 Throughout this panel, Fania, Christina, Brenda and Estelle are going to underscore the potential of a restorative approach for building just and inclusive communities within schools and the potential for the restorative processes that are embedded in those schools to educate and further the work of justice and reconciliation in our communities beyond the walls of the schoolhouse and the campus. This past Saturday I had the pleasure of listening to Tony Smith address a gathering at the Black Cultural Center in Cherrybrook. Tony's the co-chair of the Nova Scotia home for color children inquiry and he shared that it took time for many, if not all of the participants of the restorative inquiry to settle into the process to understand it, to trust it. Many were initially fearful of the process. But Tony shared once the participants of the inquiry came to understand the restorative values embedded in the process, they became more comfortable with the idea of a restorative inquiry. And so while it's great obviously that people came around and were able to commit to the restorative inquiry, it would have been even better if that hurdle were not there at all. The notion of a restorative approach to reconciliation to justice in education and learning remains largely misunderstood by many. What is all this restorative stuff you do anyway? A colleague of mine once asked. I'm going to hazard a guess that many of you here get that same question every now and then. Taking a restorative approach in education in our learning communities from our primary schools to post-secondary institutions has the potential to dissolve that hurdle that Tony described last Saturday. After all, schools transmit values all the time, for better or for worse. And transmit those values to our learners. Why not transmit restorative values to the learners in our schools? Let me give you an example, a safe concrete example of a transmission of values. It's an easy example, everyone gets it. Recycling. Today's school-aged children know in what waste stream to place the plastic container with the number two stamps on the bottom. Raise your hand if you know which waste stream number two goes in, anybody? Yeah, that's what I thought. Our children are going to know that when they're adults as well. We've taught them that in school, but not as part of a discrete recycling lesson plan or a discrete recycling training session. But because it's part of their day-to-day, it just wouldn't occur to them to put the container in the wrong waste stream or not to recycle it. That's just not how it's done. And they'll demand that the older people in their lives do the same thing. Trust me, it's true. Try sneaking an empty sour cream container into the garbage in a house where a 12-year-old lives. So if we can pay attention to environmental issues in our learning communities and shift expectations and practices accordingly, we can also pay attention to the ways in which relationships are structured in our learning communities and shift expectations and practices accordingly. Her sort of approach changes the culture in learning communities. And as you know, a change in culture reflects a change in values. And those values are carried by our learners into our communities that surround our schools. And when those same learners become policymakers or when they encounter or rub up against the systems that impact their lives, they will both seek and demand the values that are reflected in the systems, the values that they carry. They will seek and demand that they're reflected in those very same systems that are meant to support them, including practices and policies around reconciliation and justice. It will become the way we do business in our communities. Individual behavior then is not a goal with a target of restorative approach. And as you're going to hear shortly from our panelists, the potential to restorative approach in learning communities and schools on university campuses does realize when it is not used at a set of tools for responding to and discipline only. But as a way of developing people's notions, expectations and capacities for citizenship, when it's used as a way of exploring on the day to day what it means to belong. So this panel is going to invite you to consider the broader potential for restorative approach in learning communities to bring about fundamental change in our communities. Starting with Fania, who's going to share her thoughts and her work in schools with restorative justice and how restorative justice can bring about social change and move us toward racial equity. But she'll remind us that we need to be thoughtful and keep our eye on the prize, racial equity, because it's easy to reduce suspensions without getting at or reducing racial inequity. Christine is going to discuss a restorative approach to curriculum and pedagogy and how when developed through relational lens, curriculum can better realize the potential of a restorative approach to support and develop citizenship and democratic values in our learning communities. Brenda will reflect on the role that post-secondary educational communities play in creating systemic change. And we'll wrap up with the staff. We'll touch on restorative leadership, building community, the impact of a restorative approach on students and how restorative learning communities can become central to community well-being. And now I invite Fania to come up.