continuation schools.

“It is a step in the right direction,” Ruth Cusick, an education rights attorney for Public Counsel told LA School Report. “We want to see a full investment of $8 million in restorative justice and $5 million targeted to our options schools,” she added, admitting “it’s going to be a continued budget advocacy campaign for the next several years.”

Alex Caputo-Pearl, president of UTLA, said siphoning funds from poor students to pay for policing is a form of racism.

“When south LA and other parts of Los Angeles sometimes resemble prisons, sometimes resemble a police state, more than they look like an educational setting, that is a problem, and it is often a reflection of institutional racism,” he told a small crowd gathered on a sidewalk.

Caputo-Pearl says UTLA intends to take a greater role in setting the goals and priorities for the district’s Local Control Accountability Plan, which the school board is also expected to pass today.

Under Governor Jerry Brown’s new school funding formula, districts are required to solicit input from parents, teachers and students on how a district will spend state funding. They are also mandated to include measurable benchmarks.

“We are going to put a renewed emphasis on actually working with community organizations and parents in defining what the needs of schools are, which LAUSD has been pretty short shrift on,” he said.

By Araceli Morfín and Raúl Ruíz

Tomorrow, the LAUSD school board will ratify the 2015-16 budget, along with the district’s Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP), increasing an investment in restorative justice to $7.2 million from $4.2 million. This increase is timely, as the work of restorative justice has been immensely impactful in our LAUSD schools at reducing disciplinary incidents that have for years disparately affected students with special needs.

This disparity, as well as national trends toward disproportionate numbers of suspensions for African American and Latino students, led LAUSD to reexamine school discipline policies in 2013 with the School Climate Bill of Rights. It also led the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools to formalize an approach to school climate through restorative practices.

The Partnership, a nonprofit organization that manages 16 LAUSD schools in Watts, South LA, and Boyle Heights (including Roosevelt High School), embraces Restorative Justice under the umbrella of Restorative Communities — training teachers and other school staff in how to implement restorative practices in their classrooms while supporting Restorative Justice Coordinators in a handful of schools.

It is this work that inspired us, as a teacher leader and parent leader in the Partnership network, to establish Parent Restorative Justice Circles at Roosevelt for special needs families. To those unfamiliar with the concept, “Circle” is the safe haven we create in our restorative practices in which we sit in a circle while following guidelines that ensure mutual respect, emotional safety and the strictest of confidence.

Our first  Circle — “Putting Ourselves in Their Shoes” — had low attendance but was so worthwhile that we vowed to continue: we learned about Specific Learning Disabilities and had the opportunity to experience them through thoughtfully planned activities. 

It was a small group, but we were moved. We couldn’t believe the degree to which parents were opening up, and we were impressed by how much we all had in common. These were all parents with whom we had chatted on a regular basis. And even though we knew them, these circles gave us insight into their personal challenges and their deep desire to see their children succeed. Word spread quickly and our group grew from four to over 40 parents attending monthly.

The stories we hear in Circle are ones that speak to the human experience, based on ensuring that people are respectful, that relationships are honored and repaired when harmed and that we assume responsibility for our actions. 

For example, one parent said her participation had helped her find peace as she grappled with her daughter’s learning disability. Prior to participating, she had been especially unhappy with the school because she felt her daughter’s special needs were not being addressed. Through restorative practices however, the parent learned to communicate her feelings toward a system she did not understand and came to an agreeable resolution with the school.

Given the clashes nationwide this year between police and communities, we are especially proud of the way our Circles have formed a deeper relationship with our school police. Before participating in Circle, police felt their role was limited to patrolling. After participating on a monthly basis, officers are now greeted by parents, teachers and staff, parents ask for advice and frequently invite officers to share a cup of coffee.

When parents connect with police and school staff, it has a massive impact. Nothing rivals the collective feeling of empathy as when a school police officer and a teacher revealed that they had their own children with special needs.

We have made great gains as a member of the Partnership network, and through our Restorative Practices work, suspensions have fallen to the lowest rate in seven years, just under 2 percent. Yet while we would like to say that these Circles have solved our problems, we can’t; we can only say that this is a great start and that our parents and teachers are leading the way.

There are over sixty Parent Leaders in the Partnership network who have been trained in leadership and advocacy through the Partnership’s Parent College program in collaboration with LA Voice. And in meetings with school administrators and school board members, parents have advocated for Restorative Justice. In the past year, hundreds of Partnership teachers have been trained in restorative practices; over 20 will serve as Restorative Community Leads at their schools.

As the LAUSD board ratifies the LCAP tomorrow, we applaud the members for increasing their investment in restorative justice, and we hope that they will further consider accelerating that investment so that all LAUSD schools can have the same exposure to healing through restorative practices that we have seen at Roosevelt.

Araceli Morfín is a Partnership for LA Schools Teacher Leader and Counselor at Roosevelt High School. Raúl Ruíz is a Partnership for LA Schools Parent Leader and Parent at Roosevelt High School. 

But as the laboratory for forward-thinking ideas surrounding school discipline, meetings of the Successful School Climate Committee are typically anything but dull.

Chaired by board member Monica Garcia, the committee was formed in 2013 not long after the groundbreaking School Climate Bill of Rights was passed.

The measure was the first effort by a large school district in the nation to reverse the trend of “zero tolerance” by adopting restorative justice techniques and ending “willful defiance” suspensions and expulsions.

Much of the committee’s work focuses on issues surrounding the bill of rights and efforts to increase graduation rates by sending students to outside counseling instead of court and by having counselors work with troubled youth instead of suspending or expelling them. The shift requires nuanced and complicated efforts by school officials, and the Successful School Climate Committee is where many of the district’s ideas are hashed out.

“The committee gave us the forum to learn together about what works and then to hold the district accountable to do what it said what it was going to do,” Garcia told LA School Report.

“I’m most invested in helping us stay focused on that it’s all of us together, its not just one data piece or one instructional program, but really the comprehensive view of the lives of young people,” she added.

The committee includes Los Angeles School Police Chief Steven Zipperman, Chief Deputy Superintendent Michelle King, Roosevelt High School teacher Jorge Lopez, Garfield High principal Jose Huerta, community member Sharon Watson, LA County Board of Supervisors District 1 Probation Chief Dave Mitchell and representatives from Public Counsel, CADRE and InnerCity Struggle.

Alternative approaches to suspensions and expulsions started to draw district interest about four years ago.

“As we looked the data, we saw that suspensions were not being used as the last straw. It was sometimes the first straw, and we saw that willful defiance was the biggest problem,” Garcia said.

When the school board passed the bill of rights, it made headlines around the nation, leading districts in other states to replicate the idea.

“Restorative justice is the new brand for good work. It’s the new brand around relationship and community building. And it’s the new brand around ‘effective,'” Garcia said.

Is it working? Garcia said the proof is in the city’s traditional public schools. The district suspended 14,057 students during the 2011-12 school year. Two years later, the number fell to 5,476. During the same period, graduation rates rose, and according to Garcia’s office, the drop in suspensions from 2012-13 to 2013-14, alone, saved the district $249,302.

“We have the data to show [reducing suspensions] matters, and it’s working and helps us focus on learning,” Garcia said. “That is just smart government, it is a smart investment and it is a real smart modeling of behavior change.”

The district’s most recent focus on restorative justice this school year has been the diversion program, which has reduced the number of student citations and arrests for low-level offenses.

Critics of restorative justice, like those featured in a recent NY Post story, say it is backfiring and, while reducing suspensions, has led to an increase in infractions. But that has not been the case in LA Unified.

“It’s also important to understand that the crimes we are talking about, they are not increasing,” Zipperman said at the committee’s February meeting, referring to the diversion program. “Because our young kids are going to these centers and getting the help, we are not seeing the recidivism issues.”

Despite the recent success of increasing graduation rates and reducing suspensions, LA Unified will likely be limited in what it can do until California changes its priorities.

“It’s very upsetting to see California lead in investment in incarceration and prisons, and be 48th and 38th now in funding for schools. I got a better solution for that,” Garcia said. “I know how to interrupt poverty. I know how to interrupt all of that other behavior that we want to see go away. Let’s teach kids how to read. So that’s my radical piece.”

The next meeting of the Successful School Climate Committee is scheduled for May 5.

Theresa Ponce and her son, Jesse Ramos, speak before the Successful School Climate Committee

The LA Unified School Board’s Successful School Climate Committee got an update on the district’s diversion program, not only with statistics but also with a student who said it had changed his life and his mother, who said she “thanks God” for it.

The program, which has been in effect since the beginning of the school year, is aimed at reducing the number of citations and arrests for low-level offenses, instead referring students to counseling. Aimed at reducing suspensions and expulsions, the diversion program is part of an overall “restorative justice” approach meant to reduce the school-to-prison pipeline.

Bell High School student Jesse Ramos told the committee that a random K-9 search at his school led to the discovery of a marijuana pipe in his backpack. Before this school year, it would have meant an arrest or citation, throwing him into the juvenile justice system. Instead, he was referred to a FamilySource Center that is partnering with LA Unified to provide counseling and resources to students referred to them by the Los Angeles School Police as part of the diversion program.

“My experience, it was a positive experience,” Ramos said. “It was a reality check for me. I had realized that I had done a mistake, and I had to face the consequences of my actions. Working with the FamilySource Center has allowed me to talk about my experience on a weekly basis. We talk about family, drug consequences, school, friendships, staying out of trouble and working toward success, respect and ultimately earning a high school diploma.”

Jesse’s mother, Theresa Ponce, also addressed the committee, and through tears said, “I thank God for this program. He’s made a big change. Just thank you.”

Ramos’ short speech was preceded by an update on the diversion program by Los Angeles School Police Chief Steven Zipperman, who said that this school year 405 students have been put into the program, 295 for citations and 110 for arrests.

Zipperman said that 198 had completed the program, 177 were in the intake and counseling phase and 30 had been referred to probation “for one reason or another that just did not allow us to continue with that process.”

Zipperman also said:

• 50 percent of all diversions have been for marijuana
• 27 percent were for battery
• 11 percent were for vandalism
• 5 percent were for possession of alcohol
• 5 percent were for fighting.

Zipperman said the police force is working closely with the Family Source centers to get to the heart of what sends kids down the wrong path.

“When they come into some of the FamlySource Centers, what are the things that are causing our young people to get involved in these things in the first place, that perhaps if they had the early intervention they wouldn’t even have to go to a diversion in the first place,” Zipperman said. “So we are going to be taking a deeper look at what are some of the causal factors, not only with the school climate, but the family climate and the community climate. Because that all overlaps and it makes a difference.”

The effort toward a reduction in student citations and arrests, part of the district’s commitment to restorative justice techniques, began in August and is connected to the district’s School Climate Bill of Rights, which was passed in 2013 on the strength of studies that demonstrate reducing student suspensions, expulsions, citations and arrests can lead to an increase in graduation rates and student achievement.

Under the new policy, officers with the LA Unified police department made efforts this school year to reduce student citations and arrests, referring offenders instead to administrators or to a Los Angeles FamilySource Center for counseling and intervention.

Through Jan. 16, the police department has taken part in 297 diversions, a total that includes 209 citation diversions and 88 arrest diversions for battery, Zipperman reported to the district’s Successful School Climate: Progressive Discipline and Safety Committee. In years past, these students would have ended up in the criminal justice system for the same infractions.

Of those 297, 232 are still in the intake or counseling phase, 52 have successfully completed counseling and 13 were referred to probation, Zipperman said.

“As we continue to get more of our young people into these programs and work to reduce the number of arrests and citations, we really are hopefully getting to the root of the problem and helping our young people work through some issues,” Zipperman told the committee.

Perhaps silencing any critics that might say the softer disciplinary approach could lead to a rise in student criminal behavior, Zipperman said there has been no significant increase in the type of violations the diversion effort targets. The violations are considered “minor” offenses such as fights, thefts, truancy, vandalism, tobacco use, alcohol use or possession of a small amount of marijuana.

“It’s also important to understand that the crimes we are talking about, they are not increasing,” Zipperman said. “Because our young kids are going to these centers and getting the help, we are not seeing the recidivism issues.”

The reduction in arrests and citations comes after the recent news that LA Unified had reduced suspensions in the 2013-14 school year by 25.5 percent, credited to the district being the first in the state to ban “willful defiance” as grounds for suspension.