FALL 2017

Achieving Excellence Through Meaningful Relationships

CARE: CollEgiAtE ACAdEmiEs REstoRAtivE EduCAtion

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CARE PROGRAM WHITE PAPER

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INTRODUCTION

Collegiate Academies (Collegiate) is a network of four open-enrollment public char-ter high schools in Louisiana: three are located in New Orleans and one is located in Baton Rouge. We serve more than 1,800 students across all our schools. By 2019, Collegiate will operate a total of six schools, with four in New Orleans and two in Baton Rouge, and will serve more than 3,500 students.

At Collegiate, our mission is to build world-class public schools that prepare all stu-dents for college success and lives of unlimited opportunity. To accomplish this, we must connect with and know each student personally, developing deep and lasting relationships that enable us to learn together and accelerate academic growth. Students must feel respected and feel safe enough to make mistakes, learn from them, and move forward. Teachers, staff, and leadership must be vulnerable and real with our students so that they feel comfortable coming to us with challenges that we can help them overcome. The Collegiate Academies Restorative Education (CARE) program provides a framework based on restorative approaches that helps our schools become places where students are deeply cared for and where we are making progress toward achieving the mission we promise each and every day.

In 2013-2014, Collegiate school leaders recognized the need to take a new ap-proach to the disciplinary policies in their schools. As a result, they developed CARE, an innovative disciplinary model rooted in restorative practices that incentivizes positive behavior. CARE has two main aims:

• Decrease the time students spend out of class, as well as suspension and expulsion rates.

• Increase attendance, student stability, and graduation rates.

Since its inception, CARE has been implemented by all Collegiate schools and has shown dramatic results in supporting students, improving attendance, and boost-ing graduation rates. This white paper offers an overview of the CARE model. It highlights CARE’s approach with students, the research in which the program is grounded, and the benefits CARE has had for students, teachers, and administrators at Collegiate’s schools.

We don’t have a school if we don’t have restorative practices.

Jerel Bryant Principal GWC

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CARE PROGRAM WHITE PAPER

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WHY WE DEVELOPED CARE

In the 2012-2013 school year, Collegiate schools had some of the highest rates of out of school suspensions in New Orleans: across Collegiate’s three schools at the time, 63% of students spent time out of school for disciplinary issues. Those issues were also reflected in attendance rates that year, which averaged 87% network-wide, well below our annual goal of 95%.

We recognized that we needed to make significant changes immediately; these high suspension rates were negatively impacting our ability to provide all stu-dents with a high-quality education that prepared them for success in life, both in college and beyond. To put it simply: students cannot learn if they are not in school. Therefore, to make school a place where our students want to be, reduce disciplinary out of school time, and improve student attendance and perfor-mance, we developed CARE.

THE CARE MODEL

CARE has become integral to Collegiate’s approach to educating and supporting students at all our schools. CARE is not about implementing a rigid set of inter-ventions according to a static policy or structure. Instead, CARE programming is intentionally responsive to the unique needs of a school and its community. The emphasis on relationships among all stakeholders in a school (students, teachers, staff, leadership, families, and the greater community) distinguishes our approach by offering specific strategies flexible to the needs of the school implementing them; the CARE philosophy is central to every facet of the educa-tional experience at each of our schools. Prioritizing the program in this way is the only way to enact meaningful change.

CARE gives students the opportunity to understand the impact their actions have had on others. Giving stu-dents a safe space to be heard and the skills to express their feelings will ensure their success as they progress through life.

Cornelius Duke Dean of Discipline, Abramson Sci Academy

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CARE PROGRAM WHITE PAPER

OVERVIEW OF CARE

CARE is an alternative to penalizing students with out of school discipline for behavioral infractions. When an infraction occurs, CARE offers a space for students to work with trained counselors to address their behavior or interpersonal conflicts, correct and resolve those issues, and move forward without time away from the classroom. Instead of leaving school, students attend class at the restorative centers in each of our schools. These Reactive, Positive Redirection Centers are staffed by trained behavior interventionists and allow students to keep up with their daily school work, while restoring the relationships impacted by their actions. Students take responsibility for their mistakes, learn from them, repair relationships, and return to class quickly: the CARE model aims to complete-ly resolve any incident within 24 hours.

The ApproAch: The Four Key elemenTs oF cAre

CARE supports engagement and achievement in school — not despite students’ needs, but in full recognition of those needs. CARE is grounded in restorative approaches that have four key elements.

1. Build and Maintain Strong Relationships: CARE ensures that Collegiate and students partner to build a commu-nity of support with teachers, staff, and families.

2. Foundational Restorative Practice Skills and Mindsets: CARE operates with a core belief that all students have the capacity to learn from mistakes and should be given the opportunity to do so. Our hiring and training practices ensure that all adults in the school share this belief and reflect it in their interactions with students.

3. Proactive and Reactive Restorative Approaches: CARE elevates student self-advocacy, self-agency, and responsi-bility. Students work with behavioral specialists at the CARE centers to discuss, self-advocate, define appropri-ate consequences and reparative steps, and resolve conflicts. Behavior interventionists at these centers also have access to all classwork and academic materials, enabling students to keep up with the schoolwork and restore relationships. When students reach the conclusion that they have caused or contributed to a harm, the behavior interventionist works with them to define the appropriate reparative steps to correct the harm that affected other students or adults.

4. Student Investment in School: CARE keeps students in school, ensuring that they continue to learn. This pre-vents a negative cycle in which a single incident compounds itself, taking a student out of school and affect-ing his or her education long-term. CARE motivates students to attend school each day through small peer group building and prioritizing culturally-relevant extracurricular and co-curricular activities.

The cAre process

In addition to the full-time coordinators that oversee the program at each school, every Collegiate staff member has training in restorative practices. This school-wide buy-in ensures the program’s tenets are implemented faith-fully with every student.

When an incident occurs, CARE follows a three-step process to reach resolution:

1. Students write a reflection on the infraction or conflict that took place and how it caused harm to their rela-tionships in the school community.

2. Students work with a counselor to determine best strategy for repairing those relationships. 3. Students carry out the plan of action, with a counselor mediating conversations to heal relationships with

other students, teachers, and staff.

While progressing through these steps, students continue to focus on their school work. Once they complete their plan of action, they return to the classroom.

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CARE PROGRAM WHITE PAPER

Atte

ndan

ce R

ates

70%

77.5%

85%

92.5%

100%

School Year12-13 13-14 14-15 15-16 16-17

ASA CCA CPA GWC LCA

ATTENDANCE RATES BY COLLEGIATE ACADEMIES SCHOOL

AN APPROACH BASED IN RESEARCH

The restorative practices at the core of the CARE program are grounded in extensive research. Restorative practices are better for the educational success of students compared to discplinary policies that rely on excluding students from school. Research has found:

• Restorative practices improve relationships among students and teachers, reduce disciplinary problems, and build community (Gregory, Clawson, Davis & Gerewitz 2016).

• Interpersonal dynamics are key to reducing exclusionary discipline (Okonofua et al. 2016).• Exclusionary discipline is detrimental to youth outcomes (Skiba et al. 2014).

* Note: Schools are abbreviated as follows: Abramson Sci Academy (ASA), Carver Collegiate Academy (CCA), Carver Preparatory Academy (CPA), George Washington Carver (GWC), and Livingston Collegiate Academy (LCA). CCA and CPA merged to form GWC in 2016.

Susp

ensi

on R

ates

0%

17.5%

35%

52.5%

70%

School Year12-13 13-14 14-15 15-16 16-17

ASA CCA CPA GWC LCA

SUSPENSION RATES BY COLLEGIATE ACADEMIES SCHOOL

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“Teachers at Col-legiate Acad-emies have a deeper dedica-tion to helping students succeedthan I have seen at any other school I have at-tended.

Richard Kisack Jr.Sci Academy

Class of 2015

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LOOKING AHEAD

The CARE program has already produced dramatic results for the more than 1,800 students within Colle-giate’s four schools. By 2019, Collegiate is set to expand to six total schools in New Orleans and Baton Rouge, educating more than 3,500 students. The CARE program will continue to be an integral part of the educational and student support approach in every one of these schools. Students have more success when they are in school. The CARE program ensures students remain in school as much as possible and are given positive reinforcement, rather than punitive responses to dis-cipline and behavioral issues. This reduces suspension and expulsion rates, improves attendance, and raises academic performance. Collegiate is leading the way in implementing restorative practices in educational settings across Louisiana.

RESULTS: COMPARISONS FROM 2012-13 TO 2016-17

Suspension rates dropped by: 48%51%

Attendance rates increased to: 48%92%

GPA averages improved by: 48%33%

Graduates accepted into college: 48%93%