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Attending relationship-centered schools can enhance students’ academic outcomes, motivation, and positive social behavior. This study shares the emerging impacts of two relationship-centered efforts to foster student learning and well-being in schools and districts, including approaches that allow students and adults to build trust and shared knowledge.
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A rise in the number of school shootings over time has driven increasing attention to school safety, but the policies states might enact to promote safe schools are hotly debated. With two broad approaches—increasing physical security and building supportive school communities—it's imperative to review what the evidence shows as effective.
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The Relationship Centered Schools (RCS) campaign seeks to transform schools by creating opportunities for relationship-building, valuing student voice, and investing in staff. The experiences of two RCS sites in California shed light on factors that enable or hinder relationship-centered practices as well as implications for practice and policy.
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Restorative practices are a set of approaches designed to build community in schools, teach interpersonal skills, repair harm when conflict occurs, and meet students’ needs to prevent misbehavior. Research shows restorative practices improve student outcomes and school climate.
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There is widespread agreement that addressing physical safety threats students may encounter at school should be a priority. But how this can best be accomplished is hotly debated. A new study reveals that some popular approaches can have unintended consequences.
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Not all school safety strategies are effective, and some can lead to unintended consequences. Existing research sheds light on the evidence base for two very different approaches to school safety and efficacy on creating safe schools.
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Across the country, many schools have adopted restorative practices in an effort to improve school climate and student outcomes while reducing exclusionary discipline. Restorative practices improve students’ academic achievement and decreases suspension rates and disparities.
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Fremont High School in Oakland, CA, is among the many schools seeing benefits from adopting restorative practices in place of exclusionary discipline policies such as suspensions and expulsions, which disproportionately impact students of color and students with disabilities. Since implementing these policies, Fremont has reduced suspension rates and increased enrollments.
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Exclusionary discipline (suspension and expulsion) increases risks of student misbehavior, dropout, and incarceration—and Black students are 4 times more likely than White students to experience such discipline. An alternative to exclusionary discipline, restorative practices address root causes of misbehavior and can improve academic, disciplinary, and school climate measures and reduce racial disparities.
Melanie Leung-GagnéJennifer McCombsCaitlin ScottDaniel J. Losen
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Research shows that exclusionary discipline practices like suspensions and expulsions are ineffective at improving school safety and deterring infractions, may have a long-lasting negative impact on students, and disproportionately affect students based on their gender, race, school level, and disability status.
