Restorative Justice in Education promotes values and principles that use inclusive, collaborative approaches for supporting students and educators in the community called “School.” This session will examine the ways in which RJE supports the experiences and needs of everyone within the community, and strives to create a relationship-centered space as well as a just and equitable learning environment.
** Important session for people new to RJE. If this is your first conference, please consider attending.

A core belief of restorative justice is inherent wisdom exists within every member of our community. Unfortunately, when it comes to schools, including community is too often an afterthought. During this session, participants will explore the concepts of community, community engagement, and community collaboration while examining the connection between these concepts and trauma and healing. Participants will gain a better understanding of how communities are developed and sustained and have the opportunity to think through an asset map of their local community.

This session features the voices of secondary students in Harrisonburg City Public Schools who are learning about and practicing RJE. Middle school students will reflect on their experiences becoming circle keepers and leading peer processes. High school members of the Black Student Union will report on their integration of circle processes, racial justice, and the arts.

In this session, we will open with a Community-Building Circle to experience a taste of how Circles can allow us to build relationships and center connection. From there, we will review some of the basics of Circle Processes; their roots in Indigenous communities; what makes Circles unique; and the various ways Circles can be used in schools, including for learning, strengthening relationships, addressing conflict and harm, nurturing social-emotional health and well-being, and re-integration after time apart.

This session will be highly interactive and designed to give participants a sense of the potential of Circle Processes as part of an RJE framework, especially as a model for being in deep and interdependent community.

In our current politically charged cultural and educational environments, maintaining a commitment to restorative justice and pursuing initiatives that prioritize transformative care, are not just counter-cultural, but dangerous. As educators, we are tasked with navigating parental expectations, district policies, and state and federal requirements, which are often in conflict with creating cultures centered around restorative justice. During this session, Jose Celis will share his experiences in two different districts, identifying the challenges, obstacles, solutions, and costs of pursuing initiatives that prioritize healing, restoration, empathy, and community-building.

In this session, Dr. Jenny Finn, Executive Director of Springhouse, and Springhouse graduate Tatiana Alba, will share about their experience at Springhouse. Springhouse is a vitality-centered intergenerational learning community in Southwest Virginia committed to fundamentally transforming education in ways that move us toward a world where all life thrives They will share the guiding principles of the community and introduce a unique educational model that puts Life at the center and supports people and communities as they learn how to come alive.

Spring House School: The Springhouse community envisions a world where all life thrives. We believe that taking care of Life, one person and community at a time, can eventually bring the larger culture we live in back to health. Springhouse is an intergenerational vitality-centered learning community in Southwest Virginia where we are fundamentally transforming the purpose and practice of education. 

To move toward a world where all life thrives, we practice the following principles in our local and global community: take care of vulnerability, cultivate personhood, build beloved community, learn from the Earth, and love and serve others. We share our learning with others by participating in our local community, distributing media made in our print shop, and supporting others to start learning communities around the world. Springhouse is supported by the contributions of our community members and those who share our vision. No one is turned away from our offerings due to a lack of funds. 

Massive Resilience is a school and community-based approach to restorative justice practices, designed to promote a national model for equity, justice, and freedom among students, staff, and stakeholders in Richmond, Virginia. This on-going project integrates art, culture, education, and health. Using a synthesis of evidenced-based, effective, promising, and emerging strategies, this initiative focuses on healing gun violence related trauma in educational and community settings. Members of the project team will provide an overview of the model, its underlying philosophy, some of the mindfulness-based restorative practices developed for middle school students, and a prototype for a community healing circle.

This session moves among two questions: "How can we learn and share peacebuilding practices with ever-changing, abundantly diverse families?" and “Who are we with families?” Students and educators alike come to school carrying the strengths, weight, responsibilities, expectations, hardships, and joy of their families and situated homes, both past and present.  Together, we’ll explore a relational, crossroads approach to healthy peacebuilding by looking at small changes to our school-with-home practices that can spark healthy trajectory change over time. 

Cultivating youth led spaces can be exciting and challenging. Come sit with RJOY’s young people who hold circle space and train in schools, community, and the criminal legal system.

Students:  Ayo Lewis & Khantane Jackson