Just Discipline Project
Funders: US. Department of Education, University of Chicago, The Heinz Endowments, Richard King Mellon Foundation, Staunton Farm Foundation, and Aliquippa School District.
About the Project: The Just Discipline Project: Implementation Study and Regional Impact Model (JDP) sheds much needed light on the dramatic inequalities in school discipline in the Pittsburgh region, and offers remedies aimed to serve as a national model. While local districts have begun relaxing zero-tolerance suspension policies and implementing stand-alone restorative practice programs, these shifts alone do not equip teachers and administrators with the resources and training necessary to take on the issues that tend to cause overreliance on exclusionary practices in the first place. Reforms like restorative practices have been attempted nationwide with the goal of reducing suspensions and mitigating the disparate impacts of exclusionary discipline on Black and Latinx youth, but no large-scale studies have been attempted with fully staffed programs. In response, this project evaluates the implementation and performs a cost-benefit analysis of restorative practices in urban school contexts, as well as building regional capacity and buy-in for future restorative practices work. Read more.