Restorative Justice in School Discipline: What It Is and How It Helps Students with Disabilities

When a student with a disability has a behavioral incident at school — a confrontation, damaged property, a physical altercation — the standard response is exclusionary discipline: suspension, removal, a paper trail of consequences. Zero tolerance thinking says the rule was broken, so the rule must be enforced.

Restorative justice says something different: harm occurred in a community. The goal is to repair that harm, understand what drove it, and rebuild the relationships that make the community work. It's a fundamentally different framework — and for students with disabilities, it can be transformative.

What Restorative Justice Practices Look Like in Schools

Restorative justice (RJ) in schools is adapted from criminal justice models, but it doesn't require a court room or formal proceeding. School-based RJ typically includes:

Restorative circles: A structured facilitated conversation where affected parties — the student who caused harm, those who were harmed, teachers, sometimes parents — sit together and each person shares their experience. The focus is on impact, accountability, and repair — not on assigning punishment. A trained facilitator guides the circle.

Peer mediation: Students trained in conflict resolution help peers work through interpersonal disputes before they escalate to disciplinary intervention. This is particularly effective for minor conflicts that currently generate office referrals.

Re-entry circles: When a student returns from suspension or an alternative placement, a structured conversation supports their re-integration into the school community, addressing the relational damage caused by the absence and the incident.

Harm repair agreements: Concrete, agreed-upon actions the student will take to address the harm they caused — an apology, community service within the school, a commitment to a specific behavioral change. These are agreed to, not imposed.

Restorative practices do not mean there are no consequences. They mean consequences are meaningful, relational, and forward-looking rather than punitive and exclusionary.

What the Research Shows

The evidence base for restorative justice in schools is now substantial. Key findings:

Chicago Public Schools: A large-scale study of restorative justice implementation in Chicago found significant reductions in out-of-school suspension rates, in-school suspensions, and referrals to law enforcement. Black students and students from low-income families showed the largest benefits.

Pittsburgh Public Schools: Research published through the RAND Corporation found that Pittsburgh's restorative practices program reduced in-school suspensions significantly in implementing schools. The reduction was sustained over multiple years.

Oakland Unified School District: Oakland's investment in restorative practices contributed to a dramatic reduction in suspensions citywide over a decade of implementation, including specific gains for Black students who had historically faced the most exclusionary discipline.

Nevada: Nevada's Senate Bill 354, passed with specific attention to special education students, formalized restorative justice as a required consideration before suspension in many circumstances.

The evidence consistently shows that restorative practices reduce suspension rates without increasing unsafe incidents. Schools that implement RJ with high fidelity do not see increased behavioral incidents — they see reduced ones.

How Restorative Justice Connects to PBIS and MTSS

Restorative justice is not a replacement for the PBIS/MTSS framework that many schools use for behavioral support. It's a complementary approach — particularly valuable at the Tier 2 and Tier 3 levels where students are already experiencing repeated behavioral incidents.

Within a Multi-Tiered System of Support:

• Tier 1: Universal restorative practices build the relational culture of the school — community circles, explicit teaching of accountability and empathy, a school-wide language about harm and repair
• Tier 2: Peer mediation programs, small-group restorative circles for students with repeated interpersonal conflicts
• Tier 3: Individualized restorative conferencing alongside or instead of suspension for students with complex needs, including those with disabilities and IEPs

For students with disabilities, the IEP team can explicitly write restorative practices into the behavior intervention plan as an alternative to suspension when behavioral incidents occur. This is particularly appropriate for students whose behaviors are manifestations of their disability — because suspending a student for disability-driven behavior does not address the underlying cause.

Why Restorative Justice Benefits Students with Disabilities Specifically

Students with disabilities — particularly those with ADHD, emotional disturbance, autism, or specific learning disabilities — are already more likely to face punitive school discipline than their non-disabled peers. They are also more likely to have behavioral incidents that, when understood through the lens of function, are expressions of unmet need rather than intentional harm.

Restorative practices work well with disability-related behavioral incidents because:

They require understanding intent and context. A restorative circle asks: "What were you thinking and feeling at that moment? What were you trying to achieve?" This brings the functional dimension of behavior into the conversation — something a suspension never does.

They focus on repair, not exclusion. A student with a disability who is suspended is removed from the support system they need. A student who completes a restorative process remains connected to the community and has a structured pathway back to good standing.

They build skills, not resentment. Many restorative practices include explicit skill-building: conflict resolution, perspective-taking, emotional vocabulary, communication strategies. These are the exact social-emotional skills that many students with disabilities need explicit instruction in — and they're being developed in the context of a real situation that mattered.

They address the relational damage that isolation creates. A student with social communication challenges (such as those common in autism) who is suspended becomes more socially isolated, not less. Restorative circles create structured, supported opportunities for relational repair.

How to Advocate for Restorative Approaches at Your School

If your child is in a school that relies heavily on suspension, you can advocate for restorative alternatives:

At the IEP meeting: Ask whether restorative practices are available at the school, and request that the behavior intervention plan specify restorative conferencing as a first response to behavioral incidents rather than suspension.

When a behavioral incident occurs: Before the school issues a suspension, ask whether a restorative alternative is available. Many schools that have RJ programs will offer this if parents request it — they just don't always volunteer it.

At the school board level: Restorative justice implementation is typically a district-level policy decision. If your district doesn't have an RJ program, bringing the research to the school board — particularly the racial equity data — is a legitimate advocacy path.

Frame it as reducing recidivism: Schools respond to outcomes. Restorative practices reduce the likelihood of repeated behavioral incidents for the same student. If your child is in a suspension cycle, a restorative alternative is also in the school's interest.

The Behavior Support & FBA/BIP Toolkit includes guidance on how to advocate for alternatives to suspension at IEP meetings, including the specific language to request restorative approaches and how to document your request if the school declines.

Restorative Justice Is Not Permissive

A common objection to restorative justice is that it lets students "off the hook." The research doesn't support this concern. Students who participate in restorative processes are held accountable — to the specific people they harmed, in a structured conversation that requires acknowledgment and a concrete repair commitment. That accountability is often more meaningful to students than an abstract suspension.

For students with disabilities, this is particularly important: meaningful accountability helps develop the executive function and social understanding skills that punitive consequences do not. A student who understands the impact of their behavior on a specific person — through a facilitated circle rather than an office referral — is more likely to internalize why change matters.

Zero tolerance gives a student a week home. Restorative justice gives them a community to re-enter.