By Matt Bowler
The success of a discipline program at Crawford High School has students asking the San Diego Unified School District to expand the program.
The program, Restorative Justice, helps students figure out why they misbehave. The idea is to treat the offending act like a symptom.
Crawford High School Academy of Law student Alan Obregon said restorative justice can help build bridges between teens at odds with each other.
“We have students that have been suspended, mainly for fights, and we have the two people that had some sort of dispute come together with two peer mediators,” Obregon said.
Obregon and his Academy of Law classmates want the San Diego Unified School District’s board to give the program at Crawford more structure.
“We’d like to have a stable area where all of these things are done because with the peer mediation we have to go looking for places to hold the mediation in general,” Obregon said.
San Diego Unified has been supporting restorative discipline since last school year. As of May, expulsions were down 60 percent district-wide.