Reply to Dr. Reid replacing school discipline with “restorative justice” ?

Forum Index » Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)

Reply to "Dr. Reid replacing school discipline with “restorative justice” ?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Dr. Reid says she is implementing “restorative justice.”

This is a portion of Michelle Reid’s weekly update sent to FCPS parents:

"The second initiative is our Restorative Justice Program’s new Responsible Pathway to Restorative Justice Facilitation. This pathway program will enable trained and endorsed members of Team FCPS to operate as school-based restorative justice facilitators. By this time next year, our goal is to have two of these facilitators in each of our schools. I’m thrilled about this program and how it will support us to provide excellence, equity, and opportunity for each and every one of our students, especially those impacted by discipline disparities. [i] As I shared with the principals on Thursday, I know there likely are a lot of questions about these two initiatives! More information on our Instructional Rounds and the Responsible Pathway to Restorative Justice Facilitation will be made available in the coming weeks; stay tuned!"

Do you think this is a good idea?  Will this new approach increase or decrease crime in your child’s school? [/quote]

What exactly is “restorative justice”?[/quote]

I thought Dr. Reid’s update was sufficient and the precepts of restorative justice to be common knowledge.  But apparently there remains a certain lack of understanding here.  Allow me to clarify the issue further, and explain, beginning with:

- what exactly does restorative justice entail?

There is no one definitive answer to this question. Restorative justice is a burgeoning philosophical framework that asks people to rethink the best way to respond to harmful behavior. Perhaps the most expansive definition comes from Griffith University criminologist Kathleen Daly, who calls [b]restorative justice “a set of ideals about justice that assumes a generous, empathetic, supportive, and rational human spirit[/b].”[/quote]

Is that quote for real? Or are you trolling? Because it's hard for me to imagine there are people so deluded, so cocooned in their ivory towers, that they believe most people, let alone kids, are "generous, empathetic, supportive, and rational." That could be disproven by spending 10 minutes perusing the comment section anywhere on the web (ok, only 5 minutes on DCUM!)

I don't have any knowledge or prior ideas about restorative justice, but if the philosophy is based on the ideals in the Kathleen Daly quote, it's doomed to failure.

Oh, wait, I know! Let's get the Ukrainians and Russians together for some restorative justice! We'll let Kathleen Daly moderate, supported by Michelle Reid, and they can try out these ideas for real.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics