The effect of Whole School Restorative Practices on Racial Disparities in Disciplinary Outcomes.

• In Event: Implementing Restorative Practices in Schools: Perspectives From Practitioners and Researchers

Abstract

Background: Existing research suggests that restorative practices are effective at reducing overall rates of student discipline, but in most cases, these reductions in student discipline rates coincide with racial discipline gaps that are unchanged or exacerbated. Motivated by long standing racial disparities between Black and White students in discipline outcomes, this study adds to a growing body of literature on restorative interventions by investigating how the implementation of Whole School Restorative Practices (WSRP) in Saint Paul Public Schools (SPPS). Unlike restorative interventions that use a top-down policy model, the WSRP model in SPPS was educator and community focused, providing support for relationship-building and establishing restorative cultures within schools. To ground our study of WSRP on disciplinary outcomes, we ask 1) does the implementation of WSRP impact overall rates in student discipline (i.e. office referrals, and dismissals) and 2) does WSRP impact the differences between the discipline rates of Black and White students?

Data and Methods. We draw on administrative disciplinary records aggregated at the school-level to estimate the treatment effect of WSRP implemented in 6 schools relative to 12 similar non-treated comparison schools between 2019-2024. Specifically, we examine the effect of WSRP on the difference between Black and White student discipline rates. Subsequent models examine effects for rate differences between White and other race groups. We used a C-SITs approach to obtain a causal estimate of WSRP on disproportionality in disciplinary outcomes.This approach allows us to estimate a weighted averaged indicating how the the difference Black and White student discipline rates changed in schools that implemented WSRP relative to comparison schools during the same period.

Findings & Implications. We find that the Black-White gap in dismissal rates was reduced to a significantly greater extent than the gap reduction recorded in the comparison schools. The Black-White gap was reduced by an average of 0.021 dismissals per student more than the gap reduction observed in comparison schools. The gap reduction from the baseline years to the outcome years was significantly (p= 0.02) greater in schools that implemented WSRP than the comparison schools. Our findings show that WSRP significantly reduced racial disparities between Black and White students in dismissal rates–which is a disciplinary outcome traditionally used for low-level offenses. Despite impacts on racial disparities between Black and White students, we do not observe statistically significant effects for rate differences between White students and other racial groups or overall suspension or dismissal rates. We then contextualize our results within broader approaches to restorative interventions and discuss how the success of WSRP implementation hinges on the malleability of existing institutional relationships and dynamics of power and privilege that impact educators and students on a daily basis. Although policymakers often seek quick fixes for racial achievement and discipline gaps, these issues are multi-layered and context-dependent. Further, we note the limits of pre-existing data systems in measuring the effectiveness of relational discipline programs such as restorative practices.

Authors

• Miles Davison, NWEA

• Kara Beckman, University of Minnesota

• Barbara McMorris, University of Minnesota