Restorative Justice for Secondary School Students
This internship project documents the planning and implementation of a restorative justice program at a secondary school struggling with punitive disciplinary practices, including zero-tolerance policies, suspension, expulsion, and corporal punishment. The paper covers a needs assessment identifying harm caused by existing approaches, two broad project objectives, detailed planning steps, phased implementation involving administrators, teachers, an RP coordinator, and a behavior team, and an evaluation framework measuring behavioral change and academic outcomes. Technology integration via Zoom enabled virtual participation during the COVID-19 pandemic. The project achieved a reported 95% success rate, demonstrating that restorative practices can replace punitive discipline while rebuilding community and improving student well-being.
- Needs Assessment: Punitive discipline harms students and drives dropouts
- Objectives: Train stakeholders and integrate technology virtually
- Project Planning: Step-by-step plan to onboard all stakeholders
- Project Description: Principal briefing, team formation, and tech setup
- Project Implementation: Two-phase rollout shifting mindset and assigning roles
- Project Evaluation: Surveys and data review measure project success
- Project Reflection: 95% success rate and lessons on mindset change
- Sample Artifacts: Sample letter and punitive-vs-restorative comparison chart
✍️ How to write this paper — guide, tools & examples ▾
What makes this paper effective
- The paper moves systematically from problem identification through planning, implementation, and evaluation, giving readers a clear, replicable model for adopting restorative justice in a school setting.
- It grounds the project in real institutional context—specific student numbers, budget figures ($10,000 technology spend), timelines, and role assignments—lending credibility to its recommendations.
- The comparative table contrasting punitive and restorative approaches is a strong visual tool that concisely conveys the philosophical shift at the heart of the project.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates applied project management writing: each section (needs assessment, objectives, planning, description, implementation, evaluation, reflection) follows a logical sequence where earlier sections justify decisions made in later ones. This scaffolded structure mirrors professional program-design reports and shows how practitioner research can bridge theory and field implementation.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a needs assessment establishing why punitive discipline is failing, then states two clear objectives. Project Planning and Project Description explain what was done and how stakeholders were organized. Project Implementation details two phases—culture shift and role assignment. Project Evaluation defines success metrics, and Project Reflection offers personal learning. Sample Artifacts (a letter and a comparison chart) close the paper with concrete deliverables produced during the internship.
Needs Assessment
Managing student misbehavior is one of the significant challenges our school has faced over an extended period. The use of punitive approaches, including zero-tolerance policies, has caused considerable harm to students. For instance, expulsion and suspension policies remove at least 50 students from school every year due to violations of simple rules. Apart from expulsion and suspension, corporal punishment has been used in many instances for students who have committed minor violations, such as failing to submit assignments on time. In general, this mode of punishment has significantly contributed to school dropout and academic failure. Additionally, around 20% of the school population has engaged in physical fights; some students have been traumatized, while others have begun using drugs to cope with an unfriendly school environment (Pavelka, 2013).
Furthermore, these harsh treatments have not improved student behavior. Instead, they have worsened students' conduct and attitudes, isolating them from their peers. Some student misconduct has also been driven by adult behavior, and failing to address the issue holistically risks destroying the sense of community within the school. Troublingly, some criminalizing and exclusionary discipline practices have reinforced racial inequalities. Some students have been suspended for defiance and disrespect on the basis of cultural differences. As a result, in what is widely described as the school-to-prison pipeline, students of color are disproportionately alienated from school through punishment, handed over to law enforcement, and ultimately pushed into the justice system for the same infractions committed by their white counterparts (Payne & Welch, 2015).
A therapeutic justice approach would examine who has been harmed by student misconduct rather than focusing solely on which rules were broken. It would also consider the losses the victim has incurred rather than centering solely on the identity of the offender. Notably, several neighboring schools have adopted the restorative justice approach with significant success. The approach was also developed within criminal justice systems, where it was used as a response to crime before being adapted into school disciplinary practice (Pavelka, 2013).
Following an agreement among the school board of management, teachers, parents, and various education stakeholders that the school should adopt a restorative justice approach to curb the high rates of school dropout and academic failure, I was given the directive to explore how restorative justice could be implemented in the school. The restorative practice would bring together the student accused of causing harm, the student's family, and the victim or victims during hearing processes (Hornby, 2014).
Objectives
This project has two broad objectives. The first is to train various stakeholders — including teachers, students, and administrators — on the use and importance of restorative justice practices, in order to build community and advance healthy relationships among teachers, students, administrators, and social workers, and to teach the social-emotional and conflict-resolution skills necessary to minimize conflict.
The second objective is to establish how restorative justice practices and stakeholder training would incorporate technology, enabling everyone to attend sessions virtually in accordance with current COVID-19 safety protocols. Students would therefore participate from home, in line with the directive issued by the Ministry of Education (Payne & Welch, 2015).
Project Planning
Restorative justice enables students to navigate conflicts on their own or in small peer groups. The approach encourages students to talk, air grievances, and ask questions within those groups. To successfully implement the project, planning was carried out in several steps to bring all relevant parties on board (Pavelka, 2013).
1. Establishing a common understanding with various stakeholders, including the school principal, regarding why restorative practices are being implemented.
2. Sourcing the foundational structures needed to support the restorative justice practice training, including engagement with qualified professionals.
3. Identifying appropriate, effective, and stable technology for virtual training purposes (Hornby, 2014).
4. Conducting induction training for all teachers, including delegating responsibility to teachers to reach out to students, prepare them, and assess their technology readiness. This step was made easier by the fact that students were already engaged in online classes.
5. Creating detailed training plan sessions.
6. Organizing a trial session to test the technology and formally introduce all stakeholders, including students, to the project. Several activities were carried out during this session, including:
7. Beginning weekly virtual training sessions. During these sessions, the following guidelines were observed: icebreakers at the beginning of every session to build connections; clear, short, and precise presentations to help students follow the content with ease; groupings of approximately five participants in breakout rooms to formulate and creatively apply the concepts taught and to maximize engagement; and polls created between sessions to gauge participants' understanding of the topic (Hornby, 2014).
References
Cama, P. G. (2019). Restorative injustice: A study of failed implementation of restorative practices at an urban high school.
Fronius, T., Darling-Hammond, S., Persson, H., Guckenburg, S., Hurley, N., & Petrosino, A. (2019). Restorative justice in US schools: An updated research review. WestEd.
Gregory, A., Ward-Seidel, A. R., & Carter, K. V. (2020). Twelve indicators of restorative practices implementation: A framework for educational leaders. Journal of Educational and Psychological Consultation, 1–33.
Hornby, G. (2014). Effective teaching strategies for inclusive special education. In Inclusive Special Education (pp. 61–82). Springer, New York, NY.
Karp, D. R., & Breslin, B. (2001). Restorative justice in school communities. Youth & Society, 33(2), 249–272.
Pavelka, S. (2013). Practices and policies for implementing restorative justice within schools. The Prevention Researcher, 20(1), 15–18.
Payne, A. A., & Welch, K. (2015). Restorative justice in schools: The influence of race on restorative discipline. Youth & Society, 47(4), 539–564.
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