Build safety and belonging by detracking, offering low-barrier extracurriculars, and implementing restorative approaches in place of exclusionary discipline¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · no claims cited

Description¶

The brief recommends that secondary schools replace structures that segregate and separate students with three alternatives: detracking into heterogeneous learning opportunities, varied and enriching extracurriculars with minimal participation barriers, and restorative approaches to conflict resolution that 'acknowledge and repair harm when it occurs.' Restorative practices range from impromptu conferences to restorative circles and conferences that support reflection, communication, and problem-solving.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Eliminate structures that segregate and separate students, including academic tracking and zero-tolerance and exclusionary discipline policies
• Extracurriculars should be forums that affirm students' identities and strengthen interpersonal skills
• Restorative circles and conferences must be structured and facilitated to support reflection, communication, and problem-solving

Constraints¶

• The brief links tracking and harsh discipline policies to stigmatization, heightened stress, disengagement, and discriminatory treatment toward students of color and other student subgroups

Target Learners¶

• secondary school students
• students of color and other student subgroups facing discriminatory treatment

Target Learning Goals¶

• social, emotional, and psychological safety
• sense of belonging and school connectedness

Affordances¶

• Relationship Centered Schooling Framework

Related Strategies¶

• Replace exclusionary discipline for low-level offenses with social-emotional skill teaching, educator supports, implicit-bias training, and relationship-centered schools
• Restorative Approaches
• Restorative Practices
• Structural supports for restorative practices: funding, people, time, discipline policy, and equity
• Replace zero tolerance discipline policies with explicit social-emotional teaching and restorative discipline practices
• Replace exclusionary discipline with restorative practices and implement data-driven attendance monitoring
• Empathic Discipline
• Six-part state and local policy strategy for reducing exclusionary discipline and suspension gaps
• Use extracurricular activities and inclusion-oriented clubs to build cross-group connections, while removing access barriers

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Hernández, L., & Darling-Hammond, L. (with Nielsen, N.). (2024). Cultivating relationships in secondary schools: Structures that matter. Learning Policy Institute. https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/cultivating-relationships-secondary-schools-brief