Teachers Unite

Teachers Unite (www.teachersunite.org) is an independent membership organization of public school educators in New York City. We work to create a movement of educator-leaders who collaborate with parents and students toabolish mass incarceration as well as transform public schools into caring communities that empower students to develop their skills to their fullest potential.

[teachersunite]

The Day After Election Day

People can cry much easier than they can change, a rule of psychology people like me picked up as kids on the street.

Yesterday was a heavy day for our staff and members. Teachers Unite Executive Director shared her post-election day perspective to our members and supporters. 

[teachersunite]

Written by Teachers Unite Member, Emmy Bouvier

"My instinct as your teacher, someone who loves you, is to turn our classroom into a space of self love. I want to ease your worried minds, as if being Black and Brown in this country wasn’t already hard enough. As if you haven’t already told me your one purpose in this world is to be Black and die. I want to tell you that you matter."

[teachersunite]

Teachers Stand With Students

E.M. Eisen-Markowitz’s testimony at the Discipline Code Hearing

Monday, August 8, 2016

My name is E.M. Eisen-Markowitz and I have been teaching high school social studies in NYC for the last ten years. I have also worked as a part-time Restorative Justice Coordinator and UFT chapter leader in the Bronx, and I am a member of Teachers Unite.

I am here to talk to my educator peers and the D.O.E. about our concept of “safety” in school. We must resist the myth that suspensions make any of us safe. They do not.

E.M. (left) sits with Teachers Unite members and friends as the Hearing gets started. 

B-21 suspensions that police the every day behavior of young people are part of a long history of violence that has been done to black and brown communities in the name of “safety,” and it is the responsibility of educators and this city to work to end this pattern.

The proposed change to the Discipline Code of ending suspensions for Kindergarten through second grade is a welcome step toward ending the overuse of punitive discipline practices in NYC schools. And at the same time, we must do more this year.

Another step we must take is to end suspensions for minor infractions in grades 6-12, in particular the highly subjective “defying authority” or “B-21.” Even as overall suspension numbers in the city have gone down this year, racial disparities in punitive discipline have not budged.  And, across the country, racial disparities for suspensions based on “insubordination” or “defying authority” are especially horrifying. This is in part due to the unexamined racial biases of educators like me and my peers.

Say an allegedly “defiant" student I don’t know very well curses at me in the hallway when I ask them to get to their next class.  It happens. Non-compliance is not an unreasonable response to years of experiences in schools that communicate to students that they have no real power. In over a decade of working in public schools, I have never seen a suspension for this kind of behavior work, where a student returns feeling ready to learn and anyone else involved feels any resolution or safety.

On the other hand, thoughtful and sustained uses of restorative approaches have the potential to work through, and even build relationships through, conflict. Instead of having a dean remove the student from their next class to sit in an office or an administrator sending them home, I sit down with them in a facilitated conference.  We explain our experiences of the incident and what we each need to move forward peacefully.  Often a parent, advisor and other students who witnessed the incident participate in the conference, too. I personally feel much “safer” knowing I’ve had this kind of face-to-face conversation, rather than just seeing the student in the hall again and again after they’ve returned from a suspension they associate with me.

Through learning about and using restorative approaches with students, families and other staff, I have grown my skills as a teacher and a person. I have learned how to better listen, be more aware of my own biases, and collaboratively work toward a solution with my students who deserve to be understood as more than whatever happened in the hallway. This approach is far more effective than punitive discipline, and it requires a culture change in schools, including making the time and space to have these kinds of conversations. Along with increased funding and sustained supports for schools, ending suspensions for “defying authority” will keep the momentum going to make schools safer and more courageous learning spaces where young people and educators can be truly empowered.

[teachersunite]

Jazmine’s Story

Jazmine Dugall, Restorative Justice Coordinator at Academy for Young Writers in East New York, Brooklyn testified at a City Council Finance Committee Budget Hearing along with members of the Dignity in Schools Campaign-New York on May 24th, 2016

Good afternoon, thank you Council Members for funding the Restorative Justice Initiative. Academy for Young Writers (AFYW) in East New York, Brooklyn is one of the fifteen schools selected to receive funding through the City Council's Restorative Justice Initiative to hire a Restorative Justice Coordinator (RJC). Through The Leadership Program, I have been hired as an RJC to build capacity, teach students, staff, and administrators about Restorative Circles, and to shift the school from punitive discipline to a Restorative Culture.

I am here today to urge to you fund a second year of this Initiative. Refunding the Initiative for fiscal 2017 will ensure the sustainability of our hard work, and will allow the Initiative to expand the number of participating schools. We'd like this year's schools to be funded at the same $2.4 million level during fiscal 2017, and for an additional 2.6 million to expand the number of participating schools.

As Restorative Justice Coordinator this year, I was able to:

Recruit a Restorative Justice Action Team of 15 members – teachers, guidance, dean, admin – leading the way to make sure that the shift in tone and culture continues over the summer and into next year

Start an advisory schedule that incorporated circles 1-2 times per week throughout the 6th-12th grades. Themes include: Making Wise Choices, Respect Your Peers, Digital Citizenship, Respectful Relationships with Adults, Exploring Identity: Self, Race, and Gender, and Building Community

Appoint and train 3 students in the high school to lead mediations and community circles through the Teachers Unite RJ grant from the Brooklyn Community Foundation. Today at 3rd Period, two of the students, Cairo and Krishon, 10th and 11th graders, lead circles with 8th Grade classrooms that have lost the inspiration to finish their “senior” year successfully. Students are leading students in discussions about the importance of self-reflection, setting goals, and creating good habits for their futures, striving to create opportunities, embrace change, and support growth.

Lead 5 Professional Development Workshops with staff and students to get deeper into the Restorative Process and how they can use circles in their classrooms and advisories

Facilitate close to 100 circles, with staff and admin present to build capacity

Support students that we are doing Repair Work and Community Service with to take responsibility for the harm that they caused. Those students are benefiting from circles. The lessons that have come out of these dialogues are valuable and students feel like they have been heard. 

Witness the positive shift in the room after every circle that we do. 

We have only just begun. There is tremendous excitement and commitment for the work to continue. 

Experts say that transforming school climate can take several years. Full-time staffing and multi-stakeholder collaboration and leadership are key to this process. Because we were only able to start work in the last week of February, there is much more that I need to do in my role to build systems and structures that will allow the work that I’ve started with the school to continue. The more schools that begin this transformation and who are supported to make sure it lasts, the more we can fight back against the punitive discipline, school push out, and the school-to-prison pipeline, which disproportionately impacts students of color in NYC.

Please:

Allocate $5 million for the Restorative Justice Initiative to fund a second year of this initiative to ensure sustainability, and to expand the number of participating schools.

Direct future funds to schools in order to include funding for full-time DOE staff as RJ Coordinators.

Encourage the mayor to invest in youth and parent leadership and district-wide coordination.

With a School Safety budget nearing half a billion dollars, the administration must divest from police in schools and invest in what really makes schools safer for students and families.

[teachersunite]

Students at Lyons Community School in Brooklyn share their vision for Restorative Justice in NYC public schools. These students are part of the #RestoreTheFuture! initiative, which is growing youth leadership in Restorative Justice with support from Teachers Unite and the Brooklyn Community Foundation. 

[teachersunite]

Shana’s Story

Below is testimony shared by Teachers Unite member Shana Louallen (second from left) at the City Council Preliminary Budget Hearing on March 16, 2016

Thank you to the City Council for your leadership in addressing how we dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline. This has been showcased by your $2.4M investment in the Restorative Justice initiative for the fiscal year 2016. My name is Shana Louallen and I am a social worker who has worked in schools for the last few years.

Like many of my colleagues, I too have served as the sole social worker for a school, counseling upwards of 375 students while engaging in restorative practices for conflict resolution between students and staff. Doing mandated counseling, treatment plans, mediation, breaking up fights, running social emotional PDs for staff, guiding social emotional content for advisories, making parent calls, leading family conferences, creating safety and harm reduction plans makes social work in schools a hard job. It also makes the task of shifting a counter-intuitive punitive school culture to a restorative one, lonely.

When, however, I worked at a school where the school culture embraced restorative practices, I saw a shift in students of color inclusive of improved engagement and support. The shift allowed social workers to engage in more clinical and family work, in addition to collaborative participation in restorative planning. With the help of restorative coordinators, this took years to happen and I must be clear in stating that this work cannot happen solely on the backs of social workers, teachers in schools nor on the backs of staff of color. It is a community effort. It requires priority treatment by school administrators as well as buy-in from staff and students. If we are saying that student voice matters, that students of color matter, and that specifically black lives matter, then we, as front-line workers, need more support on the second round of the initiative.

As a member of Teachers Unite and the Dignity in Schools Campaign-New York, I'm requesting the following: 1. Allocate $5 million for the Restorative Justice Initiative for next year to ensure sustainability, and to expand the number of schools able to participate.

2. Allow for the initiative to fund full-time school-based staff and professional development around school climate with respect to restorative practices.

3. Push Mayor de Blasio's administration to increase its investment in whole-school restorative justice models, including youth and parent leadership, community involvement, and district-wide coordination.

4. Push the administration to divest from policing in schools via school safety and invest in successful processes, and people, who really make schools safe for students and families.

Thank you so much for your time.

[teachersunite]

E.M.’s Story

Below is testimony shared by Teachers Unite member E.M. Eisen-Markowitz (right) at the City Council Preliminary Budget Hearing on March 16, 2016

Hello, I am E.M. Eisen-Markowitz and I am in my tenth year as a teacher in New York City and I am here -- even during the middle of the school day -- because making this City Council investment go to the right things is urgent in the lives of the young people I work with.  

In 10 years, I've seen hundreds of small human conflicts lead unnecessarily to the suspension, arrest, and/or push out of Black & Latino high school students. But the decades-long movement against zero tolerance, metal detectors, and policing in schools in NYC is building momentum and the political tide IS turning thanks to committed, grassroots organizing by educators, parents and young people.  

Mayor de Blasio’s preliminary budget released in January, proposed nearly 45 million dollars for positive school safety resources and the City Council itself has invested $2.4 million in the RJ Initiative from fiscal year 2016.

But this money needs to go directly to schools. We need real, sustainable investment in full time school-based staff, not just contracts for professional development with outside vendors.

In my school, we used DOE funding for restorative practices training for ten staff members every summer for three years and by the following school year, only 4-6 of those teachers return and we’d be back at the beginning. Meaningful change only started to happen in our school when our UFT chapter voted to develop two release time positions for classroom teachers to work as part-time restorative co-coordinators.  The two of us didn’t DO all of the restorative interventions -- conferences, group assists, mediations, etc. -- because we had other teachers, social workers, parents and students who could, but we coordinated when, where and how they’d happen and we connected people to ongoing training and PD. We also connected people at times and places that made sense for our school day and we followed up. Had I been a classroom teacher with a full teaching load, I would not have had the time, energy or resources for this kind of coordination and connection. This kind of position is vital in sustaining Restorative Justice work in schools -- and it can only function meaningfully as a school-based role fully integrated into the school community over several school years.  

Lots of people already IN schools every day want to build restorative school climates and lots of people IN schools everyday have the skills we need to do this. What we don’t have is money, time and dedicated staff.

As a public school educator and a member of Teachers Unite and the Dignity in Schools Campaign-New York, I am here today to ask the City Council to:

1. Allocate $5 million for the Restorative Justice Initiative to fund a second year of this initiative to ensure sustainability, and to expand the number of participating schools. 2. Direct funds to schools in order to include funding for full-time DOE staff as RJ Coordinators. 3. Encourage the mayor to invest in, youth and parent leadership, and district-wide coordination.

With a School Safety budget nearing half a billion dollars, the administration must divest from police in schools and invest in what really makes schools safer for students and families.

[teachersunite]

Say NO to No Fed in ESEA!

I just supported Say NO to No Fed in ESEA! on @ThunderclapIt // @DignityinSchool

I just supported Say NO to No Fed in ESEA! on @ThunderclapIt // @DignityinSchool

[teachersunite]

Statement on Student Safety Act Amendment from Sally Lee, TU’s Executive Director

Good afternoon, my name is Sally Lee and I’m the founding executive director of Teachers Unite.

Teachers Unite is a member-led organization of public school educators resisting the segregation and criminalization of Black and Latino youth by organizing educators as allies to parents and students.

We are a proud member of the Dignity in Schools Campaign-New York and the Student Safety Coalition.

Our members are New York City public school teachers, deans, guidance counselors, and social workers who are leaders in their schools’ efforts to create safe, caring, and restorative communities--that means not punitive AND not permissive.

Because of the current climate that emphasizes policing and removal of students, these schools have to plan for years of hard work to overcome the status quo of their criminalized environments.

This hard work puts demands on school staffing, scheduling, and limited classroom space, as well as requiring training, reflection, and facilitation. But it can be done and it it’s being done in schools across the city.

Nothing should stand in the way of this hard work.

We are here today to celebrate amendments to the Student Safety Act, which will give a more complete picture of the impact that metal detectors, EMS referrals, multiple suspensions, and restraints are having on students, and disproportionately students of color.

Access to information about what’s happening in our schools, things that educators witness and students experience each and every day, will help us as New Yorkers to support schools making the transformation from punitive to restorative.

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2015/09/29/school-safety-act-amendment/

http://www.nyclu.org/schooltoprison/ssa

[teachersunite]

Restoring Justice in Ourselves

A blog post by MSW student intern Katie Simanovich

After an eight-month delay, the New York City Department of Education released a draft of the 2014-2015 Discipline Code this winter. The release was followed by a hearing two weeks later on March 2nd to allow for public comments. “B21”, or "defying authority" as a reason to suspend a student is still a part of the code, now in effect as of April 1st. In addition, written approval is now needed from the DOE for suspensions. Just calling it a code kind of makes me cackle.

Bell Hooks states in her book All About Love, “To open our hearts more fully to love’s power and grace we must dare to acknowledge how little we know of love in both theory and practice.” Aside from punitive policies, how well do we know love in our own minds, hearts, and actions? Hooks also understands love “as the will to nurture our own and another’s spiritual growth, and that it becomes clear that we cannot claim to love if we are hurtful and abusive.” I’ve been wondering lately how we build a multiracial, multicultural, integrated movement through acts of love in our school communities and throughout the country. In our personal lives, and beyond.

What does our soul craft, the self that has been created by society and regime, have to do with the oppressive structures in which we live? How are we shaping our soul craft to resist  these structures? Does it start with the individual and move outward, or do structures and systems need to change first? Or do they happen simultaneously? How many times have we heard this question? Is an active resistance to structures of domination, taking risks, and exploring self-transformation that which is revolutionary? In a school, what selves do we bring in relation with young people and co-workers? I wonder if restoring ourselves in loving relationships with students, teachers, social workers, and with the entire community if we can bring systemic transformation? To bring a little light, love, nonviolence to a system that is rooted in marginalization, discrimination, violence, and oppression.

The Dignity in Schools Campaign-New York advocates changing the Discipline Code in NYC schools to stop suspensions for B21 (“defying authority”). I think I would act through a more nonviolent perspective, in that social justice starts with self-purification in the sense of stripping away the identities that we have been given to understand the multiple narratives that we carry that are separate from the dominant narrative, the oppressive narrative embedded in our culture, created by society, and often invisibly shaping our reality. As I have been thinking about insubordination, or defying authority, which is a policy that enables school staff to suspend students for minor infractions, I have been contemplating if it is the existence of the policy or the individuals themselves that re-enforce punitive punishments. Is it the individuals that are enforcing these policies (acting in violence) or is it the policies that drive people to exert their power? If the policy disappeared, what would happen? Would students all of a sudden stop getting suspended? More importantly, perhaps, would oppressive systems be eliminated?

I’m not sure that a policy’s existence can teach understanding, love, empathy, and justice, which is what restorative justice is about. Can we force someone to love, understand, and restore instead of implementing dehumanizing practices, like suspension? Maybe it’s more about the relationships and their lack of love that is causing “defying authoritative” acts from students, along with staff’s perception and response to that behavior because of who the students represent (their perceived narrative). And out of fear and insensitivity, suspensions are the result.

Is social justice about self-purification or is it about a revolution? Do we have enough soul and courage to become transformed in love or are the systems of oppression too dominating? Either way, there must be some sort of disruption of these cycles of oppression that can create light within a history and society of punitive disposition and hatred. How do we create room for change, and how do we transform the world and ourselves as concrete alternatives to these cycles, like those of punitive punishment in schools?

Something I think is inspiring is that as human beings we can imagine the highest levels of liberty, justice, and equality despite the history and present state of oppressive policies and systems that clouds our educational settings. This is a powerful soul tool that provides more hope for change than the Department of Education abolishing a policy in the Discipline Code.

At the hearing, students, teachers, and community organizers voiced their opposition to the Discipline Code and spoke courageously about their personal experiences and passions of creating genuine alternatives to the path for justice in schools. I can't say I had faith in the women from the DOE sitting at the table on stage in their ability to create justice. My faith was with the young people and teachers voicing their passionate longing for change, actively speaking their truth in radical political action, separate from a system that has broken them and us as human beings.

I think restoring our own narratives, our identities, and our own aspirations to connect with others in love could play a significant part in restoring school communities, relationships, systems, and structures.

[teachersunite]

#SuspendEva

The Times ran this front page story yesterday about the highly monitored and punitive environment in Success Academy schools, following this Op Ed in the Wall Street Journal last week in which Success CEO Eva Moskowitz claimed that restorative justice practices turn schools into “Fight Clubs.” On the same day her Op Ed was published, the Daily News broke this story about a student expelled from a Success Academy in Harlem.

Urban Youth Collaborative + Dignity in Schools’ response was loud and clear: #SuspendEva

Here’s what some Teachers Unite members had to say:

"At our school, we need restorative practices the most for students who have recently been pushed out of charter schools. They come to us feeling as though they are unworthy of receiving the glorified, legendary education their charter school promised them, and that they might as well give up on school. We've seen that community-building circles, true partnership with their families, and, if needed, other restorative practices, can give them back the educational hope their former charter school took away from them." - Teachers Unite member Megan Moskop

We are not creating a “fight club”

As a fellow educator committed to transforming NYC public schools into places that foster growth and educational attainment for all, I can understand Eva Moskowitz’s skepticism about using restorative justice as a substitute for suspensions and “zero tolerance.”  But I’m writing to say it can be a powerful way to build relationships and hold students accountable.

Segregated public schools like mine, serving predominantly Black and Latino/a students who qualify for free lunch, are constantly working to create environments that are supportive, powerful and engaging for young people in the face of inequitable resource allocation. Ms. Moskowitz’s framing of schools like mine as “chaotic” places where children “don’t learn” ignores the loving, intentional and creative work that is being done to serve our students. It also sidesteps the oft reported evidence that students who don’t fit the Success Academy mold are pushed out to other schools, like mine.

Even more disturbing, by pushing the metaphor of a “fight club” for restorative justice, she is depicting young people from disadvantaged communities as kids who are violently attacking one another and sexually harassing their teachers. Such depictions only fuel the insidious stereotypes that students of color are unsafe and need to be highly monitored and controlled.

What Ms. Moskowitz refers to as “lax discipline” is, in fact, deeply challenging and complex work that involves school-wide systems, programs, interventions and committed educators. It is a philosophy of building and restoring relationships.  Restorative justice offers innovation in the field of school discipline and I’m thankful and inspired by the growing support of our Mayor and Chancellor.

Peer mediation programs can work. Youth justice courts can work. If not pursued with the proper resources, time and commitment, restorative justice will fail. But don’t tell me suspending a student in a room for three days without instruction is preferable to building systems to transform punitive discipline and create powerful relationships across school communities.

-Teachers Unite member Sarah Camiscoli, ESL Teacher in the South Bronx

Eva’s Exaggeration

In a recent opinion piece, charter school executive Eva Moskowitz called New York City’s effort to overhaul its school discipline practices “misguided.”

Let’s correct one exaggeration right from the start. If a student hits another student, the response under the new Discipline Code is not just “dialogue.” Students can still be suspended.

But of the 53,500 suspensions handed out during the 2013-14 school year, exactly 1 percent involved violence or conduct so serious that suspension was mandated by the Code. That means 99 percent of the city’s suspensions could have been addressed without removing a student from school.

Moreover, the biggest single cause for suspension in New York is “defying authority," also known as insubordination. Teachers and principals can deal with such misconduct – and maintain an orderly learning environment – without sending a student out the door and down a path that too often leads to prison.

We practice restorative justice at my high school and it works. We have an advisory Crew curriculum that emphasizes conflict resolution and other socio-emotional skills, a Fairness Committee and a Peer Mediation program in which trained students work with staff and students to address core value violations and conflicts before they escalate, and restorative circles and re-entry meetings following suspension. That's not lax discipline. That's addressing the root causes of misbehavior and pre-empting violence.

Finally, data shows that special education and African-American students are four times more likely to be suspended than their white counterparts for the exact same infraction of “defying authority.” A reduction in suspensions due to restorative processes addresses these troubling disparities.

Restorative justice is not about a lack of discipline but about resolving conflict and shifting behavior. Even in the rare instance of a violent act, after the suspension we use restorative practices to return the student to school, address the harm they caused and try to ensure that it doesn't happen again.

- Teachers Unite ally member Brady Smith, Principal Co-Director, The James Baldwin School

[teachersunite]

Discipline Code Hearing: Ambar's Story

Ambar Galvan is a Middle school science teacher at MS 324 Patria Mirabal

My name is Ambar Galvan and I’m here tonight to encouragethe DOE to provide funding for restorative justice trainings in all New YorkCity public schools. I have received training on classroom circles and restorative approaches from the organization Teachers Unite through my fellow colleagues that are affiliated with the program.

I am a teacher at MS 324, a middle school located in Washington Heights. I will start by saying that I am proud to part of this school community because I work alongside a faculty and administration that treats every child with respect and dignity. At MS 324, teachers have weekly meeting where they share student concerns and discuss how they can assist in every students’ academic progress as well as a child’s social and emotional development. Just to give some data and statistics about the school, in the last school quality report 94% of our students indicated that they feel respect by their peers and teachers.

However, despite having an administration and teachers that demonstrate genuine care and compassion for our students we still have students that are repeatedly suspended and removed from the classroom. I have observed that once a student is suspended it is often difficult for that student to trust the school community and avoid a second suspension.

As a teacher it often feels as though students are simply being shuffled back and forth from one school to a suspension to a detention center until they finally reach an age in which they no longer care to attend school. And will no longer attend at all.

With the help of Teachers Unite, teachers at MS 324 are implementing practices that help our students form a safer and inclusive school community in which conflicts are resolved in a calm and respectful manner. However, we need more help in order to keep ALL our students in the classroom, not just 94%. It has to be 100% of our students.

[teachersunite]

Discipline Code Hearing: Nicole's Story

My name is Nicole Riley, and I am a proud member of Teachers Unite and the Dignity in Schools Campaign-New York. I have been the dean for the last five years at Edward A. Reynolds West Side and a teacher for over 15 years. During my career I have witnessed numerous kids have emotional outbursts, make poor decisions, refuse to follow directions, and talk back. Thanks to neuroscience and psychology, we all know that these are developmentally appropriate child and adolescent behaviors. Unfortunately and shamefully, these developmentally appropriate behaviors are lumped under "B21" in the Discipline Code, which allows students to be suspended and criminalized for being kids. A B21"offense" should instead be an opportunity for real teaching and learning inside a school.

Instead of teaching in these teachable moments, too often we are criminalizing, suspending, and pushing students into the school-to-prison pipeline. Black and Latino/a students, LGBTQ students, and students with disabilities are suspended at higher rates then white students for the same behaviors.

Why aren't we supporting our students to manage feelings and communicate in positive, constructive ways? Why aren't we using restorative practices and supportive services for all of our students so they can stay in school, graduate, and become positive productive citizens? Why aren't we helping our students deal with their trauma in a way that does not harm or punish them?

Please do the right thing. Stop suspending kids for B21 infractions. Support all students with guidance services and positive interventions before they can be suspended. Please invest in these practices and give all schools across the board the tools and resources to implement restorative justice. Just like all of the testing has become mandated, so should the supports for students.  

[teachersunite]

Discipline Code Hearing: Jamaal's Story

by Teachers Unite member Jamaal A. Bowman, Founding Principal, Cornerstone Academy for Social Action Middle School

Who gets suspended from our schools? Poor black and Latino boys—and girls too—beginning as young as three years old in disproportionate rates all over the country. Who are the unarmed men that are disproportionately killed by the police? Black and Latino youth. Black lives matter not only in the streets when dealing with law enforcement, but in our schools as well.

I think the adjustments to the discipline code are a step in the right direction. I would also like to see B21, so called "insubordination" removed as a suspendable offense. Unfortunately in many of our schools, there is a huge disconnect between school staff and the students they serve. Many educators don't understand poverty, don't understand the politics of urbanization, and don't treat our most at-risk population with the care they deserve.

We must remember that we are dealing with children. Not animals and thugs as the media too often depicts black and Latino youth to be. Our children our children carry trauma from growing up in neighborhoods with concentrated poverty and limited resources, and they carry that trauma with them into our schools. We can't continue to respond by criminalizing their behavior.

In my school, I have a social worker and guidance counselor on staff to support our restorative justice model and the social emotional needs of our students. We work very hard to build excellent relationships with parents and provide wrap around services to families. If there is an issue we can't handle, we find a community resource that can.

Further, the city and teacher training programs need to do more to prepare our teachers to meet the social emotional needs of our students and we need an influx of guidance counselors and social workers and restorative justice coordinators into our system. School staff can begin right now by taking ownership. Start by reading Lisa Delpit's Other People's Children, and listen to Tupac's Keep Your Head Up. Working to close the class and social gaps takes lifelong learning and understanding. I look forward to our continued work in this area.

[teachersunite]

Discipline Code Hearing: Nichole's Story

I am Nichole Rowe Small. I believe in love, kind words and fair consequences for all. I am a mother and a school counselor at the University Neighborhood Middle School in the LES. I am grateful to be here to present UNMS’s restorative practices as a healthy solution for managing behavioral choices in our school. Comparing data from the last two years in our school, the time period I will refer to as BRP (Before Restorative Practices), I can attest that Superintendent Suspensions have been cut in half, Principal Suspensions have also been decreased by ½ as well. We currently have no Level 5 infractions, and Level 2-4 infractions (determined by the DOE) have also decreased by more than ½. The decrease in suspensions and inappropriate behavioral choices can be attributed to our Restorative Circles and our Fairness Committee. At UNMS we are taking the time to really speak and listen to each other, with cooperation, compassion and empathy. We have made unsavory behavior a community issue, which includes the school and the extended community.

Our students understand why we conduct restorative circles because suspensions can be life altering. According to an article in neaToday, suspensions are the "number-one predictor—more than poverty—of whether children will drop out of school, and walk down a road that includes greater likelihood of unemployment, reliance on social-welfare programs, and imprisonment.” We are hired as educators to help children grow, not hurt them.  Restorative Justice Programs allow the student with the challenging behavior(s) to express to his/her peers and adults why he/she is making these choices which can be anything from divorce, hunger, low self esteem issues etc. Why are we punishing students for issues that he/she should be counseled for? We need to teach our adult community members to create better relationships with the students they teach. What we have found in our school is Restorative Practices allows for more in-depth, facilitated conversations that force students and staff (all staff) to practice empathy and to take responsibility for the way their actions affect others.  

I stand here to urge the Mayor and Chancellor to go further: mandate guidance interventions be used before suspensions, and deeply invest in restorative approaches--not just through outside professional development but through funding restorative justice coordinators in high-need schools. 

[teachersunite]

Tyler Brewster's Speech at Dignity in Schools-NY #EndB21 Press Conference

Tyler Brewster (Teachers Unite & DSC-NY) is a Community Coordinator, with a specific focus on Restorative Practices, at The James Baldwin School for Expeditionary Learning. She began her career with the New York City Department of Education as a Middle School Mathematics teacher in 2007 and then held a position as Dean of Student Discipline for several years at a Crown Heights high school. Her unique experience - both inside and outside of the classroom - has afforded her the opportunity to work with students of various ages and backgrounds. Her work is guided by a strong passion for equity and deep-rooted respect for humanity.

Some background: In the 2013-2014 school year, there were 53,504 suspensions across New York City public schools, with infraction B21 or “defying authority” as the second most common reason for suspensions. Research shows that suspensions for minor subjective infractions, such as B21, has a disparate impact on black, Latino, LGBTQ, and students with disabilities. Of 53,504 suspensions last year, black and Latino students made up 89% of all students suspended. Black students make up only 26% of the student population, but accounted for 53% of all suspensions. As of 2012, students with disabilities make up 12% of the student population, but accounted for 36% of all suspensions. After eliminating suspensions for a similar infraction last year, Los Angeles Unified School District saw a sharp drop in suspensions and racial disparities in the use of suspensions. Studies show that even one suspension can greatly increase a student’s chances of dropping out.

November 11, 2014

Good morning and Happy Veteran’s Day! It’s an awesome feeling to be here with you all on this Tuesday morning.

My name is Tyler Brewster. I'm a member of Teachers Unite and Dignity in Schools, and I have been working with the New York City Department of Education for nearly a decade. And in my time I’ve worn my many hats – middle school mathematics teacher, dean of student discipline, and I stand before you this morning as the proud coordinator of restorative approaches at The James Baldwin School for Expeditionary Learning in New York City.

Being an educator is tough work…period. But through my experience within the school system, I have come to realize that being a student in this climate is even tougher. The world can prove itself to be a cold place— therefore our schools should be a safe zone where our children can be free to flourish. Instead we are creating a social-emotional battleground of sorts where we break our children down each day with a discipline system that only seeks to punish and exclude. 



We know it's absurd to believe that you can correct truancy through suspension—asking a student who doesn't want to be in school not to come back. So can we address another minor infraction—talking back—because that’s what young people do—through suspension? How is it possible to develop our young people into productive members of the larger community by pulling them out of the school community for every misstep or when they fall short of our expectations? 
It sounds to me like we are punishing our kids for being kids.

While I always tried to be as fair as possible, as a dean of student discipline, I sometimes found myself in the unfortunate situation of issuing punitive consequences for student misbehavior. I know first hand: Teaching students to correct their behavior by means of pushout – SAVE room assignments, classroom removals, school suspensions – is an entirely ineffective method. What I quickly realized was that students who were removed from the school environment were actually more likely to continue getting in trouble. I can safely state that there was NO one student in all of my years as dean, for whom a single suspension stopped them from ever getting in trouble again. The only thing removals prove to be good for was driving a wedge further between the student and the school community. It reinforced an idea that many of our students—students of color, students with disabilities, students from the LGBTQ community—struggle against each day – the idea that they aren’t good enough. But our story does not have to end this way. Together we can work to turn this around.

Relying on a discipline plan that is entirely punitive and largely discriminatory is NOT working! As educators, we are responsible for teaching and cultivating the young minds of our communities. We must recognize that part of their growth is through making mistakes and learning to redeem oneself.

Restorative justice isn’t just an idea. I have been on the ground and in the trenches and seen it in action! I know that restorative practices work. It’s so much more than “going soft” on the kids. To be restorative does not mean to abandon all structure and “take it easy” on our students. Instead it serves to empower our students and strengthen the bonds of the community. It pushes students to be accountable and teaches them the skills they need to resolve conflict and repair harms. It encourages a sense of responsibility and it holds the potential for saving our future from the juvenile justice system.

Whenever I speak on this topic, a particular student comes to mind. Let’s call him Student A. Now, Student A. had been to the school’s SAVE room so many times we could have named it after him. He had also been suspended countless times, and he had even been arrested. It was rather apparent that these traditionally punitive methods were not working. Each time he returned from a removal, he was angrier, more jaded. One day, it dawned on me: I had to do something different. Why not have a conversation with Student A.? Ask him about his needs, his goals in life. Help him develop a plan. A plan so that when he stumbled—because that’s what students are supposed to do—we as educators would be there to pick him up—because that’s what educators are supposed to do. So I did, and it was one of the most powerful and positive experiences of my career. I could immediately sense he was shocked anyone had given him the time of day. He told me, and I quote, he was used to being treated like a problem, so he acted like one.

Now I know some of you are waiting for the fairytale ending to this story, the one where I tell you Student A. never got in trouble again. But restorative approaches are not magic tricks. It’s a process, a journey, a way of life. 

So what about Student A.? Well, he still has his struggles, but he attends school regularly now and even wears a uniform. He has now begun to shift his view of what school is and is now able to see education and the places it can take him as a real possibility for himself. While that may seem insignificant to some, to me that is a huge success.

This is New York City…we pride ourselves on being one of the world’s fastest-paced and most advanced cities, so why then are we so behind the times?  It’s working out in Oakland! What are we waiting for?! The time is now! Restorative Justice can’t just be the new buzzword…there must be a plan of action. Policy change—including ending suspensions for B21—has to happen, and it must be coupled with education, resources, and a commitment rooted in school communities. 


So, please consider this a direct challenge. I challenge the administration of this fine city to give our children a chance. I have hope that you will rise to the occasion. Thank you.

[teachersunite]

Breaking the Silence

On October 9th, during the Dignity in Schools National Week of Action, Girls for Gender Equity & the African American Policy Forum held a Town Hall titled #BreakingtheSilence:

Cis and transgender girls of color testified to a packed house about their experiences with school pushout, incarceration, and other issues they face that are often overlooked by the community. 

Teachers Unite member Sarah Camiscoli was not able to testify for lack of time, but here is her testimony in full:

Hi, my name is Sarah Camiscoli and I am an Organizing Council member of Teachers Unite, co facilitator of a Gender Sexuality Alliance, an English as a Second Language teacher to middle and high school students, and a coordinator of literacy support and differentiation for students with special needs and bilingual language development. I am here both as a queer identified Latina woman and because the push out of young women of color is a reality I experience as an educator and an organizer everyday in the Mott Haven community of the South Bronx.

I believe in this hearing’s commitment to breaking the silence around the experience of young women of color through support and awareness. I am personally committed to bringing wholeness to the New York City Department of Education and believe that breaking silence around what is not whole in our education system is key. I believe a commitment to wholeness for our schools involves not only addressing the school pushout of young women through zero tolerance policies, suspension, and sexual harassment, but also in addressing the kinds of school push out that are more subtle, sometimes unnamable, and elusive. 

In my experience, there is an often-overlooked form of pushout that particularly affects young women of color who attend racially segregated public schools in NYC. This pushout affects young women who are learning English as a second language, and those who receive disability services. The intersection of being a young woman of color, learning English or having a learning disability, and attending a racially segregated public school is an intersectionality that is often unspoken of and, in my experience, can be one of the most menacing in terms of pushout. 

When I think of breaking the silence of the abuses endured by young women of color, I think of Keyla, a student who I have had as both a 9th grader and 11th grader. Our public school, located in the South Bronx, is segregated by race, class, and ability. Our school serves 98% Black and Latino students in a city that is comprised of 55% Black and Latino families. We serve 88% of students on free lunch in a city that has 45%. Twenty-five percent of our students are in ESL classes yet we are given a budget to employ less than 1% of specialized staff to support them.  

The numbers represent the isolation and segregation young women experience in public schools. Keyla is both a student at our school and a student identified as an English language learner.  This puts her in an especially high-risk position for the kind of push out I am speaking of. Less than 60% of females in ESL students graduate high school and less than 25% of females in special education graduated last year. When I spoke with Keyla a few days ago, she shared with me that she didn't feel any of her teachers understood what she needed and what was important to her. She shared that school just didn't seem like it would work for her and that being at home with her family seemed more important. And Keyla is not the only young woman in ESL or with a disability that has shared this with me without a clear analysis of the ways school has not served her.

Throughout my time as a teacher, I have met many young women learning English and/or with disabilities that do not always receive the services they were mandated. Instead of their legal right to additional literacy support, extended time on assignments, tutoring hours, specialized teachers or paraprofessional support, they are placed at random, where the school could place them given the budget and human capital. More than 50% of the teachers in our schools and schools like ours of ESL and special education students are uncertified and/ or inexperienced and few of them have never even been in a classroom with a student learning English or with disabilities before they began teaching them.

When I first met Keyla two years ago, I was one of those teachers. In addition to substandard classes without experienced teachers or their mandated services, many of these young women like Keyla have schedules blocked out with classes they had already failed over and over again. Moreover their records show few family interventions and fewer school support mechanisms to reconnect them to school. These women aren't always necessarily pushed out through suspensions, expulsions, or sexual harassment nor did all of them have contact with the foster care system or early pregnancy. Their push out is sometimes more subtle and it existed at the site of their status as English language learners and students with disabilities in a segregated school. This is an intersectional identity that is particularly high risk for young Black and Latina women in NYC public schools. And it is one we must be aware of if our mission is to demand wholeness and support for young women of color.

I want to take action that shifts that experience for Keyla and other young women learning English with disabilities in segregated schools. At this point in my career there are these actions I believe that can be taken by City Council and demanded by students, parents, and school communities to unlock this intersection and free young women like Keyla of the feeling that school is not a place of opportunity.

1. Action for Integration: I believe we must push to create public schools that reflect the people, ideas, and resources available in New York City. With School Choice on the table, students should not be choosing between schools that have the resources or schools that do not. NYC public schools should reflect the wide demographic of NYC families and the resources of this city. We must act intentionally about how to create school communities that integrate communities divided by race and class and redistribute experienced, specialized teachers across school networks so students can be exposed to and benefit from these services and people regardless of home address or family stability. Let's create grants for the creation of such public schools instead of providing money for charters that will remain equally as segregated.

2. Action for Support: We must incentivize and support teachers to be certified to serve students who are learning English and/or who have disabilities. We must then make sure school populations reflect staff expertise. Otherwise, our students are attending schools that are not prepared to serve them and this communicates that school is not for them. Let's create special certificate education programs for content teachers who have committed five years to a certain subject area. 

3. Action to Stand for Our Students: We must create responses to reconnect young women and men to school who no longer see value in attending. A short home visit and phone call to ACS is not a holistic response. There must be staff, funding, and training provided to schools to address the push out of long-term absences. Let's create city-funded programs to support absent students in every public school.

I am committed to these actions and would love to share ideas, resources, and effort with anyone who also sees themselves in the possibility of support, wholeness, and awareness for young women of color learning English and/or with disabilities in schools.

Thank you for your time, your love, your brilliance, and your continual commitment to the life of young women in our city.

  Teachers Unite: Restorative Justice Organizing Council Member 

NYC DOE: ESL Teacher/Coordinator 6th-12th Grade

Contact snoellecamiscoli [at] gmail [dot] com