Tag: Restorative Justice

  • Hoover Builds On School Discipline Reform With Wellness Center

    By Megan Burks Last year Hoover High School teachers cut suspensions by 80 percent after being trained to recognize and address trauma in their students. Hoover is building on that success by establishing a wellness center. It will offer traditional counseling, substance abuse counseling, legal help and referrals to other services for the students and…

  • Students Ask San Diego Unified For More Structure in Discipline Program

    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…

  • School Discipline Changes Yield Big Drop in Expulsions

    By Megan Burks Expulsions at San Diego Unified schools are down nearly 60 percent. This time last year, school administrators had heard nearly 400 expulsion cases and handed down 134 of them. Students are recommended for expulsions and get a hearing before it’s made final. As of May 29, administrators had considered 178 expulsions and…

  • Measure on November Ballot Would Reduce Some Felonies to Misdemeanors

    By Patty Lane, Maureen Cavanaugh and Peggy Pico Click here to listen to a full KPBS Midday Edition interview on Proposition 47 featuring former San Diego Police Chief William Lansdowne, who co-authored the measure, and San Diego County Chief Deputy District Attorney David Greenberg. The effort to roll back decades of tough on crime legislation…

  • The End of ‘Willful Defiance’ School Punishments (Sort of)

    When a child gets in trouble at Cherokee Point Elementary School, Principal Godwin Higa, talks quietly to the student to sort things out. | Photo Credit: Jane Stevens By Mario Koran On this, most school officials agree: “Willful defiance,” a kind of catch-all reason for ejecting students from class is overbroad and problematic. But for…