Restorative Practices

The Racine Community Coalition for Public Education is focused on concerns about the Racine Unified School District's student discipline system.  For many years, community concerns have been expressed about the high rates of suspensions of students in general and of students of color in particular. The Coalition is working to assist the school district in transitioning from a traditional student discipline system to use of restorative justice practices. 

The traditional discipline system is based on punishment and exclusion from classes (for example, suspensions from school). In RUSD, high suspension rates negatively impact students from kindergarten through the high school years. Parents report that the suspensions do nothing to address the root causes of poor behavior and threats to safety.

Restorative practices differ from typical punishment discipline procedures by holding offenders responsible for their behavior, repairing any harm they’ve caused, and working toward positive outcomes. School districts that employ system wide restorative practices typically see a reduction in overall suspension rates and reduced rates of suspensions of students of color.

Also, school based restorative practices promote students’ life skills at managing conflicts and increasing opportunities for academic success.  In restorative practices, the offender, victim, and school all have direct roles in the justice process. Fortunately, several RUSD schools have begun looking at restorative practices as a more helpful way to address poor student behavior.

The Coalition is  interested in assuring that effective restorative practices are in place in RUSD because such practices are essential for students to access and succeed in high quality learning environments. Districts such as the Madison Metropolitan School District, Los Angeles Unified School District, and Pittsburgh Public Schools are implementing models that significantly reduce the negative consequences of out-of-school suspensions by consistently and comprehensively implementing restorative justice practices. We believe RUSD and the community can learn from these models and create a district-wide culture of restorative justice practice that would have similar positive outcomes.

Public Tax Dollars for Public Schools

The Racine Community Coalition for Public Education works to educate the community on the need for public tax dollars to be used to fund public schools. This work emphasizes the harmful effects of private school vouchers on public education.

The Coalition believes that because most students who use vouchers were already attending private schools, vouchers amount to a tax subsidy that benefits existing private school families and a tax bailout for private schools that might otherwise go under. While private and religious schools have every right to exist – and parents have a right to make the choice to send their children there – they should not be propped up at the expense of the general taxpayer. Further, the students sent back to public schools by private voucher schools often experience learning difficulties that persist for years.

Strong communities need strong public schools. The use of public tax dollars to fund public schools is one way to assure this happens.