Latest / The Authority Podcast — Expert Insights and Fresh Ideas for Education Leaders / A Real-World Guide to Restorative Justice in Schools with Nicholas Bradford
Transcript
- Ross Romano: Welcome in, everybody. You are listening, as always, to The Authority podcast here on the BE Podcast Network. Thanks for being with us. It is going to be a great conversation today with my guest, Nicholas Bradford. Nicholas is a lifelong educator who founded the National Center for Restorative Justice in 2016. Having worked with hundreds of schools and districts, he has built a robust program that gives schools, educators, and students the skills and structures they need to create a culture of belonging and success in spite of conflict. In addition, Nicholas retired from the US Coast Guard in 2023 after 24 years of honorable service. He published the book “A Real World Guide to Restorative Justice in Schools” in 2021, and that’s going to be a lot of what we’re discussing today. Nicholas, welcome to the show. Nicholas Bradford: Thanks. Thanks for having me. Glad to be here. Ross: I’d love to start with something we’ve touched on a couple of times here on the show in the past—restorative justice. Notably, we talked about it in one of my conversations with Jeffrey Benson about his book “Hacking School Discipline Together.” But I’d love to chat with you about the current state of restorative justice. What’s happening right now in the dialogue about it? What are the positive signs? What are the challenges? Nicholas: Yeah, that’s a big question, but it’s a great place to start. Obviously, with the current administration and the Department of Education trying to pull back on anything even tangentially related to equitable school practices, that is going to be a challenge. Our work in restorative justice, generally speaking, doesn’t really fall under any specific funding bucket at the US Department of Education. So, depending on the state you’re in, you’re going to have more or less interest based on the state climate. Generally speaking across the country, schools have faced funding constraints. There’s been some economic slowing, some long‑term budgetary challenges, and the pullback from the extra ESSER funds in 2021, 2022, and 2023, plus decreasing enrollment across the board in many places. You see school districts really wrestling with budgets and making hard choices. But to go back to the beginning of this, if we’re doing good work, I don’t think states are really making decisions based solely on the federal government’s distaste for restorative justice. In some states there is absolutely a move away from restorative justice. That’s partly on us as a restorative community. We need to do a better job with implementation, being in genuine partnership with districts and schools, and recognizing that young people actually do bad things. This isn’t about making all behavior acceptable because all behavior is a response to trauma. That may or may not be accurate case by case, but the additional truth is that behavior impacts the learning environment. It hurts other kids. It hurts adults. We have to be real about that when we’re messaging to schools, parents, districts, and the broader community. The more we can tighten up our messaging, be clear about the positives and also where we’ve gone wrong—where we’ve made mistakes, where we could do better work—those are important places for us as an industry to really consider how to do this work better. And in those states that are still interested—I’ll say we do work in some relatively conservative locations, not just states but also counties: places in Eastern Oregon, Eastern Washington, Alaska, Montana, very high‑performing schools in international communities. These places aren’t the traditional hotbeds of restorative justice, and yet they’re doing it. They’re calling us to do this work and to be engaged in repair after bad things have happened. So we should be able to continue this work in the Midwest, on the East Coast, in Florida—wherever you’re at. There’s a big conference happening in Florida, pulling together a lot of people from across the South for a big gathering in Tallahassee. That’s a big deal, and the field is still moving in the right direction. But we have to be real about where we’ve messed up and where implementation hasn’t met the mark. Ross: That was going to lead into my next question. We’re going to get into defining restorative justice—what it’s for, who it’s for. But I wanted to ask about what’s often misunderstood about the term and the concept—and by whom. Do people who work in schools have a certain understanding of it that maybe isn’t present outside of schools and communities? Is it sometimes willfully misunderstood or misrepresented? When we talk about what needs to be clarified about what restorative justice is and isn’t, what it really means and doesn’t mean, it’s also important to think about who those audiences are that need to hear that. And like many things that are debated about education by people who are not working in schools, do people who work in schools have a much different understanding? Nicholas: Generally speaking, the community at large—people who aren’t touching restorative justice or the National Center for Restorative Justice—have a very reductive view of what restorative justice is. It’s either “the thing schools do to help kids stay in school when bad things happen” or a diversion program to keep kids out of incarceration. Those are true to a point, but there’s a lot of nuance being missed. On the other side, some people see it as a way for kids to avoid consequences or avoid punishment for bullying or other harms. Both views are reductive. And you’re right—there’s a lot of willful mischaracterization because of where restorative justice is perceived to be coming from. I’m not a religious person, but a lot of our community and some of the initial points of interest and implementation nationally have come through religious organizations—inside prisons—Christian organizations going into prisons to help rehabilitate and engage because they recognize, in their language, that we are all children of God. For some reason, there’s this idea that restorative justice is more liberal, that it’s a thing liberals do in liberal cities, trying to pretend that kids don’t make mistakes. I think that’s reductive and not helpful. If we, as restorative justice practitioners, can share the broader story of restorative justice, you can see beyond those caricatures. For people outside schools, that’s the issue. For people inside schools, I go back to communication. Communication is the number one truth‑leading skill. You have to do it well, do it often, and do it early. When young people get into trouble, they go into the office and they either get suspended or they get a restorative approach. Either way, confidentiality policies often prevent administrators from explaining the process and reasoning to the broader community. That black‑box decision‑making is part of the problem. I remember early in my teaching career, when I was a substitute, a teacher told me about a kid who was messing with a Bunsen burner and got two or three days’ suspension. The teacher said, “Jeremy’s going to be back and he’s going to do the same stupid thing.” That sense of “we don’t really know what’s happening” is common. If that same black‑box dynamic happens with restorative processes—or with suspensions and expulsions—it’s dangerous. Teachers who have negative experiences with that are understandably skeptical. One of the main reasons is that we, as restorative practitioners and administrators, aren’t sharing in a way that’s semi‑public and respectful of kids, while still recognizing that this didn’t happen in a vacuum. It happened in a community. So how do we share back with the community in a way that makes sense? I was just talking with a principal about this. Kids will say, “At this school we don’t get in trouble.” My colleague Benjamin said something a couple months ago that I’ve been repeating: the trouble happened when you got in the fight. The trouble happened when you smoked weed on campus or came to school high. Or when a student sneaks off campus, gets drunk, and comes back to an event. That’s the trouble. What happens afterward isn’t “the trouble”—it’s the consequences. Those consequences can be productive and helpful, engaging kids in dialogue and learning, or they can be about showing kids the door. If we want behavior change, I’m always going to choose the first option. Ross: And, as with many things, there are implementations done poorly—or people intending to use a restorative approach but who don’t really understand it or do it correctly. I think of something like growth mindset. Maybe 80 percent of people who talk about it don’t really know exactly what it is and don’t implement it correctly. The intent is there, but they’re not really doing it. I imagine the same thing happens here. I’m sure there are cases where, done poorly, it doesn’t work. It leads to negative outcomes or outcomes that can be criticized, and then it becomes a criticism of the entire approach. I’m sure there are also cases where it’s not a guarantee of success in all cases, right? So if a student has multiple infractions or recidivism, or gets into worse trouble, the same thing might have happened no matter what. But then the approach gets blamed: “Well, it’s because you used this approach and then this is what happened,” versus, “If we had just suspended that kid, they’d have changed their behavior.” That’s just not borne out by the data. The data is clear that suspensions don’t change behavior. Suspensions increase the likelihood of dropping out. Suspensions increase the skill with which kids hide their misbehavior. For parents listening who are wondering, “How do I get my kid at 14, 15, 16 to tell me when they get in trouble?”—the answer is: stop punishing and start having dialogue. Then they won’t fear the consequences or the punishment. They’ll recognize that their actions have consequences—failing a class, skipping class, going drinking with friends, whatever it is. We have to let young people know they can make mistakes and that the outcome doesn’t have to be perfect. Suspensions put a wedge between kids and their trusted adults—the people who are going to be most helpful long‑term for developing pro‑social skills. Ross: I would also think—and you can tell me if this is completely wrong—that it doesn’t mean there’s no such thing as punishment. There are times when punitive measures are warranted. But punishment does not equal accountability. That word “accountable” gets used a lot: “People need to be accountable for their actions, for their crimes.” But what actually is accountability? It’s the ability to face up to what you’ve done, learn why it was wrong, make amends, and learn how to do it better and differently. So there are more steps involved. It doesn’t necessarily mean that’s instead of something else. As you’ve said, if all you fear is the punishment, then you’re just trying to avoid getting caught. That doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to behave differently; you’re just going to be more on the lookout. Or you might decide, “The punishment isn’t that big of a deal. I don’t mind being suspended for a day,” so you don’t really have a deterrent. Nicholas: Yeah. The deterrent factor almost disappears for kids after their first suspension in high school or their first incarceration or other carceral experience. Kids who do two days in juvenile detention often come out saying, “That wasn’t that bad.” It’s no longer much of a deterrent. Punishment has some deterrent effect only up until the first experience with it. Once you use it, it becomes less effective. And in some cases, especially in juvenile detention, it’s counterproductive because kids start building relationships with other kids who are also doing negative or hurtful things, building skills and social networks outside of what we’d consider healthy communities. It can be similar with suspensions. Kids go home, play Fortnite, and game with other kids who are also home on a Tuesday morning. Those kids may also be suspended or disengaged. Maybe there’s an 18‑, 19‑, or 20‑year‑old involved who’s “getting into some dirt.” That’s not who I want you hanging out with. I want you hanging out with kids who are actually in school. So how do we do that? Punishments are an option. I always frame punishments or exclusion as only in service of the restorative conference. That’s what I tell the schools we work with: any exclusion has to be in service of getting to the table, to the accountability piece, because what you said about accountability is so important. Accountability is an active process. I sometimes use “responsibility‑taking” as a synonym to help people hear it differently. Accountability is responsibility‑taking. I can’t force a kid to take responsibility for their actions. What I can do is make space and time for them to realize that taking responsibility is how we move forward. We help young people get some space and time between them and the adults in the school, and that space has to be in service of, “Yeah, Nicholas, come take responsibility.” Maybe that’s a day, two days, three, five, seven days—sometimes even longer—and that’s not ideal, but duration isn’t the goal. The goal is the process of accountability‑taking. Until you have real “I want to participate in this” energy, restorative conferences can be less than productive. They’re not at their best. If I tell a kid, “You will be here tomorrow afternoon; we’re going to have this conference, your mom will be there, the other kid you fought with will be there, their mom will be there,” and I force it too quickly, we can lose some of the learning. Sometimes, as facilitators, we have to do the conference again instead of just waiting. Sometimes we have to repair our own mistakes: “Maybe I shouldn’t have rushed that. Maybe waiting a day or two would have been better.” Waiting a little longer might have given us a really good conference instead of a mediocre one. Ross: Who is restorative justice for? Clearly there are reasons and you can explain them in more detail, but restorative practices are designed for the benefit of the student. Who else benefits? Nicholas: This is the thing. Some restorative practitioners talk about restorative justice in different ways: victim‑centered, author‑centered or responsible‑party‑centered, community‑centered. My view is that it’s all of these at the same time. That’s why restorative justice is harder—but also why the benefits are richer. When you take a kid into a room and they’re understanding their actions and taking responsibility with you as a facilitator, and then you get them to a place where they’re going to do some work, they understand the impact and do that work privately—that really benefits the author. But there are at least two other groups we have to recognize. When two kids get into a fight in class, it doesn’t just impact those two kids. They’re both authors, responsible parties. The classroom was really impacted. The teacher had a shocking experience they weren’t expecting—two seventh‑grade boys getting into a tussle in the middle of class. We have to acknowledge that. The two boys I’m thinking about recognized in the conference that they got into that situation because of peer pressure. Neither wanted to fight the other. Each said, “My friends told me you wanted to fight me and I had to fight you first.” The other said almost the exact same thing. As an adult, that doesn’t make sense to me, but for a seventh‑grader it does. They had a profound unpacking of the fight and of peer pressure—and then they did that learning on their own. If we had slowed down and shared some of that learning with the class, it could have been powerful for those 28 other kids: “Yeah, peer pressure sucks. I peer‑pressure my friends; my friends peer‑pressure me; I get it from kids I barely know.” Helping them recognize when something is truly what they want versus something external—that’s a big deal. That’s an important part of any restorative system. If there’s an imbalance where there is a clear victim—someone directly impacted—it’s also important for that person to be able to say in a restorative conference, with adult support, “What you did, I didn’t like it. It hurt my feelings. It bothered me. It was frustrating. It made me feel small.” Saying that out loud in a structured space is powerful and essential. So yes, everybody benefits—from the experience and from the learning. That can’t be overstated. Ross: That also speaks to why it’s worth persevering through times when it doesn’t feel like it’s working, or when it feels like it would be more convenient to go back to simpler, traditional discipline models. You can think of a student—or any person—who’s a victim of an incident. The positive benefit it can have for them when they feel like the author has had an opportunity to reckon with what happened, come to an understanding of why it was wrong, and perhaps make amends—versus, “We just took that person out for a couple of days, they’ll be back, nothing has really been addressed, and the same thing might happen again.” And schools are supposed to be about learning more broadly. So let’s define restorative justice more specifically. What are some of the pillars? What does it look like done right? What are the components that need to be part of it? Nicholas: We work off five pillars: conflict happens; engage all stakeholders; empower the author and the victim; develop agency; and value empathy. In our trainings we spend time really unpacking these. One helpful idea is around “engage all stakeholders.” It means that as the severity of the harm goes up, the number of people at the table needs to go up. For smaller issues, we handle it in the moment—have a conversation with a student, or facilitate a conversation between two students. Those are the detention‑level issues. For fights, we bring in a slightly larger group. For really serious incidents, I’ve had the privilege of participating in strong conferences where there were some truly serious harms committed and 22 people sitting in the circle. That’s important for letting kids know, “This was a big deal.” If a student calls in a bomb threat or makes a threat about shooting up a school, the response needs to be big. The nice thing in a restorative model is that it’s not about consuming endless staff time. It’s about mobilizing community: adults who know the kid, parents, other students, sitting in a circle and saying, “That was really scary. This is how it impacted me. This is how I think about that. Here’s my experience from another school.” It makes the harm real and also communicates, “You are an important part of our community and this is not okay.” We could spend hours talking about these five principles—and we do—but that’s our starting mindset. The definition we use is “a relational approach to conflict,” which means we are trying to build relationships and engage with conflict at the same time. Unsurprisingly, that’s difficult. It’s part of why restorative justice is more challenging than other systems. In the face of harm—kids and adults doing mean, even terrible things to each other—we want to build relationships while talking about repair: what it looks like to make real amends, to recognize impact. The tools, strategies, and approaches look different in different settings—one‑to‑one, whole‑class situations, low‑level issues, or re‑entry after suspensions or expulsions—but they all operate off those same five principles. Ross: What are some of the language considerations that are foundational for making the mindset shifts? It’s a two‑way relationship, but with many things in schools—behavior, academics—language matters. The words we’re mindful of using, how we talk about things, that language is an indicator to ourselves of shifting our thinking. It’s also a powerful message to students and peers, signaling authenticity and that we really are changing our approach. Nicholas: Language is huge. One idea I already mentioned is that “the trouble already happened.” When kids say they don’t get in trouble, the truth is they already had the trouble—they did the thing. Now we’re trying to repair and make amends. We need more granular understanding about what accountability means and what it looks like when you take responsibility. We have a five‑part framework for accountability. I also talk a lot about conflict and expectations. We tend to think of conflict as a fight between two people. But conflict is often really about my expectations not being met. Conflict starts with me. So, for example, when Benjamin is late to class, I might come down on him hard because I have expectations about respect and punctuality. Those expectations feel violated and I feel a way about it—personally insulted, maybe. I come at the situation in a certain way, and Benjamin responds: “Mr. Bradford, get off my case.” It looks like a fight between us, but at its core, it started with my expectations. The more adults can slow down—in classrooms and in our own lives—to be clear about what our expectations are, whether they’re realistic and fair, or whether they’re things we simply need to tolerate, the better off we are. People don’t drive like me and it frustrates me. If I get in my car every day thinking, “These idiot drivers,” I’ll give myself an ulcer and I’ll become part of the problem. It’s similar in schools. If I’m always thinking, “These kids,” or “My administrator,” or “These parents,” that’s all external. I can’t control it. I need to unpack my expectations. What’s my real issue with this parent or administrator? Is it solvable? Can I communicate about it? If it’s not solvable—if it’s a policy nobody in my orbit can change—then I need to set that aside. Not forget it, but move it aside so it doesn’t control my reactions. Doing that kind of work around conflict and expectations helps staff show up more calmly with young people. I’ve got a five‑year‑old and a three‑year‑old. They’re a handful. I’ve worked with highly challenging kids in alternative programs, and with young people who were incarcerated or coming out of prison. Some of how I respond is about me. I need to be well, take care of myself, so I can be calm and deliberate—even when the issue seems small, like coming late to class or not having a pencil. Some teachers say, “Just have a pencil—I’ll buy a thousand a year.” Others are really bothered that kids don’t come prepared and they feel they’re supplying materials constantly. They need to be well enough that this level of conflict doesn’t overpower their ability to approach the student gently. They can say, “Nicholas, I’ve noticed you haven’t had a pencil any day this week. What’s going on?” instead of yelling or withholding a pencil and leaving the student with no work done. Ross: How much should the approach and its objectives be explicitly communicated to students—especially if it’s not universal? Students may come from schools with very different discipline systems or have certain assumptions about what discipline looks like. Nicholas: When I think about early implementation, it’s not going to be school‑wide or perfectly consistent right away. So I try to be very clear with both adults and students: “This thing we’re doing right now is different. I’m going to try something new. This might sound weird. This is a different approach we’re trying.” Especially when you’re using non‑evaluative language and just making observations. Kids sometimes look at you like, “What do you want me to do?” And I’ll say, “I’m just pointing out what I’m seeing and asking about expectations. You know what the expectations are, and I want you to know that I noticed. With those two pieces in place, we can move forward.” So yes, it tends to be a slow‑moving implementation. When we work with schools and districts, a big part is: where is the data pointing us? Then: where are the low‑lift, accessible things we can implement? If you already have counseling groups, support groups, chill‑out spaces, we look at those structures first and see how restorative practices can dovetail with them. That makes the implementation more seamless and clarifies expectations. Ross: What does follow‑through look like? You’ve got a restorative cycle with a number of steps. How does a school commit to completing the process—rather than stopping too soon or thinking “mission accomplished”? That could be with individual incidents or more broadly. What components are important to ensure that, if we say we’re focused on being restorative, we actually see the process through to completion—even when that feels like overkill or like something we thought we were “done” with? Nicholas: I think you’re right—you need clear limits and expectations about what “done” looks like. We use a sample contract with schools. They adapt it, but it always includes specific, concrete line items for young people to complete. We have a menu of options schools fill out to make plans more robust, and then through collective decision‑making they select appropriate actions to include in a contract. Typically, contracts shouldn’t run longer than two weeks. You should be able to complete the work in that timeframe. If the work needed will reasonably take longer than two weeks, maybe the student should have been suspended to give them some time outside of school to do what they need to do. That does happen. I was talking with a principal about re‑entry meetings after long‑term suspensions. He said, “We had a re‑entry meeting and the kid is back tomorrow.” I asked, “How long was he gone?” Twenty‑one days. My response was, “We should have had this meeting on day five or seven so he could start doing some work to show the school he understands what happened was not okay and that he’s making amends.” Adults sometimes struggle with kids’ affect—the flat expression, the apparent lack of remorse. We see a teenager with a blank face and think, “They don’t care.” I had a friend in high school who started a food fight and was still laughing about it in the office. But I can’t block a kid from returning to school just because of their affect. What I can say is: “You agreed to do this thing and you haven’t done it. You agreed to a drug and alcohol assessment, and here was the outcome. If you don’t want to follow through on that, you’re not coming back yet.” For in‑school restorative contracts, that two‑week frame makes sense. Let’s get the work wrapped up. If two students get into a fight and they have a two‑week contract, and before the contract ends they get into another fight, then we move to suspension: “You’re going to get your three days; we’re not running multiple contracts at once. You serve your three days, then you finish the original contract. Later we can do another restorative conference.” Logistically, running one contract at a time keeps things manageable. It also lets kids actually experience success: “I had a contract. I completed it.” Young people who are constantly in the office, at minimum, need that feeling of success.