Restorative justice in schools replaces traditional punishment with structured conversations that focus on repairing harm, rebuilding trust, and keeping students connected to their school community. In practice, this takes forms ranging from daily community-building circles in a second-grade classroom to formal conferences between a student who caused harm, the person affected, and a trained facilitator. Oakland, California’s district-wide program offers one of the best-documented examples, with suspension rates dropping by roughly a third over several years. But the evidence on what these programs accomplish, and where they fall short, is more layered than any single success story suggests.
What Restorative Practices Actually Look Like in a School
If you walked into a school running restorative practices, you would most likely encounter a circle. Students and a facilitator sit in a circle, often passing a “talking piece” that gives whoever holds it the floor. These circles come in several flavors. Proactive circles happen before any conflict occurs and aim to build relationships and trust. Responsive circles address a specific incident of harm. Restorative conferences are more formal and bring together the person who caused harm, the person affected, and supporters from each side. Instructional circles weave academic content into the circle format. One case study of a school implementing these practices documented 36 circles over the observation period, with proactive circles making up the majority and circle sizes ranging from 4 to 33 students, averaging about 7 per session.1Teaching and Teacher Education. Restorative practices: The application of restorative circles in a case study school
The emphasis on proactive circles is worth noting. Schools that lean heavily toward restorative justice tend to spend more time on community-building than on responding to conflict after the fact. The idea is that students who already feel connected to their classmates and teachers are less likely to act out, and when they do, the existing relationships provide a foundation for repair. Responsive circles, where a specific harm is discussed, happen less frequently but carry higher stakes for the individuals involved.
Oakland’s District-Wide Program
Oakland Unified School District in California has run one of the most visible and longest-standing restorative justice programs in the country. In schools with a dedicated restorative justice coordinator, student suspensions dropped by roughly 20 percentage points within three years. District-wide, the share of students receiving a suspension fell from about 4.2% in 2015-2016 to about 2.9% by 2019-2020, a decline of nearly 31%.2Economic Mobility Catalog. School-based restorative justice: Oakland, CA
The scale of student participation gives a sense of how embedded these practices became. In a single school year, over 6,000 students participated in conflict or harm circles, another 3,000 in community-building circles, and 3,000 more in one-on-one conflict mediations. Teacher buy-in was also high: about 88% of teachers in the district reported that restorative practices were somewhat or very helpful in managing difficult student behavior, and over 60% of staff believed the practices had helped reduce suspensions at their school.3Economic Mobility Catalog. School-based restorative justice: Oakland, CA
Oakland’s numbers are frequently cited as a proof of concept, and they are genuinely impressive. But the district had the advantage of sustained investment, including dedicated coordinators at individual schools, multi-year rollouts, and strong administrative backing. Not every district replicates those conditions, which is part of why the broader research picture is more complicated.
What Rigorous Research Shows About Suspensions
The best test of whether restorative practices actually reduce suspensions comes from randomized controlled trials, where some schools are assigned to implement the program and others serve as a comparison group. One such trial, a cluster randomized study of a whole-school restorative practices initiative, found that after one year of implementation there was no overall difference in the likelihood of suspension between students in intervention schools and control schools.4PubMed Central. The Impact of Restorative Practices on the Use of Out-of-School Suspensions: Results from a Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial That headline finding sounds discouraging, but a closer look reveals a meaningful effect for the students who arguably need it most: among students who had previously been suspended, those in intervention schools were less likely to receive an out-of-school suspension than their counterparts in control schools.5PubMed Central. The Impact of Restorative Practices on the Use of Out-of-School Suspensions: Results from a Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial
Broader analyses that pool data across many schools tend to be more optimistic. A large-scale study found that exposure to restorative practices improved students’ academic achievement and reduced both suspension rates and disparities in who gets suspended. Schools that increased their use of restorative practices also saw decreases in schoolwide misbehavior, substance abuse, and student mental health challenges.6Learning Policy Institute. Fostering Belonging, Transforming Schools: The Impact of Restorative Practices The contrast between a single year of a randomized trial and longer-term observational data suggests that these programs may need sustained, high-quality implementation before their effects fully materialize.
The Persistent Racial Discipline Gap
One of the strongest arguments in favor of restorative justice in schools is its potential to address racial disparities in discipline. Black students are suspended at far higher rates than White students nationwide, and restorative justice is often promoted specifically as a tool to narrow that gap. The reality, though, is more sobering than the pitch.
A study of a large urban school district that adopted restorative justice district-wide found that racial disproportionality in suspensions persisted and, in some cases, actually widened after implementation. Black and Latinx students continued to receive exclusionary discipline at disproportionately higher rates compared to their White peers.7PubMed Central. Restorative for All? Racial Disproportionality and School Discipline Under Restorative Justice The researchers’ conclusion was blunt: standard implementation of restorative justice alone may not be enough to eliminate longstanding racial disparities in school discipline.8PubMed Central. Restorative for All? Racial Disproportionality and School Discipline Under Restorative Justice
This finding does not mean restorative justice is useless for equity. It means that the same biases that led to disproportionate suspensions under zero-tolerance policies can carry over into restorative frameworks if the underlying school culture, staff training, and referral patterns remain unchanged. A restorative circle can be offered more readily to some students and withheld from others. The randomized trial mentioned above also checked whether the intervention’s effects varied by race, gender, or disability status, and found no differential benefit or harm across those groups after one year.9PubMed Central. The Impact of Restorative Practices on the Use of Out-of-School Suspensions: Results from a Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial So the program was not making disparities worse in that study, but it was not closing them either. Closing racial gaps requires intentional anti-bias work layered on top of the restorative framework, not just the framework itself.
Does School Climate Actually Improve?
Beyond discipline numbers, advocates argue that restorative practices should make a school feel different: safer, more supportive, more connected. A systematic literature review found significant positive changes in school climate and safety across 17 studies of schools using restorative approaches. Teachers and students in these schools reported perceptions of a more equitable, inclusive, and supportive environment.10PubMed Central. Use of Restorative Justice and Restorative Practices at School: A Systematic Literature Review
The picture gets murkier when you look at the most rigorous studies. A randomized trial of a whole-school initiative found that after one year, students in intervention schools did not report more positive perceptions of school climate compared to students in control schools. However, when researchers looked across all 18 schools in the study, students who personally participated in restorative practices did report more positive views of the school climate, regardless of which group their school was assigned to.11AERA Open. Adolescent Exposure to Restorative Practices and Their Perceptions of Support, Structure, and Bullying in the School Climate That distinction matters. It suggests that students who directly experience the practices feel more connected, but the overall atmosphere of the building may not shift until the practices reach a critical mass of the student body and operate consistently over multiple years.
The researchers behind that study concluded that initiatives need to focus on fidelity of implementation and consistent delivery across several years before expecting broad climate gains.12AERA Open. Adolescent Exposure to Restorative Practices and Their Perceptions of Support, Structure, and Bullying in the School Climate This is a recurring theme in the research: restorative practices are not a quick fix. The programs that show the most compelling results are the ones with sustained institutional commitment.
Peer Mediation Programs
One of the more interesting applications of restorative principles is peer mediation, where students themselves are trained to facilitate conflict resolution between their classmates. In these programs, a cohort of students at a school learns how to mediate disputes and help peers work toward solutions that both sides can accept.13Journal of Educational Change. Building restorative school cultures: Insights from peer mediation programs in elementary and middle schools
Peer mediation programs operate in both elementary and middle schools, and they serve a different function than adult-led restorative circles. When a student mediator sits between two classmates who had a hallway conflict, the dynamic shifts. Students often speak more openly to a peer than they would to an adult, and the mediators themselves develop leadership and conflict resolution skills that carry beyond the mediation room. These programs also distribute the workload: in a school where one or two staff members run all restorative processes, burnout is a real risk, and trained student mediators can handle lower-level conflicts without requiring adult involvement.
The appeal for younger students is worth flagging separately. Elementary-age children are still developing their ability to understand another person’s perspective. Participating in structured mediation, either as a mediator or as someone in a dispute, gives them practice at articulating feelings and listening in a way that unstructured recess or classroom time does not.
What Teachers Say About the Experience
Teacher buy-in can make or break a restorative justice program, and the research on teacher experience is decidedly mixed. Studies of teachers working with early adolescents found that the school setting heavily influenced how well restorative practices worked and how teachers felt about implementing them. Teachers in urban, high-intensity environments faced additional challenges, and when institutional support was lacking, the result was burnout, resistance, and a loss of motivation to keep facilitating the practices.14International Journal of Educational Research Open. Exploring restorative practices: Teachers’ experiences with early adolescents
This is an underappreciated problem. Restorative justice asks more of teachers than traditional discipline does. Sending a student to the office takes a few minutes. Running a responsive circle, following up with the students involved, and documenting the process can take substantially longer. Early-career teachers, who are still developing classroom management skills, may find the additional demands overwhelming, especially without adequate training or administrative support. The research is clear that if schools adopt the language of restorative justice without providing the time, training, and structural support to back it up, the burden falls on teachers and the approach stalls.15International Journal of Educational Research Open. Exploring restorative practices: Teachers’ experiences with early adolescents
How Much It Costs
Money matters in education, and one reason restorative practices have attracted interest is that they are relatively affordable compared to other behavioral interventions. A cost analysis using a societal perspective estimated that the first full year of implementation costs about $57,450 per school, or roughly $139 per student. That figure includes training costs from the prior year and represents the added expense on top of whatever behavioral support the school was already providing.16Journal of School Psychology. Restorative Practices: Using local evidence on costs and student outcomes to inform school district decisions about behavioral interventions
For context, that puts restorative practices on the lower end of behavioral intervention costs. But the researchers behind the cost analysis included an important caveat: at that investment level, the program may need to run for several years with high fidelity before it produces the improvements in behavior and school climate that justify the spending.17Journal of School Psychology. Restorative Practices: Using local evidence on costs and student outcomes to inform school district decisions about behavioral interventions For budget-strapped districts that need to show results quickly, that timeline can be a tough sell. The most meaningful cost is arguably not the dollar figure but the staff time required for training, facilitation, and follow-up, which is harder to quantify and easier to underestimate.
How Students Experience Restorative Circles
Research on how students feel about the process is still emerging, but the available data is encouraging. One study collected data from participants in 576 restorative circles across five middle and high schools in West Michigan, involving 965 unique students. Researchers measured satisfaction, perceptions of fairness and accountability, the types of incidents addressed, and the roles participants played in the circle process.18Criminal Justice Review. Student Satisfaction Within School-Based Restorative Circles: A Multilevel Approach The scale of data collection across multiple schools and hundreds of circles represents a serious effort to understand the participant experience rather than relying solely on suspension statistics as a proxy for success.
Satisfaction matters for a reason beyond warm feelings. If students walk away from a restorative circle feeling that the process was unfair or performative, they are unlikely to engage genuinely the next time. Perceptions of fairness also influence whether harm-doers follow through on agreements made during the circle and whether the person who was harmed feels any actual sense of resolution. Schools that track only suspension counts miss these dynamics entirely.
Restorative Justice as a Trauma-Informed Approach
Most of the conversation about restorative justice in schools focuses on discipline reform and equity, but there is a growing body of work positioning it as a mental health intervention, specifically for students who have experienced trauma. The logic is straightforward: students who act out aggressively or disruptively have frequently been victims of past trauma themselves. Traditional punishment removes them from the community, which can deepen isolation and reinforce the patterns driving the behavior. Restorative processes, by contrast, allow those students to maintain social connection within their school community, regain a sense of voice and control, and process the harm they caused in a setting that does not strip them of dignity.19Children & Schools. Trauma-Informed Restorative Justice Practices in Schools: An Opportunity for School Social Workers
This framing has practical implications for who facilitates restorative processes. When circles are treated purely as a discipline alternative, the facilitator’s job is relatively bounded: guide the conversation, help the parties reach an agreement, close the circle. When the process is understood as trauma-informed, the facilitator needs skills in recognizing trauma responses, managing emotional escalation, and knowing when a student needs more support than a circle can provide. School social workers are well positioned for this role, but many schools do not have a full-time social worker on staff. The gap between the trauma-informed ideal and the staffing reality at most schools is wide, and it helps explain why some implementations feel hollow to the students they are supposed to serve.