Restorative justice initiatives at SF middle schools lack training, leaving educators in torment. Inside classrooms and hallways, discipline is scarce.
Over a decade ago, the San Francisco Unified School District prioritized teacher training in restorative justice, a criminal justice approach based on perpetrator-victim conversations and community healing, to reduce student suspensions. A successful initiative was launched in 2010, but four years later it was decimated by district leadership and no program was created to replace it.
The plan was implemented in June 2010, and funding for it would “not increase the SFUSD budget deficit for 2010-2011,” according to the resolution. The district directed $600,000 toward the initiative’s launch. Kerri Berkowitz, the program’s administrator, said, “Our first priority was helping educators and other district stakeholders learn what restorative principles are and look like.”
The program was offered to all schools, and the principals and teachers who accepted “made a commitment to whole school training, coaching and culture change,” Berkowitz said. An implementation team was established that consisted of teachers and staff, with an educator acting as a site leader. Safe and Supportive Schools with no trainingThe teacher training program was replaced in 2014 by the Safe and Supportive Schools Policy, introduced by then-school board member Matt Haney, who is now a member of the California State Assembly representing San Francisco. The policy acknowledged the success of Berkowitz’ program, hailing it as “SFUSD’s leadership in positive, evidence-based alternatives to school discipline.
But teachers have been willing to comment about their school’s disciplinary environment, although off the record, for fear of demotion or losing their jobs. Teachers still at Francisco Middle School are asking for disciplinary guidance from administration, to no avail, while watching veteran teachers with 30-plus years of experience leave the school.
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