After observing Grizzly throughout the past semester, I began to wonder if recent discipline policies like those espoused in restorative-justice programs risk disrupting the student experience even more in school systems that already struggle with unstable campus climates and serve large percentages of the kinds of students who end up at Grizzly. It’s certainly a noble aspiration to understand a child’s past and help a student learn self-responsibility and personal accountability for his or her future. But in focusing attention on the prior causes of misbehavior and celebrating opportunities for growth, are schools shirking direct responsibility and shifting the attention away from the present moment?

* * *

Not many students would volunteer to attend Grizzly, nor should society want many teens to be there. Grizzly lacks lots of the extracurricular activities that can make school fun, gives students little control over their attire and diet, and, with the exception of a few visits, forbitds kids from seeing or talking with their families or friends. At the beginning of Orientation Day, I saw one sergeant addressing a platoon almost as if the students were children, telling them that they were going to learn how to enter a room, address adults properly, and make their beds. In fact, Grizzly is similar in some ways to prison.

Nevertheless, the waiting list for enrollment indicates that this school is fulfilling a need in a unique and valuable way. In contrast with the high suspension rates often found at schools with a strict discipline policies, Grizzly makes a point to keep its students within its vision and reach. “We make it very hard for your son or daughter to quit,” one sergeant explained to the parents on Orientation Day. The school even takes custody of the students in cases of emergency. “For the five months they’re here at Grizzly, it’s like they’re our kids,” I heard a sergeant promise a group of parents, “and we take full responsibility for them.”

On the first day of classes, I stood with a Grizzly teacher as the kids jogged to their respective classrooms along designated clockwise paths, forming lines in front of classrooms and each staring at the head of the person in front of them as they waited for permission to enter the room. “If you saw this without any context, you might think it’s oppressive and question the purpose of it,” the teacher told me. “But many of these kids come from an absence of structure, and they really respond to this. A lot of them lack stability—family stability, home stability, economic stability—and the environment here is safe and predictable. They come to appreciate all the routines and rules.”

The cadre prioritizes a hawk-like vigilance. On the first day of classes, the sergeants appeared to notice every little aberration, every untied shoelace—but they also looked for signs of bigger problems, like depression or drug withdrawals. While their watchfulness could feel oppressive, it could also be interpreted as the requisite action of a parent figure who promises success. Their panoptic vision also recognizes any potential disturbance to their controlled environment—which in one case was me. On Orientation Day, when I thought I had blended in as an independent observer among hundreds of parents, a sergeant swiftly picked me out and asked me to explain my purpose for being on campus. I stuttered my explanation until he cracked a warm smile and shook my hand.