Restorative Discipline as System Design: Making Repair the Default in Student Services

Written and edited by Andre Wicks, Founder & CEO | Everyday Principal.

On a Tuesday in October, two seventh graders arrive at the assistant principal’s office after a hallway shove becomes a shouting match. The traditional playbook is efficient: confirm the facts, assign consequences, call home, and move on to the next crisis. Efficient, however, is not the same as effective. Decades of research show that exclusionary discipline—suspensions, expulsions, even repeated removals—weakens students’ connection to school, widens disparities for students of color, and rarely improves behavior in the long run (Losen & Martinez, 2020; Gregory et al., 2016). The alternative is not leniency; it is restorative, and it is a system.

Why restorative discipline, and why now?

The argument for restorative practice begins with outcomes. When students feel known, respected, and able to make amends, they are more likely to re-engage academically and less likely to repeat harm (Gregory et al., 2016; Morrison & Vaandering, 2012). Districts that have implemented restorative approaches alongside tiered supports report reductions in suspensions and improved climate, with particularly promising effects in elementary grades and for Black students (Augustine et al., 2018). At the same time, the evidence cautions against superficial rollouts: when restorative work is treated like a program instead of a culture, academic effects can be uneven and staff trust erodes (Augustine et al., 2018). In other words, results are a function of design. Leaders raise the ceiling on student outcomes not by adding one more initiative but by building the conditions in which repair becomes the default response to harm.

What restorative practice is—and what it isn’t

Restorative practice is often reduced to a tool (“let’s run a circle”). Tools matter, but they are only as strong as the system in which they live. Properly understood, restorative discipline is a relational accountability framework: individuals take responsibility for harm, the community helps determine what repair looks like, and the student is reintegrated with both dignity and clear expectations. This is not “soft” on behavior. It is precise about the behaviors we want to stop, the skills we intend to teach, and the agreements we expect students to keep (Evans & Lester, 2013).

The shift is from rule-breaking → punishment to harm → repair → reintegration, with each step explicitly taught and rehearsed.

Two implications follow. First, restorative work must live in the same house as MTSS/PBIS, not in a portable behind the building. The tiered system provides clarity about when a classroom-level response is sufficient and when a more formal conference with family and staff is warranted. Second, restorative practice is a K–12 continuum. The language, scaffolds, and pacing look different in a kindergarten room than in a senior hallway, but the underlying logic—voice, accountability, and repair—must be coherent across the system (Bear, Mantz, & Minke, 2019; CASEL, 2020).

How leaders make restoration operational

Implementation begins where culture is built: in daily routines. Leaders who sustain restorative practice do three things exceptionally well.

They script the adult response. In moments of conflict, adults fall back on the sentences they have rehearsed. Schools that thrive write those sentences down. Instead of a lecture (“Why would you do that?”), staff move through a short sequence of restorative questions that focus on impact (“Who was affected? What needs to happen to make it right?”) and signal that repair is expected and supported (Gregory et al., 2016). Consistency in language prevents equity-eroding variability from classroom to classroom.

They codify the route back. Reintegration is not a hallway handshake; it is a designed experience. The student returns through a brief, dignifying meeting that names what happened, clarifies what has been repaired, and previews what support will help the student re-enter the learning community successfully. A written agreement is not a contract to be policed; it is a learning plan with specific actions and time-bound check-ins.

They measure the right things. If the only metric is the number of suspensions, staff will find ways to avoid writing them—without changing the student experience. Balanced scorecards include short-cycle climate indicators (student sense of belonging, teacher-student trust), process measures (agreements completed, time to reintegration), and equity checks (disproportionality by race, disability, language status). The point is not to admire data but to course-correct practice quickly (Augustine et al., 2018; Losen & Martinez, 2020).

Cross-level practice that actually changes behavior

The universal move in any grade is to teach the skills students need in order to do better next time—self-management, perspective-taking, and collaborative problem-solving—rather than assuming they already possess them (CASEL, 2020). What differs by level is the packaging.

Elementary school: restoration as routine

Young children thrive on ritual. The most effective elementary teams embed restoration into the day rather than saving it for crises. Morning meetings are not “circle time” add-ons; they are laboratories for voice, turn-taking, and empathy. When harm happens—a pushed peer, an unkind comment—the adult leads a short, guided conversation that helps the child link action to impact (“When I grabbed the marker, Ava felt…”) and practice a specific repair (apology with restitution, helping clean up, a do-over with coached language). Visual tools matter here: reflection sheets with icons for “who I hurt,” “how they felt,” and “what I’ll do” help early readers participate meaningfully (Bear et al., 2019). Family partnership is also central. A five-minute evening call that frames the event as a skill-building moment (“We practiced asking for a turn; we’ll check back tomorrow”) signals that school and home are allies.

Consider a first-grade classroom in which two students argue over a block structure. The teacher kneels, names the harm (“The tower was important to Jordan; when you knocked it down, he felt upset”), and coaches a concrete repair: rebuilding together during the next center rotation. The repair is the instruction.

Middle school: identity, voice, and predictable boundaries

Early adolescence intensifies the need for status and belonging. Schools that succeed at restoration in grades 6–8 make voice a feature, not a favor. Trained peer mediators can facilitate low-level disputes (seat changes, group-work friction) in supervised settings, increasing credibility with classmates while reducing adult bottlenecks. Choice architecture matters: students select from multiple, pre-approved ways to repair harm (public apology, service to the affected group, presenting a mini-lesson on digital citizenship after an online conflict). The adult role is to keep the boundaries predictable—clarify non-negotiables such as safety and harassment—and to ensure that the agreement is proportional and time-bound rather than performative.

Because belonging drives behavior, identity-affirming practices pay dividends. Advisory circles that explicitly explore values (“What does respect look like from your seat?”), goals, and community norms reduce the frequency of conflicts and make the restorative process feel less like a verdict and more like a return to shared expectations. As Eccles and Roeser (2011) note, the fit between adolescent needs and school context predicts engagement; restorative systems are one way to improve that fit.

High school: formal processes and leadership pathways

In high school, the stakes and the stories are larger. Conflicts may involve property damage, repeated defiance, or social media escalation; the response must be correspondingly structured. Restorative conferences—planned meetings that include the student, affected peers, family, and relevant staff—provide space for deeper narrative, acknowledgement of impact, and negotiated repair. Agreements at this level often blend restitution with community benefit, such as mentoring a younger student, assisting a teacher to make whole a disrupted class, or contributing to a schoolwide campaign on digital responsibility. Importantly, the finish line is re-entry, not mere completion. A short re-entry plan (teachers to check with, assignments to prioritize, a counselor touchpoint) reduces the academic slide that often accompanies discipline events (González, 2015).

High schools can also leverage student leadership to stabilize culture. Students who complete agreements and demonstrate sustained positive contribution may serve as “restorative ambassadors,” helping to facilitate circles, co-presenting at staff professional learning, and advising administrators on making processes more student-centered. This is not pageantry; it is peer influence put to work for the community.

The tools behind the prose

Because restorative practice is often learned by doing, leaders benefit from codifying a small set of high-leverage routines and rehearsing them until they are automatic.

First, the short conversation. Every adult on campus—teachers, paraprofessionals, office staff, bus drivers—should know and practice a six-to-eight-question script that moves from facts to feelings to repair to next steps. Short, calm, and consistent wins. The script is posted where adults will actually see it: behind the classroom door, inside the substitute folder, in the front office drawer.

Second, the reintegration meeting. The assistant principal’s calendar reserves two daily ten-minute slots dedicated to re-entry. A typical meeting includes a greeting (restoring dignity), a concise description of the harm and its impact, a check on what has already been repaired, a brief look ahead (what support is needed today?), and a handshake agreement about how the student will signal if they are starting to escalate again. The student leaves with a small, concrete task that reconnects them to learning.

Third, the agreement tracker. A simple dashboard—spreadsheets work if used well—tracks agreements by student, incident type, status, and completion date, with a column for “what we learned.” The point of the final column is to operationalize reflection at the adult level: What routines are producing the most repair? Which teachers need more support? Where are we seeing disproportionality, and what will we do about it this month?

Common pitfalls—and how to avoid them

Two mistakes derail restorative work more than any others. The first is treating circles as a replacement for consequences rather than a means of teaching replacement behaviors. When students experience restoration as conversation with no expectation of changed enactment, cynicism grows. The remedy is to define, teach, and rehearse what “make it right” looks like in your context—concretely, publicly, and with feedback. The second mistake is inconsistency. If some adults use restorative language and others default to removal for the same behavior, students learn that outcomes depend on the adult, not the action. That lesson widens equity gaps. Leaders counteract inconsistency through micro-practice: five-minute role-plays at staff meetings, brief “language look-fors” during walkthroughs, and weekly debriefs that surface patterns and calibrate next steps (Gregory et al., 2016).

A third, quieter pitfall is skipping adult repair. Teachers, counselors, and aides experience harm, too. When a student returns from suspension, the reintegration process should include intentional steps to repair the professional relationship, not just the peer relationship. As school climates improve, adult morale and efficacy rise with them (Gregory et al., 2016; Morrison & Vaandering, 2012).

Measuring what matters

To keep the work honest, schools should triangulate discipline events, student and staff experience, and equity. Quantitatively, track office referrals and removals, yes, but also completion of agreements, time to reintegration, and repeat incidents by type. Qualitatively, gather short student and teacher reflections after conferences and re-entries: What helped you return to learning? What would you change about the process? Disaggregate everything. If the data show fewer suspensions overall but persistent disproportionality for Black students or students with disabilities, the system is not yet restorative (Losen & Martinez, 2020). As the RAND evaluation reminds us, implementation quality drives outcomes; monitor the engine, not just the dashboard (Augustine et al., 2018).

A day in the life: restoration at scale

Picture a principal walking the campus at first bell. In a third-grade room, the teacher begins with a brief community check-in; later, a small conflict over supplies becomes a coached repair. Mid-morning, the AP facilitates a ten-minute reintegration with a ninth-grader who missed yesterday’s conference because of family obligations; the plan includes two teacher check-ins and a counseling touchpoint before lunch. At noon, two eighth-graders meet with peer mediators to resolve a social media slight, with a counselor nearby to support as needed. After school, the principal convenes a ninety-minute professional learning session in which staff rehearse restorative language, analyze one month of agreement completion data, and plan how to reduce the average time from incident to reintegration from two days to one. None of this is a program. It is a culture with tools.

The art of restorative practice is in the choreography: the way adults use language that honors dignity while naming harm, the way plans blend accountability with support, the way leaders keep their eyes on both the student in front of them and the patterns in the data. The science is in the design: explicit routines, clear boundaries, predictable processes, and a system that learns.

When repair becomes the default and reintegration is swift and supported, principals do more than resolve incidents; they grow the adults who grow the students. That is the real multiplier effect: a system in which every restorative moment teaches a better next time—for the student, for the staff member, and for the school.

Key Takeaways for Quick Reference)

• Restorative practice is relational accountability: harm → repair → reintegration, embedded within MTSS/PBIS.

• Implementation quality—not slogans—drives results; script language, codify reintegration, and measure processes and equity.

• Elementary succeeds through ritualized teaching of repair; middle school through voice and predictable boundaries; high school through formal conferences, re-entry plans, and student leadership.

• Balance quantitative and qualitative data, and disaggregate to monitor disproportionality; adjust practice, not just policy.

• Restoration is a culture with tools, not a program—designed, rehearsed, and sustained by leaders.

References

Augustine, C. H., Engberg, J., Grimm, G. E., Lee, E., Metz, R. A., & Wang, E. L. (2018). Can restorative practices improve school climate and curb suspensions? RAND Corporation. https://doi.org/10.7249/RR2840

Bear, G. G., Mantz, L. S., & Minke, K. M. (2019). Positive interventions for student behavior: Evidence-based practice. Guilford Press.

CASEL. (2020). What is SEL? Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning. https://casel.org/what-is-sel/

Eccles, J. S., & Roeser, R. W. (2011). Schools as developmental contexts during adolescence. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 21(1), 225–241. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1532-7795.2010.00725.x

Evans, K. R., & Lester, J. N. (2013). Restorative justice in education: What we know so far. Middle School Journal, 44(5), 57–63. https://doi.org/10.1080/00940771.2013.11461873

González, T. (2015). Socializing schools: Addressing racial disparities in discipline through restorative justice. Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, 50(1), 219–240.

Gregory, A., Clawson, K., Davis, A., & Gerewitz, J. (2016). The promise of restorative practices to transform teacher–student relationships and achieve equity in school discipline. Journal of Educational and Psychological Consultation, 26(4), 325–353. https://doi.org/10.1080/10474412.2014.929950

Losen, D. J., & Martinez, T. E. (2020). Lost opportunities: How disparities in school discipline affect students of color. The Civil Rights Project, UCLA.

Morrison, B., & Vaandering, D. (2012). Restorative justice: Pedagogy, praxis, and discipline. Journal of School Violence, 11(2), 138–155. https://doi.org/10.1080/15388220.2011.653322