Aliyya Swaby Photo
Mariah and Tiana, at the forefront of city’s “restorative justice” push.
When Mariah yelled at Tiana for stepping on her coat after recess, their third-grade teacher sent them to a pair of seventh-grade peer mediators to work out their differences.
Mediators Jayla Moye and Nicdaniel Charles had a script ready for the session, along with a year of practice facilitating mediations at Brennan-Rogers School, as administrators focus on helping students develop socially and emotionally.
Once an experimental site of Yale psychiatrist James Comer groundbreaking experience in social-emotion learning, West Rock’s Brennan-Rogers is now spearheading a program in “restorative justice,” New Haven’s new approach to working on productive in-school consequences for students who act out rather than suspending or expelling them.
Brennan-Rogers was the city’s first “turnaround” school in 2010, after posting some of the lowest results in state tests and behavior. The principal at the time replaced most teachers and extended students’ days by nearly an hour and a half. When that didn’t work, administrators changed tactics — making more time for teacher collaboration and learning and giving students space to process trauma and learn interpersonal skills.
The district is in the process of building restorative justice into several schools’ disciplinary practices, with a two-year “innovation grant” through the American Federation of Teachers.
Into The “Relax Room”
Moye brings Mariah and Tiana back to class.
Third-graders Tiana and Mariah needed help resolving an ongoing spat.
Their teacher, Melissa Katz, had tried everything to get them to stop arguing. She hosted a “restoration circle” in the classroom, inviting students to talk out about how to respect each other. When that didn’t work, she tried to mediate between the girls, to get them to come to a resolution.
Still, no luck. Katz figured a peer mediator would be able to make more progress with the kids than an adult, so she wrote up a referral form. Students have to give their consent to participate in a mediation; their parents do not necessarily have to consent.
“Mariah is often mean to Tiana. It sets Tiana’s temper off. They say last year they were not like this with each other. They want a safe place to share their feelings,” she wrote on the referral.
Seventh-graders Moye and Charles walked the two girls from their classroom to the “relax room,” a neutral space for students and teachers to use. Social worker Kristen Penta gave them a box of props for the girls to play with as they discussed — easing their nervousness — and left the students alone in the room.
The amount of time it takes to come to a resolution varies. Sometimes it takes students more than one mediation session. Kids are “holding onto things,” Brennan-Rogers Principal Gail DeBlasio said. She has heard eighth graders bring up conflicts from third grade.
Early Morning Restoration
DeBlasio shows a compilation of restorative justice exercises.
For the last two years, Principal DeBlasio — who as a teacher had been a pioneer in bringing Comer-style problem-solving to the classroom — has been working on building a structure that includes practices including restorative circles and peer mediation, giving kids tools to talk through their issues instead of acting out in the classroom.
“The ultimate goal is to teach children how to disagree in an agreeable way,” she said, “without fighting or calling names.”
Joe Brummer, former associate executive director of Community Mediation, spent three days the summer of 2014 teaching staff some of the basic principles of restorative practices.
That fall, as she began as principal of the preK‑8 school, she instituted mandatory 15-minute morning meetings before the normal 9:20 a.m. arrival time, to allow students time to work on conflict resolution and communication skills. “People assume children and adults have the skills to mediate innately,” she said. In reality, there are “discrete lessons that have to be taught,” including the ability to identify specific feelings and their sources.
Students have the chance to bring up any disagreements and learn some of those strategies during the morning meetings. “It’s been a struggle because there are not enough hours in the day,” DeBlasio said.
DeBlasio said restorative justice is succeeding at Brennan-Rogers because teachers jumped on board early in the process. “Without that, nothing’s going to happen,” she said. Staff realized that students’ and teachers’ lack of communication skills was a “blockage” to learning and “getting in the way of culture and climate in the classroom,” she said.
With Brummer’s support, school staff started training a cohort of peer mediators to resolve conflicts taking place during school. Between 20 and 30 students were accepted as peer mediators this year, going through a three-day training with parental permission. Two or three mediators, often older students, help two younger students come up with agreements to settle disputes.
Friendship Contract
Charles and Moye.
In the Relax Room with Mariah and Tiana, Moye and Charles began the script — introducing themselves, letting the girls know that the mediation was voluntary, reassuring them they wouldn’t talk to other students about what happened in the session. “We’re not going to pick sides,” Charles said.
They asked Mariah and Tiana to individually describe their most recent fight. In the classroom after recess, Mariah was hanging up her coat and Tiana stepped on it, Mariah said. “I said, ‘Why did you step on my coat?’”
Tiana remembered the incident similarly. “I forgot the part before I stepped on the coat. After, she yelled at me. And she said, ‘Why did you step on my coat?’” Tiana said. Hearing Mariah yelling, Tiana’s cousin and friend joined the fray and began yelling at Mariah to stop yelling at Tiana. Two other girls were involved in the altercation — both of whom had been mediated before, Moye said.
The next step in mediation: asking open-ended questions to clarify the situation. Then, write down all of the problems relevant to the incident and brainstorm an agreement to resolve them.
“Before you stepped on her coat, were you her friend?” Charles said.
No, Mariah responded.
“How did you feel when she stepped on your coat?” Charles said.
“I felt mad,” Mariah said.
How did you feel when Mariah yelled at you? Charles asked Tiana.
Angry and disappointed, Tiana said.
Both said they felt “awkward” talking about their feelings with so many people in the room. “It’s a little bit scary,” Mariah said.
The conciliation letter.
“What agreement can you guys think of so you don’t get into this situation again?” Charles said.
“Try to be friends?” Mariah said. Tiana agreed.
“If she ever steps on your coat again, what will you do so the situation doesn’t happen again?” he asked Mariah.
“I’ll say, ‘Can you please not step on my coat?’ I’ll say, ‘Can you watch my coat please?’” Mariah responded.
“You’ll be kind to each other,” Charles said. Both girls nodded.
After the half-hour session, the two girls signed an agreement to “try to be friends” instead continuing their strife.
Getting Perspective
Yahciry Zamora, pictured in the middle with fellow mediators Kevin Rodriguez and Jazlin Marco.
Charles and Moye trained last year to be peer mediators, one of between 20 and 30 in the school. Charles said he applied because his two younger brothers always fight and he wanted to learn strategies to make them stop.
The training was “fun,” he said. They played games that taught them to see things from two different perspectives at once, including figuring out optical illusions.
“There are two different sides to the story. It all comes together in the middle,” Moye said, explaining the point of the illusions. She applied to be a mediator because students were always arguing on her school bus. “I used to be the oldest one on the bus. I always had to help them stop arguing,” she said.
Mariah is one of the students on her bus, she said. “I can talk to her about her problems.”
How do they know whether the mediated issue is actually resolved over the long term?
“I have five siblings,” Charles said. “It’s in my genes. I know when the problem is figured out. They don’t even have to be near each other.”
In the past few years, fewer students have serious arguments or fights. Most of the ones who do are older, seventh or eighth graders who are mean to each other.
DeBlasio said the numbers back that up. Students are suspended only when they get into physical altercations. The suspension rate has come down to 4.02 percent so far this year from 16 percent last year.
Eighth-grader Yahciry Zamora said she has seen lots of “drama” among her friends during her time at Brennan-Rogers. She became a mediator because she found herself filling that role unofficially with her peers.
“Sometimes I see myself in the middle of issues…because I care about the people involved,” she said. “Sometimes I want to help everyone but I can’t.”
Kevin Rodriguez, a seventh grader training to be a peer mediator, said he thought it was similar to giving “motherly or fatherly advice” to students.
The average mediation usually takes place between students in grades three and above. “When they’re together, they’re really quiet. I have to push them to get the truth out,” Zamora said.
She said she gets “personal” about her life and the disagreements she has had with others, in order to get students to open up. “Weeks later, they come hug me and ask for peer mediation again,” she said. Or they come up to her and tell her that they’re talking to their former enemy.
Being a mediator is just like “being a real friend,” she said.
Hooray for Brennan Rogers! We had Joe Brummer's program (then called non-violent communication) for a few years at ESUMS, and when we lost it, we really felt a difference, particularly in the middle school. Now restorative justice is back, and my middle schooler says the climate is already improved. It makes more work for the adults, but it's an investment of time that really pays off for the kids for many years.