Joanna Rizzotto has seen the transformative power of restorative practices.
As a restorative practices coach and teacher in Milwaukee Public Schools, Rizzotto has spent the past three years training school staff on the framework which, focuses on intentionally building, maintaining and repairing relationships.
When implemented well, the effects in schools can be profound, Rizzotto said. Students become more engaged. Graduation and attendance rates improve, and behavioral problems decline as students feel a greater sense of belonging and learn to better regulate their emotions.
In MPS schools receiving support from the restorative practices department, chronic absenteeism declined about 29% over the past four years and suspension rates declined about 5% over the past three years, according to department estimates shared at an open house in May. That’s compared with a nearly 11% decline in chronic absenteeism and an 11% increase in suspensions at schools without such supports.
At the open house, restorative practices staff celebrated the progress made since the district created the department four years ago and the hundreds of school workers trained in the process.
But the event also marked the end of an era. Twenty-six MPS employees involved with equity and inclusion work will be out of their jobs next school year as part of the district’s larger effort to cut 260 non-classroom roles from its $1.6 billion budget.
The layoffs include 10 staff in Restorative Practices, five from Black and Latino Male Achievement, two from Gender and Identity Inclusion and nine from Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports.
Emily Bartsch, a restorative practices coach, told the Milwaukee School Board on May 12 the cuts would be the “effective elimination” of the four departments. She said the teams promote inclusion, teach conflict resolution and support at-risk students.
“And yet, we’re reducing this work to a back-burner idea of equity that, quite frankly, feels as if it’s only been included to say that it’s there,” Bartsch said.
MPS says work will continue under one office
In an interview, MPS discipline manager Jon Jagemann said the district intends to continue the work under a new nine-person office that combines the four teams, with two staff remaining from each. He said MPS plans to increase school-level capacity by training teachers and principals in strategies to improve culture and climate, including restorative practices.
This school year, he said, eight coaches in the Restorative Practices department trained staff in 18 schools, tailoring strategies specific to their communities’ goals. Jagemann said the new approach would rely less on individual coaches, and more on psychologists, counselors and social workers – many of whom he said are already trained in restorative practices.
“We’ve been offering centralized training on restorative practices, culturally responsive practices and trauma-informed practices,” he said. “We really want to just intensify that.”
But staff in Restorative Practices worry the cuts will hinder efforts to advance equity and inclusion. Rizzotto, who is among those laid off, said it will be difficult for MPS to carry out the framework with fewer people available to support schools, and with school staff already stretched thin.
Staff are also concerned the work will become more reactive to behavioral issues, rather than proactive in preventing them. Rizzotto said the framework is meant to be more than an alternative to discipline and instead a relational infrastructure that generates safety and belonging in schools.
“It’s about trying to advance restorative practices from simply a behavior response system to an operating system that then would change the conditions for learning,” Rizzotto said. “It’s an intentional practice.”
Restorative practices used in MPS for over a decade
The district has used restorative practices to build healthier school communities for more than a decade. Some schools also offer restorative practices as an elective course, which Rizzotto helps oversee. After nearly 30 years as an alternative education teacher in various school districts, Rizzotto said, she pursued the role in MPS because she felt the district’s history and commitment to restorative practices was unique.
In 2013, Paul Dedinsky, then an assistant district attorney for the city, wrote in a restorative justice guidebook that MPS and the Milwaukee District Attorney’s Office had collaborated to bring the approach into schools, in part, to reduce detentions, suspensions and discipline referrals.
Restorative practices uses elements of restorative justice, a practice long used in Indigenous cultures and in the criminal justice system, to resolve conflict by repairing harm rather than imposing punishment.
In 2022, MPS created a formal Department of Restorative Practices as School Board members suggested moving away from traditional punitive measures in favor of more supportive approaches like mental health services and restorative practices.
The decision also followed a federal probe about a decade earlier, which found MPS was disproportionately suspending Black students. Administrators pledged change, with restorative practices and counseling as part of the solution.
School districts across the country have adopted restorative practices in some form. Over the past two years, the Wisconsin Safe & Healthy Schools Center trained nearly 1,300 school staff in the framework at more than a quarter of Wisconsin’s school districts.
However, restorative practices have faced uncertainty amid district budget cuts and with some sources of federal aid expiring. The center announced it will dissolve in June due to a decision by the state Department of Public Instruction and the Cooperative Educational Service Agency Statewide Network.
Professors, researchers back the department
After Superintendent Brenda Cassellius announced the layoffs at MPS, several professors, community organizations and other experts sent letters in support of the department’s work.
In one letter to restorative practices coaches, three University of Wisconsin-Madison professors in school psychology said their partnership with the department over the last three years has been “among the most promising collaborations we have experienced.”
“We believe your work in MPS is most likely to achieve transformative change,” said the professors, who also co-direct the university’s School Mental Health Collaborative. “Implementation research consistently shows that initiatives sustained over time are those embedded within district and school systems rather than added alongside them, and your department has done precisely this.”
They said the department helped create positive learning environments in which students can build social and behavioral skills. Cuts to the department, they said, would “weaken the connective tissue linking multiple district priorities to coherent, relationship-centered practice in schools.”
A research team studying the district’s restorative practices work also wrote to MPS administrators. Gardner Seawright, an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Foundations at UW-Whitewater, said in an interview the team had been conducting focus groups with MPS students to understand the effects of restorative practices on chronic absenteeism.
According to state data, over 46% of MPS students were chronically absent last school year, compared with about 48% in 2023-24.
Seawright said the study is ongoing, but preliminary results show students connect restorative practices with feelings of belonging. He said restorative practices could also help address other issues with academic achievement and school safety.
“When I look at the landscape of the challenges that MPS is facing right now, restorative practices is a very clear opportunity to respond to many of those,” he said. “Restorative practices is not going to be a golden ticket to solve everything, but it is something that we should be exploring that could support all of those issues.”
National studies have found restorative practices can reduce suspensions, narrow achievement gaps and improve school climate, though results vary depending on how fully schools implement the approach, according to a 2023 report from the Learning Policy Institute.
How restorative practices look in schools
At the May open house, school staff, community members and employees in the Restorative Practices department gathered in a circle to reflect on the legacy of the work in MPS.
The circle process is one tool used in restorative practices to help build community, resolve conflicts and facilitate open conversations without judgement. Participants use a “talking piece” to identify the speaker and a “centerpiece” to look at if they don’t want to look at each other.
In a school setting, staff use circles to check in with students, help them build trust and identify classroom needs and challenges. Students might also sit in a circle to share their perspectives on a conflict, reflect on the harm caused and work together to repair and move forward.
Mary Triggiano, a professor and director of the Center for Restorative Justice at Marquette University Law School, said restorative practices more broadly help create spaces where “young people feel seen, heard and human again.” Marquette Law students and faculty have participated in circles with MPS students.
“I want to say how proud I am of each of you in continuing this work, even at times when others, including administrators or institutions, may not fully understand its impact,” Triggiano said at the event. “Even in uncertainty, your impact cannot be undone ever. The relationships and healing you foster will continue to ripple outward.”
In her last weeks working in the department, Rizzotto said she hopes restorative practices will eventually be fully implemented in all MPS schools. She said the framework has kept her grounded after three decades teaching, helping her stay connected to students and to the reason she pursued the field to begin with.
Although the department is dismantling, Rizzotto finds solace in knowing MPS already has hundreds of developing practitioners in the field, including students and staff.
“My wish is that continues,” she said. “I hope the district will be serious about finding a way to support their continued development.”
Kayla Huynh covers K-12 education, teachers and solutions for the Journal Sentinel. Contact: khuynh@gannett.com. Follow her on X: @_kaylahuynh.
Kayla Huynh’s reporting is supported by Herb Kohl Philanthropies and reader contributions to the Journal Sentinel Community-Funded Journalism Project. Journal Sentinel editors maintain full editorial control over all content. To support this work, visit jsonline.com/support. Checks can be addressed to Local Media Foundation (memo: “JS Community Journalism”) and mailed to P.O. Box 85015, Chicago, IL 60689.
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: MPS restorative practices at a turning point after budget cuts
Reporting by Kayla Huynh, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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