 Hello, my name is Michael Morris, and I'm the superintendent of the Amherst Pellum Regional School District, and welcome to the latest episode of Window Into Arps. I'm thrilled today to be joined by a student leader and a staff member to talk about an exciting program that's really in its infancy but growing very quickly and we're thrilled to have embedded into our regional school system. So, with me is Petru Mukimba, who is a sophomore at Amherst Regional High School. And Avelina Kino, who plays multiple roles for our district but in this particular role is a circle facilitator for the restorative justice program at the high school. So, welcome to both of you. I want to start by saying this is a program that there's a lot of community interest in. There's a lot of community advocacy for that many people in our community want to see a different way than traditional disciplinary routes to support student culture. And I'm just thrilled that I want to thank you both for both of your roles. We've had multiple interactions, including at the school committee this winter, about the work both of you are doing and how it's infused into the high school at the current moment. So, I want to start with a thank you and acknowledgement. But I also want to start with asking you a question if you could tell me a little bit about yourself and how you came to be involved with the restorative justice program at the high school. So, my name is Petru Mukimba and I'm a sophomore at the high schools. And one thing that I love to do at the high schools is play basketball. I played on the varsity basketball team this year. And so that's basically just about myself. And how I got involved in the restorative justice practice was basically last year, DW, one of the teachers at the school who started it started up with Evelyn. They came up to me and said like, do you want to try this out? I'm like, okay, sure. And so I went to the meeting and then I had to fill out this application. And then later that month or the year at the end of the year we met up and then I just started joining it and I've loved it ever since. Thank you. Evelyn, can you share a little bit about yourself? My name is Evelyn Aquino and I'm a long time youth development worker and cultural worker in really bringing about spaces for young people to be held and valued. And partly from my own experience as a young person and having wisdom that I didn't feel like was valued in my youth. And so I've committed a lot of time and energy to young people, valuing where they're coming from and their experiences. And as an adult creating the spaces and holding adults accountable to create space to bring in youth wisdom and value for us as a community. So coming into it I was hired as a coach to support DW in developing the work. I have many, many years of restorative justice whether it's in the juvenile halls or running programs outside for marginalized young people. Really they have been pushed out of the system, have dropped out alternative routes. And just being able to come and support the development of the restorative justice I was not ready to fully commit into a staff position around the time of its inception. But to be able to support DW in developing the work and really just being sort of a board for her to bounce off some of the ideas that she was doing and bring in my wisdom of experience to support the implementation of the work in the school has been quite rewarding DW's very skilled and keen in their approach to this work. And it was a great teamwork and support. And I was behind the scenes for a very long time until we decided to facilitate this class DW applied for a grant through AEF. Thank you AEF for the support. It's really you can feel the impact with it being able to start this class as an Alps. And I came in to support DW around as a scholar. That's the title we use but really around the theory of restorative justice and restorative practices within a school environment. And really with a cultural lens with it and social justice versus just these questions and you kind of go through it but really it being a humanistic approach in how we do circle practice. Yeah. Thank you. I'm just going to do a little translating of acronyms if that's okay with you. AEF is Amherst Education Foundation and to your point deeply appreciative. And some of the work that happened this year wouldn't have been possible without them supporting us to get the ball rolling with that. And Alps is an alternative learning experience at the high school. So as opposed to our traditional course sequence it allows for more experiential and experimental courses to be offered and experiences to be offered to our students. So thank you. I just want to make sure I'm always in touch with that. And so for people who some people watching this may have some experience with restorative justice and some people are hearing that term for the first time. So how does this work differ from other community based work that you've been involved with? And how could you help someone who hasn't heard that term before know what it means? Well in our, we have a room that we meet in every day and in that room we have like posters of words and big like words that represent what restorative justice is all about. And one of the words says, one of the posters says paradigm shift. And I think that really kind of like sums up how it's different from most community based work. Because instead of like trying to work with the system that we already live in, the school system and the criminal justice system that we live in, instead it's like taking a different alternate route that can help people victims and help witnesses of injustice. And really just like, it's not like trying to fit into what is already established with creating a new establishment that will work a lot better than what has already worked and helped a lot more people. Restorative justice kind of just helps people who have been marginalized and oppressed for so long like black people, people of color like Latino people, the LGBTQ community, women and all that in this country that have been oppressed and everything. It helps and even regular like white people and just everyone at like work together to like make a better place. And I would like to add that it's like, it's a Native American process that from a long time ago they were, they I think originally started this work and they, it was like a way of governing themselves and having like restoring the harm that may have been done in the community and trying to rework that to make the world a better place for them. And it was banned for some time. It was banned for some time because of the U.S. government, there's, I don't know, a lot of it, but it was banned for some time. But I think it's back now and it's back in this new way with restorative justice and it's like, I'm really glad that I'm able to be a part of it. I think you'd like to add your perspective. In the context of what's, why it's become so popular, we have to go back a little bit to no child left behind and zero tolerance around crime, in particularly in schools and across the country, many communities were getting and researchers at universities also were really beginning to see this upward mobility, this upward trend around the prisons being full. And where, why was this happening? Where is this coming out of? The dropout rate, the criminalization of young people. It was really off the charts, which we recommend watching 13th because it's part of, it's a documentary on the prison system, but it gives context to why restorative justice was really begun in schools was because studies had come out that if a child was suspended by the fourth grade, prison beds were ready for them. And so it has been said and research shows that decriminalizing learning opportunities for young people really changed the trajectory moving forward. And so across the country a lot of efforts have been put into the criminal justice changing, especially with young people around how we deal with what is crime and who's a criminal and really moving into the human aspect of opportunities for growth and learning. And with that, you know, the levels of implicit bias and how they play out, but also an opportunity to create a mechanism as Petrol says, a paradigm shift. And many, many schools across the country have had incredible success with it. Some of the major players that have really been in the landscape are Oakland, California, and many, many others after that and locally Holyoke High School has done a great job of building up the leadership of the young people and building up the culture of an alternate suspension because of the disproportionate number of young people of color and folks with disabilities of those numbers being off the charts around rules being broken and laws being broken and just an opportunity to be like what is going on and how did we get here and how do we move forward and how do we repair. So in traditional discipline and consequence there's a rule and it was broken and now you can be punished whereas which is retributive and restorative is really there's a harm that was caused, who was impacted and how can we move forward from it. So it's not that there's no consequences, it's just how we're moving forward and dealing with it and really taking a human approach to an opportunity to restore harmony. Yeah and I'll just say I'm certainly not where either of you are with the work but from my perspective it's gotten some training. The thing that also resonates and it resonates with what both of you said is it's trying to look at situations as learning opportunities. The traditional model, there's not a lot of learning that happens in that process and there's not a lot of what's done about the harm that's caused, it sort of stays because consequence doesn't actually work on the harm piece, it works on everything but that. So as an educator I just appreciate too that we're trying to take an educational lens onto something to reform it through a learning mechanism instead of a different way. I love whenever I think about this work I think about how if I was to be in trouble for let's say I got into a fight with another student and then I go to a guidance counselor and then the guidance counselor says okay you're suspended for a couple days and that's basically it. I would feel like well that doesn't address anything that happened and what happens when I come back in school and I see that person again who made me feel some type of way that made me want to hit that person and I think that kind of thinking that goes through my head with that just even like situation. That's why I like how restorative justice works because it doesn't just punish the person that made the so-called bad thing, it also addresses what's going on around that person that may affect why they did what they did and really has them acknowledge what's going on and what's the situation. Thank you. So you know I described your position or part of your position I should say as a circle facilitator so for someone who hasn't been part of a circle before we're not going to do it right now although I think it's always best to show it as you did at school committee back in December that was a really powerful experience for a number of people who had previously been in a circle experience but how would you try to communicate what the goals or how the experience of being in a circle for someone who hasn't been in one. It could be either of you, I didn't mean to look right at you. I'm sorry, it's the experience of somebody who appears. Sure. So we, one of the first like circles that we did was with DW and Evelyn and we did, it was a circle about where we come from and who our people was the question that prompted us so what happens is in the beginning we sit in a circle and like everyone's in the circle no one's like sitting outside or watching everyone's in there and present. In the middle there is a centerpiece which is in our room it's a cloth with certain things on it with the rules like the guidelines for the circle which I'm not completely sure about them but they're kind of like respect who's talking and listen and everyone should be heard and respect the talking piece which is like a piece of an object that someone would bring in and it has some type of meaning to them and so like sharing that story like what that object has meaning for like adds meaning to it and so everyone respects that and when you have the talking piece you're invited to talk and share your story and when you don't have it you're invited to listen and hear what other people are saying and so with that circle each of us would tell the group about our stories and where we came from where our families come from and like it's really powerful because it wasn't just like okay I'm from my family comes from Uganda and they immigrated here it's like you're going really really really deep into it and it was emotional for a lot of people and just watching other people got me emotional sometimes and I think it really brought us together so now when we meet like the day after we were like a really big group together who's supporting each other and know each other a little bit better so we can make the world a better place so yeah Thank you for giving that tangible example I think that's really helpful for people to hear one of the interesting things is the work has continued is even outside the high school I was at a faculty meeting on a completely different topic and they used some of the circle methodologies in a way to ensure that all this was a staff faculty meeting so all staff members would have their voices heard and would have the ability to participate in equal and open met ways and you know I've shared this publicly I mean it was such an interesting experience for me as an observer to the point where it got so intimate even though the conversation was not nearly as deep as what you just described that I actually walked out because I felt like I was if I wasn't a participant you know it wasn't really the right thing to observe because while people weren't sharing personal stories about themselves they were sharing their opinions on a specific topic just a circle the methodology that went along with it I could see how much the individuals were connecting and since I wasn't part of that circle actually I decided I opted to let that work continue without me observing it just didn't feel like the right moment to be there and certainly that's how I've felt in a couple of times I've been in a circle process as a participant is the way that people are communicating with another and connecting with one another feels subsequently different than casual conversations that were in most of our lives and to put into context I mean the wholeness of a circle is that we are all equal there's no points there's no angles we are whole and so sitting in a circle and having the opportunity to be seen as you're speaking and not be able to hide in the shadows or to listen and fully be present there's a power in that and the ability to build that level of trust and I'm glad you brought that up because when I facilitate circles there are no observers allowed and I know you're the superintendent who's invited in because of that reason there's the power of what happens in circle is in circle and the commitment of those in the circle to show up fully and wholly and to be able to connect does provide an opportunity to have a different type of conversation versus sort of moving around or you're sitting in rows and you can't even see who's behind you and being able to be whole together and just going back to your question around just about the circle process and that depth of humanity that comes into it moves beyond sort of just like who we are on the surface and what Petra explained was about proper introduction and as we function in the world there's not often many opportunities to properly introduce ourselves or to be properly introduced and received as we are wholly and for the students it was a huge learning curve because they've never been in a school building and actually connected with one another they go to class they listen to the teacher they might do a group project that's just based on this and then they move but there was a lot of value and being able to connect with the other human that's across the room or maybe has been in my class since my freshman year and I'm a senior and I finally get to know who this person is and they speak for themselves it's not a label it's not you know what someone else says of them but they be able to articulate who they are and you know in many situations that we've been able to share in class they've seen each other either through middle school or high school and there's a lot of assumptions that go and implicit bias that goes on with those people those students but to be able to define and speak from your own voice has been a really powerful that comes with that power and what allows us to be able to restore when that is lost when there's a disconnect in community and being able to come back to that homelessness is really a lot of the power of the circle Thank you So Petra I want to start with you with this one just in terms of what impact do you think the restorative justice work has had on you know either yourself or the participants both in the school but maybe even beyond the school setting I think like the community that I've created with my fellow students in that class and the teachers that are in there that are also like a part of that class they make it they the relationships I have with them especially in that class is like so powerful like I know them on a different level than I would know if I was like sitting in class as Evelyn was saying like I know like it's not like I see them in class and I'm like oh they're in my grade or that I like know them and I know their stories and I know that I can trust them because I shared my stories and there is not that there wasn't any judgment but everyone was open to hearing what I was saying and that I think that adds a different level of like comfort to know that I have that in the school and to know that I have a place where I can be like I can tell say that I'm like not feeling really good today and I don't want to really like learn today I want to play UNO like one time we played UNO because we were all stressed with finals and everything and it was really relaxing but other days we talk heated conversations about like like whether having taking honors classes will help you get to the college or anything and I think like all of like having that kind of relationship with certain people is so amazing and nice and comforting to know that you can have that opportunity and then out of the school when I don't see them I can see if I see problems in my classes or if I see problems with the other people my friends or let's say like one of her cheetahs she has a she's a student in my class she had a conflict with her friend one time and her friends were having conflict with each other and she was stuck in the middle of it and she had this was really early on in the sort of justice class and she already knew that she could be like someone who would listen to both sides try to find like the root of the problem instead of like the nitty-gritty stuff so it really helped bring their relationship together and the cheetah said that her friends noticed that she has was changing already and this was early early in the semester and now we're like in the second semester and I think that many people around us like see the change that we have individually and how we've opened up ourselves because of the circles that we've had because of all of the things that we've learned and I think that's how it's affected me and affected the class and I just I'm glad that I've been able to do that and like one time for my basketball season we have to like we one time some of the to my teammates they said that they wanted to kneel for the national anthem and I'm like okay I'll do that too and then the first time I didn't I didn't really think about why I knelt for the national anthem but then after that I was like okay I understand that I'm doing this to like support like police reform and all of that and then one game there was a the crowd was like saying derogatory terms at us and everything and we lost the game and they're like okay you should have stood for the flag and maybe that's why you would have won and it was really it shook all of us but because we had I had talked to them about why we did this and the day after we talked about with the whole team JV and varsity it like helped us grow together as a community and we need all of us like a lot of us kneeled for the rest of the season and the people that stood were like I stand because like my family fought in the war and they're like we have nothing against that and we are here to support each other and I think that communication is key and I think that was rooted partly in because of my restorative justice work and how I was able to open myself up to that vulnerability with my teammates so that's how it's affected me Those are incredibly evocative stories of thank you for sharing those with us and with the community because I think they really show about the growth that and what you've taken from the restorative practice and restorative justice work and also how you've been able to implement that in other settings which is really what we want to do I mean it's wonderful for students to have this amazing experience but what I heard is that it's affecting you when you're not in circle with Evelyn or with EW that you're able to translate those skills into other settings so thank you and thank you for your leadership on those some really critical issues that you described So how would you like to see either of you could jump in have a sort of justice work growing in the future years in the district what are some ways that you can think about how what you described could be shared by more students and affect the community in even greater ways Yeah, my dream is that all students feel that way they feel powerful in their own power and in their own voice and experience and that the culture of our schools be places where not only students but adults have a notion of harmony and a notion of value of all of us in the building of all of us in the community and the beauty of that of the culture of how we function my children go to Wildwood and they've been, you know, that wasn't they're not jumping on the bandwagon saying this is how we're now doing it they have been doing it for many years and you can feel it in the building you can feel it in the young people that are coming through that school and that's the only one I have experience I haven't really experienced the other two elementary schools and now I'm working at the middle school and as a climate culture coordinator and being able to begin to start to educate the community and be able to start to have opportunities and I can give a perfect example to young people who are friends getting an altercation with each other light, one says something, the other one punches the other one pushes and then that's it and the first reaction for many folks in the building was, oh they should get suspended they got in a big fight and I was like excuse me, along with the principals understanding the value of restorative justice to say, would it be possible for you to sit with them in circle and have an opportunity? I bring them in, I sit down with them their friends, they had a discord and within minutes of my explaining what I do and how I do it and create the space one turns to the other, I want to apologize for the way I made you feel I know that wasn't right and now we're here because of that comment that I made and I'm sorry and parents had been called so the impact of this goes further and the other one says, I'm sorry I punched you I should have thought better of my reaction but within 15 minutes to those young people be able to connect and to acknowledge one another and acknowledge where there was a disconnect and then move on their merry way as friends is really the power of what I would love to continue to see in our schools discord happens, disconnect happens sometimes in very ugly ways whether it's between adults with them, between students how do we find a place to say that happened and acknowledge what was that and also start to learn about what needs are not being met in our environments particularly in our schools and with our students so really I would love to see a culture shift in our whole district moving toward that with the value given that when you're at your best and I'm at my best we can do great things and I think that Amherst has a lot of wonderful things happening but as a community we really can grow into that value of each individual that's in our system thank you I think that it also makes me think about you know whether the sum is greater than the individual part that whole piece that we do have so many strengths in our community and yet we have so much work to do but if we don't do it together the work's not going to get done so I really appreciate the lens that both of you shared anything else final comments before we close the show that you'd like to share about your experiences I think some of the next steps that our class is taking and soon going to take is like we're going to try to like set ourselves up to do the circle process in the middle school and work because Evelyn's in the middle school so it would work a lot easier and to get because the middle school the harm that happens in the middle school carries over into the high school so working in the middle school and working with like circles community building circles mainly just like having classes come in and like talk to each other for a while and even if we get to that like conflict circles where like watch how she gave an example with the two kids that had an altercation like bringing that circles there we're planning on having our student leaders do that forward to that and then I think one of the things that could happen in the future is like advisory in our school we have advisory like once a month every like for every year that I've been here and advisory seems to be a time where you like like get a lot of things put into your brain and it just go and then there's no connection I think advisory is one of you stay with your advisory for the four years that you're there so I think implementing a circle process into advisory would be really helpful to make it more meaningful because a lot of students they want it to be meaningful but they don't know what's going on and why it's not working because it's just like a game plan and you have to go go and then maybe you watch a movie at the end and so I think implementing circle process into advisory would be really great and would be able to get the whole school doing it not just like a select like ten people that are in my class that are into the whole school doing it and the teachers as well fantastic I think unfortunately we're out of time I know we could keep talking about this and I continue to learn which would be wonderful but I really want to thank both of you for coming on the show today and sharing the great work that's happening at the high school with our larger community so thank you I want to thank you the viewer too for coming and learning more about the Amherst Pellum Regional School District we'll be back soon with the next episode and hope you have a wonderful day