How Portland Schools Dropped the Ball on Effective Racial Justice Practices

Thursday, July 09, 2015

Rebecca Randall, GoLocalPDX Contributor

For the 2014-2015 school year, the Rigler Elementary School community found themselves in limbo. After piloting successful restorative justice practices that effectively lowered disparity in suspension rates between black and white students, the district failed to support it, sending the school spiraling right back to where it was—at least in the eyes of the community.

When Kristie Lindholm first started as principal in 2007, Rigler Elementary School had a discipline problem that was a matter of racial justice. At the diverse, high-poverty neighborhood and English-Spanish dual immersion school in Northeast Portland, black students were being suspended at a rate of 6 to 1 white students. For Latino students, the ratio was between 2 and 3 to 1 white student, she said.

In 2010, the school received a grant from the Northwest Health Foundation to add a program meant to address the racial disparity. Restorative justice, embraced by many in the community, was no easy feat. But it worked.

The practice focuses on understanding what harms have been done and how to repair them rather using suspension.

“By the time the grant was done, we’d gotten (the ratio) to about 1 to 1,” said Lindholm.

But when it came down to getting district funding to continue providing the same level of service, the money wasn’t there. Lolenzo Poe, the chief equity officer at Portland Public Schools, said the staffing for restorative justice wasn’t done through his office. “When it is a school site position, (those decisions) are made by the building,” he said. “They determine what and how they use those positions.”

That doesn’t change the fact that those in Rigler’s community feel that the burden of supporting the program should be on the district.

“I talked to (a district administrator) and said, ‘How are we going to support Rigler?’ She said, ‘Well, we’ve been supporting them for three years. They should be ready to fly on their own,’” said Tobin Krell, who held the restorative justice specialist position at Rigler.

Lindholm explained that after the grant ended, she was able to find funding for one more year, but in what would have been the fifth year—2014-2015—she just couldn’t keep it going. “The district should fund schools based on their need rather than a particular formula,” she said.

Lindholm speculated that the reason she was moved to a new school was because she was too noisy about the issue, though she said she was also very stressed out. “The seven hardest years of my life blew up. It was hard to watch because I felt like we’d made so much progress, and really we were on the right track. And then it just wasn’t supported,” said Lindholm. “What is our commitment to restorative justice and equity work if we’re not willing to pay for it?”

Ironically, Rigler’s year without restorative justice was also the first year that the district prioritized reducing inequality in discipline as a top goal. The district’s goal is to cut discipline by suspension in half and close the gap between students of color and white by half, ensuring that students don’t miss out on instruction.

So why neglect to fund a program that was on track to achieve that goal?

Well, it’s complicated.

“We lost Kristie, Tobin and a large group of teachers all in one year, so the institutional memory for restorative justice went with it, too,” said Jesse Chapman, president of the Parent Teacher Association at Rigler.

The next principal Sara Gandarilla eventually left mid-year taking a medical leave after teachers complained to the district. Gandarilla asked the district for funding for the restorative justice position several times but was turned down. "I tried really hard to continue the program because I completely believe in restorative justice," she said.

Poe acknowledged that unfortunately the program at Rigler “slipped,” but that this fall the district had included funding to support restorative justice at Rigler and schools district-wide.

The suspension problem at Rigler is not a singular case, after all. Across the district, students of color are far more likely to experience expulsion than white students. In 2013-2014 African American students were about 4.6 times as likely to be suspended than a white student; 10.5 percent of African American students were expelled at least once. Meanwhile, 7.4 percent of Native Americans, 4.4 percent of Pacific Islanders, 3.9 percent of Hispanics, 3.8 of percent mixed race, 2.3 percent of whites and 1 percent of Asians were expelled.

In the last few years, the number of students being suspended has decreased district-wide, but the disparity in expulsion for students of color remains. Lindholm wondered why the Rigler success hasn’t been given more credit, since it did reduce the disparity.

Yet, Poe said the district will look at incorporating restorative justice with other behavior practices rather than use the same model that Rigler had. Instead, there will be a restorative justice coordinator at the central office who will do training throughout the district. Whether individual schools choose to pursue specialist positions is up to them. However, this is the widest roll-out of restorative justice in Portland schools.

But the district may still have skeptics.

“They want to keep pushing it as a program, but they don’t want to own it; they don’t want to internalize it,” said Krell.

Lindholm said the district has been supportive and willing to give the program lip service but seems to be looking for a “quick fix.”

While Rigler’s story proves that success is attainable given time and hard work, it also illustrates that lasting gains take continued investment.

To make restorative justice work, Lindholm had to get teachers to buy into the practice. “I think when I had gotten there originally, there were teachers that just weren’t dealing with it. Kids of color were sent out of class for ELL, special ed…” she said.

She presented the vision she had to staff and told them that if they didn’t want to “get on the bus” that she’d help them find new assignments. She lost about 20 teachers. Those that stayed grew weary. “As kids came in and we had all of these restorative practices and ideas, it didn’t necessarily change overnight, so teachers still had kids come in with all these crazy behaviors,” said Lindholm. “(Teachers) didn’t know how we were going to get there. They didn’t know how we were going to bridge this gap.”

But it didn’t stop there; the program needed to engage parents, as well as kids, trying to build a new kind of community.

Chapman was accustomed to school being about learning how to read and do math, “‘but if you don’t know how to behave in a group situation then get out of my classroom,’” he characterized the attitude of teachers. “At Rigler… if you don’t know how to behave, ‘we’ll teach you.’”

Laura Peraza, speaking in Spanish through a translator, said the program is not just for the kids, but for the parents, who fight amongst each other as well: “I really think it’s important that there be someone to be there to help us with the disciple not just for the kids but for the parents as well.”

In fact, some meetings were just for parents to “hash it all out,” said Madonna Miller, who has had two children at Rigler for five years. One year, two girls were bullying the whole second grade, she said. Krell arranged a meeting for parents, which was quite tense, but in the end, the bullying lessened and ultimately it brought parents together and helped them feel comfortable to talk about the problem, Miller said. “That’s what restorative justice is to me.”

Miller’s son, who has ADHD, also benefited from the program, which helped keep him in the classroom rather than excluding him due to his behavior. She explained that he wanted to be sent home, but with restorative justice, he wasn’t allowed to get out of class.

Since the program fizzled, the worst part for Jacqueline Hale, whose fifth-grade daughter has been at Rigler since kindergarten, has been the lack of resolution. Last year, her daughter was choked up against a wall by another child, she said, but since the district is still trying to cut down on expulsions, she’s not sure whether the child was punished. Hale said it made her feel like the administration just didn’t care. “That upset me, too, because what if something could have happened to my child?” said Hale.

Last week, the parents, who are feeling abandoned by the school district, gathered to talk in a “healing circle,” just like they learned to do using restorative justice practices.

At the beginning, Krell asked all the participants what word came to mind when they heard the word “education.” Each took a turn.

“Frustration.”

“Anger.”

“Complicated.”

Yet for Krell, the word comes to mind when he thinks of education?

“Hope.”

Maybe there is. “It takes time to change culture. You have to be time sensitive, but not trying to rush a culture change because we want to be sure that it takes,” said Poe, who judges it will take a number of years before the district can see success.

EDITOR’S NOTE: An earlier version of this article reported that Sara Gandarilla refused extra funding from the school district to fund a restorative justice specialist. She asked the district several times for funding and was turned down.

We apologize for this error and have updated the story.

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GoLocalPDX has ranked high schools across the state based on a method developed at Babson College, Mass. See below for the top 100 schools in the Beaver State.

How Portland Schools Dropped the Ball on Effective Racial Justice Practices

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