Usually in schools, people pay attention to those who do well academically, but ignore those who have had a troubled past. However, the Restorative Justice program is a program offered to students who have gone through suspension and are trying to get back on track with school or life in general.
Yvonne Casillas and Julio Martinez are the support staff for the program (located in B21A) but they also consider the Wellness Center and Admin to be a major support for the program as well. This is Casillas’ second year being a part of the staff and Martinez’s first year. “I’ve been working with kids for the last 12 years,” Martinez said. “I have a strong basis on what to do with the youth.”
The program has been going on for 2 years now, and it’s another way to be able to provide an extra source of support to students. “We want to be able to help the students, and also be able to reintegrate those students that are coming back from suspension, or those students who have conflicts,” Casillas said. “However, anyone is welcome to come in and ask for help or talk to us, not just those who are coming back from suspension.”
The program works on a walk in basis, meaning that students don’t have to make an appointment to receive help. All students will be offered the same type of support as the program is designed to help anyone that’s in need of it. “Many students come in due to referrals from Admin and counselors, but we also work with the house system, and the house of teachers with student concerns. We get a lot of referrals from house meetings,” Casillas said. Students have one-on-one meetings in order to get the support they need on whatever it may be. One of the activities they do are Restorative Justice circles, which work by talking out an issue. “We also do Trojan of the month and PBIS in order for students to feel more involved,” Casillas said.
For the most part, many students have not heard about the program. So why isn’t the school providing more exposure? “Last year was like our trial here and the admin wanted to see where we were placed, and show how the referral system was going to work, but it was more than just a trial. We’re aware that it is not promoted as much, but we’re working towards that goal,” Casillas said.
Since the program is not really known, the staff are trying to promote the program more in order to prove that it’s something that’s needed and beneficial in school. “We have been going into AVID classrooms now to promote the program. A lot of juniors and seniors don’t know about the program since we just started this year going into Avid classrooms,” Casillas said. “We’re also going to staff meetings trying to promote and show how our discipline issues have decreased because of this program.” Bringing more awareness to the program is one of the goals being worked on, and is planned to be achieved as soon as possible. “Promoting the program is important to us because we’ll see how much of a need it is, and so far we’ve been seeing positive results,” Martinez said.
