Crystal Lake Principals Teach Alternative Student Discipline to Illinois Educators

Submission by District 47

Illinois educators have been busy learning about alternative student disciplinary measures and restorative justice in preparation for the implementation of Public Act 99-456 (often known as Senate Bill 100, which it was called before the law was approved). This law goes into effect on September 16, 2016, and it aims to reduce the number of student suspensions and expulsions in Illinois public schools.

According to an article in the Huffington Post, Illinois has one of the widest disparities in the nation between suspended black students and their white classmates as reported by the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights. During the 2012-13 school year, Chicago Public Schools issued suspensions for 32 of every 100 black students, compared to just five of every 100 white students.

Senate Bill 100 eliminates automatic “zero tolerance” suspensions and expulsions, and requires that schools exhaust all possible interventions before expelling students or suspending them for more than three days. Through restorative justice practices, students stay in school and are still engaged in learning instead of being suspended. Administrators are encouraged to deal with issues at hand through alternative measures, such as repairing relationships and meaningful activities where students who’ve broken the rules must repair the harm they have caused. In some cases, restorative justice gets assistance in determining appropriate outcomes to repair the harm from fellow classmates through peer juries.

The Illinois Principals Association (IPA) has led the way in educating and preparing school superintendents, principals and other administrators for alternative disciplinary measures to be in compliance with the new bill. They are doing this through numerous “administrator academy” workshops on restorative justice being offered throughout the state. The workshops are being led by two administrators from Crystal Lake Elementary District 47: Steve Scarfe, principal at North Elementary, and Jeff Prickett, principal at Bernotas Middle School.

By this fall, Prickett and Scarfe will have led IPA workshops about restorative justice to almost 1,000 administrators around the state. According to Jean Smith, associate director for professional development at the IPA, Prickett and Scarfe were ideal candidates to lead the trainings because of their current roles and previous experience. “I’ve never seen two administrators more excited about a topic,” said Smith. “They are both very knowledgeable and passionate and deeply committed to the idea of restorative justice.”

Prior to coming to District 47, Scarfe was an assistant principal at Kingsley Elementary in Evanston, North School in Des Plaines and Guilford High School in Rockford. Before that, he was in the U.S. Marine Corps for 13 years and served as a federal agent for 12 years. He is particularly excited about using interventions such as Check-In/Check-Out (CICO) and classroom social circles.

Prickett, tapped last year as the IPA’s Kishwaukee Region Middle School Principal of the Year, worked as an elementary and middle school principal in Round Lake and McHenry and has been the principal of Bernotas Middle School for the past two years. Prickett has experience running a Peer Jury and has seen tremendous positive outcomes by implementing restorative practices.

“Suspending kids out of school is more about making the adults feel good that something has been done, but it doesn’t address the root cause of the behavior. Restorative practices actually get to the reason of why a student keeps making poor choices, and it can make a tremendous improvement on the school’s culture and the classroom climate,” Scarfe said. “Kids will do a better job learning in a school where they feel safe, secure, and happy about being there.”

“Restorative practices - keeping students in school, helping them understand the importance of giving back to the community they’ve harmed, and working on restoring damaged relationships - really help to heal an entire school community,” Prickett said. “It’s important that educational leaders understand the emotional climate of their schools, and that this climate is well within their control.”

“The fact that both Scarfe and Prickett are in the trenches on a daily basis serving as their school’s leader resonates with their audience,” Smith said. “They are changing the mindset of building leaders.

Each restorative justice training offered through the IPA is a six-hour credit course where attendees can elect to sign up for a full-day live session or a hybrid model, which includes a three-hour on-site session and a follow-up online component. During the live sessions, attendees are given time for reflection and the ability to create initial student disciplinary action plans for their school.

Over the next several months, Scarfe and Prickett are scheduled to continue presenting at more than 20 locations, from as far north as Mundelein, as far west as Moline and as far south as Carbondale. In addition, they are scheduled to present at the Illinois Alliance of Administrators of Special Education fall conference in Tinley Park and will host a pre-conference training in October for the IPA’s Education Leaders conference in Springfield.

According to Smith, the IPA has received overwhelmingly positive feedback from workshop attendees citing that they feel more equipped to handle the upcoming school discipline changes after the sessions and appreciated the opportunity to create an actionable plan on-site.

Looking ahead, Smith said she sees an opportunity for the IPA to provide additional, more in-depth training on restorative justice, where the focus will be on the actual implementation of ideas and practices learned.