What happens when a school district turns discipline policy on its head, sending kids to group talks rather than just handing out suspensions, giving rewards for good behavior, training teachers in cultural differences and hiring more counselors?

The Morris School District found that such changes could have a profound impact. Over four years, far fewer students were suspended. At the same time, schools reported fewer fights while academic growth prospered and test scores improved — which Superintendent Mackey Pendergrast said was no coincidence.

“You have to be proactive, not reactive,” Pendergrast said. “You want a climate where students want to be there, they want to learn and they’re not missing class. You want a climate where students feel like they belong and where they feel connected to their teachers.”

The regional district serves students from the municipalities of Morristown, Morris Township and Morris Plains.

The changes in the Morris district unfolded as schools across the state and nation are reckoning with a punitive environment that led to high numbers of suspensions, especially for black, Hispanic and special-needs students. Research shows that such punishments can have a lasting negative impact on a student’s life and are linked to lower academic achievement and higher dropout rates.

Many schools are now embracing what’s called “restorative justice” — a practice that stresses empowering school communities to resolve conflicts, often in group sessions with students, and to take steps to deter future harm.

The reforms are sorely needed in New Jersey, which has among the widest racial gaps in the nation for student discipline, education activists say. Those challenges persist, even as schools embrace reforms and drive down suspensions.

‘It was shocking to me’

When Pendergrast joined the district in 2015, he was struck by the high number of behavioral referrals, the term used when a teacher reports a student who has done something wrong to the administration.

There had been 2,754 behavioral referrals the year before he arrived at the high school, which had 1,800 students. In the middle school, there were 788 referrals for a student body of 1,100.

“It was shocking to me,” he said. “The first question that went through my mind was, ‘What practices are leading to this type of result?’ ”

Pendergrast set out to change the system of frequent write-ups and punishments. Over four years, the number of disciplinary actions plummeted, according to data from the superintendent’s office comparing 2014-15 with 2017-18.

At Morristown High School, behavioral referrals dropped from 2,754 to 748.

At Frelinghuysen Middle School, behavioral referrals dropped from 788 to 134.

At the high school, out-of-school suspensions declined from 198 to 87. There are no in-school suspensions.

At the middle school, out-of-school suspensions dropped from 23 to 16. In-school suspensions declined from 175 to 18.

How did the district bring about such dramatic change?

They started by rewriting the code of conduct, with input from parents, teachers, community leaders and school board members. It calls for accountability when a student does something wrong, but also for support to help students deal with problems.

The code outlines student violations ranging from a level 1 offense, like using a cellphone or talking in class, to level 4, which includes violence or drug possession.

For each level, teachers are given strategies to address a wrongdoing, help the student, and involve family and school support personnel. The code also defines when a suspension or expulsion should be used.

“The more severe the behavior, the more intense the support," Pendergrast said. "Let’s create an action plan, or let’s address how you will make it up, or let’s address how you’re not going to do this in the future.”

The district also hired additional counselors to support those goals.

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Making connections

Teachers have been trained in the new policy and the importance of encouraging understanding and empathy. For instance, they’ve learned how to recognize trauma in a student’s background, such as violence or substance abuse at home.

“We’re trying to understand our students better and make sure each student feels like they belong to their community,” Pendergrast said.

Programs are in place to encourage better student behavior. The middle school gives tickets to students who are “caught doing something good” that they trade for rewards. The middle and high schools try to make sure everyone is involved in an activity outside the classroom, again with the goal of engaging students and building connections.

Frelinghuysen Middle School also runs a program called Boys 2 Men for seventh- and eighth-graders that offers mentoring, goal setting and character-building activities, which officials say have been integral to the larger mission.

Racial divide persists

School discipline data from the U.S. Department of Education for 2015-16, the most recent year available, showed that New Jersey had among the worst racial gaps in the nation for discipline.

Black students were 5.4 times more likely to face out-of-school suspension than white students, while Hispanic students were 2.4 times more likely, according to a ProPublica analysis of the federal data.

In Morris Township, black students were 8.3 times as likely to be suspended as white students. Hispanic students were 3.8 times as likely, the analysis showed.

Despite reforms, the racial divide persists. At the high school, 87 students were suspended last year. Black students made up 9 percent of the student body, but 30 percent of suspensions; Hispanic students 30 percent of all students, but half of all suspensions.

Pendergrast said the divide fell along income lines and that male, low-income students were more likely to face disciplinary measures than other students.

"Economically disadvantaged students were suspended at the same rate, no matter the race," he said.

The Rev. Robert Rogers, the black pastor of the Church of God in Christ for All Saints in Morristown, served on a task force involved in transforming the district’s discipline practices. He said the racial divide was concerning, but he believed the district was taking serious steps to make schools more culturally responsive and aware of the needs of all students.

“Race, income, culture and background bias, etc., is a complicated issue, and I think it’s going to be an ongoing issue,” Rogers said. He added that “as new information becomes available, we add to the analysis and keep trying to move forward.”

Reforms and criticisms

Restorative justice is a popular concept in education today. Districts from Paterson to Montclair to Newark to Highland Park are taking it up — with some adopting elements of the practice and others taking a sweeping approach to reform.

The movement, though, has faced pushback. Critics have argued that the changes have made it harder for teachers to remove disruptive students, resulting in schools that are more chaotic and less safe.

Citing those concerns, the Trump administration rolled back Obama-era guidelines intended to reduce racial disparities in school discipline. The guidelines instructed schools to consider positive interventions as alternatives to punishments that take students out of the classroom.

Representatives from the local teachers' union that covers the Morris School District declined to comment about the changes in discipline policy and the impact it had in their schools.

Leaders of the New Jersey Education Association, the largest teachers' union in the state, said they had not received or heard complaints from members about restorative justice practices from any district in the state.

Despite the federal turn away from discipline reform, New Jersey continues pushing forward. State lawmakers have advanced a bill to establish a restorative justice pilot program at 15 schools to encourage remedies in school discipline that account for trauma in a student's life. The NJEA has publicly supported the bill.