Restorative Justice (RJ) and School Wellness
By Shel Gross
In my career as a lobbyist, I learned that the road to policy approval can be long and circuitous. I can point to policy “wins” that were 15 years in the making. While it wasn’t quite that long, the odyssey that led to the Leadership Board’s approval of the Racial Justice for All Children Task Force issue paper on Restorative Justice and School Wellness put me in mind of those days. Different interests and efforts mixed and matched over a number of years, resulting in something really quite simple in the end: we could use our presence on the Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) Superintendent’s Wellness Advisory (SWA) to promote a variety of topics important to MOSES members.
We identified six interrelated topics to promote: community engagement; mental health staffing and practices; restorative justice staffing and practices; transparent communications regarding disciplinary practices and outcomes; recruitment and retention of staff of color; and staff training in research-based approaches to reducing exclusionary discipline and enhancing student well-being.
The first landmark along this road was a March 2021 MOSES Position Statement in support of a set of MMSD Safety and Security Recommendations (which was, of course, preceded by the work needed to bring this forward). Among the recommendations were a three- to five-year plan for holistic implementation of restorative justice (RJ) in the MMSD and creation of the SWA to involve MMSD staff (including new RJ coordinators), community partners, families, and students in developing a plan for enhancing youth and community roles regarding school safety.
These concerns found a MOSES home in RJAC, which had been formed the previous year. They also became of increasing importance, given the MMSD Board’s decision to remove School Resource Officers (SROs) from Madison high schools, as well as the impacts of the pandemic on student and staff well-being. But while RJAC members increasingly engaged with MMSD around these wellness concerns, they still lacked organizational structure and focus.
Another landmark was a listening session that RJAC convened in January 2024, to learn what MOSES members felt were important elements of school safety. This was a response, in part, to recognition that MOSES members were divided over the issue of SROs, but that “school safety” consisted of much more than the presence or absence of police in schools. Over 40 people attended, and we heard a wide range of concerns and ideas. While an RJAC subgroup was able to organize these into five main areas, the task force was not able to prioritize them; all of them felt important, but “all of them” felt like too much for the task force to take on.
The throughline for all this work was Barbie Jackson. Barbie had brought forward the earlier position statement and was asked to join the SWA in November 2023. In May 2024, she started pulling together some folks from MOSES and RJAC to support her work with the SWA. As the group started looking in more detail at the SWA’s ambitious agenda, we noted that many of the issues raised in our January 2024 listening session were among them. At that point, we recognized that the SWA had given us the opportunity to work on our wide range of concerns in a manageable way. The Leadership Board’s approval of the issue paper on Restorative Justice and School Wellness then gave Barbie – and the group working with her – the ability to bring all of MOSES into this advocacy work.
It is critical to underscore that this work is consistent with the MOSES mission of eradicating the systems of mass incarceration. Involvement in this system often begins in the schools. As the issue paper notes:
MOSES affirms restorative justice and other wellness-enhancing practices to create an inclusive culture and climate that increases well-being for all students and reduces behaviors that currently lead to exclusionary practices, such as suspensions, expulsions, and police calls. MOSES opposes exclusionary discipline in Madison’s schools. We seek new ways to respond, rather than persisting in exclusionary discipline practices that frequently are preliminaries to criminalization.
And because these exclusionary practices fall disproportionately on Black and Brown students, these efforts are also a critical part of addressing the racial disparities inherent in these systems. They clearly align with the RJAC mission to eradicate the childhood-to-school-to-prison pipeline.
Now the work of taking specific actions begins. RJAC members will deepen partnerships with those MMSD administrators directly involved in the six topics we selected, prioritizing those we hope to act on in the near term as our first step. Our continued relationship with the SWA will help us build partnerships and actions for change.