For restorative practices to be successful, a school must shift their entire mindset. Schools must recognize that restorative practices are beneficial for all students. These interventions may also provide a protective barrier from punitive-based practices for situations in which exclusionary discipline or justice involvement is not necessary.

Tier I: Proactive

Affective Statements: The most informal type of response that has a significant impact on a school community when used widely and regularly. They are personal expressions, or "I" statements, of feeling in response to others' specific behaviors.

Proactive Circles: Circles should be held regularly by all school community members as a means of building relationships and fostering communication. They may also be used as a vehicle for delivering content and discussing classroom business.

Values & Guidelines: School community members should be regularly given the opportunity to discuss values such as respect, honesty, responsibility, etc., and what those values mean to them. FPS Guidelines for Success can be used as a foundation for this, but may be developed further by community members.

School-Wide Mindset: All school community members should be familiar with the concept of restorative practices, the "why" for its implementation and show personal commitment to using restorative practices through use of these methods in all facets of the school community

Teacher-Led Restorative Practices

Tier I Intervention: Using Restorative Chats to Respond to Behavior

Tier II: Targeted Intervention

Restorative Questioning: used informally as well as formally. The key to effective use is making sure your tone is neutral and not accusatory in any way. It is also important to check in with yourself before engaging in this type of intervention.

Using Questions to Respond to Challenging Behavior

1. What happened?

2. What were you thinking at the time?

3. What have you thought about since?

4. Who has been affected by what you've done? How?

5. What do you think you need to do to make it right?

Using Questions to Help Those Harmed by Others’ Actions

1. What did you think when you realized what had happened?

2. What impact has this had on you and others?

3. What has been the hardest part of this experience for you?

4. What do you think needs to happen to make things right?

Responsive Circles: used to respond to wrongdoing, conflicts and/or problems in the classroom or wider school community. The use of responsive Circles allow community members to approach conflict with a solution-focused mindset while still holding individuals accountable.

Tier III: Intensive Intervention

Restorative Conference: A conference is held in which all involved parties discuss the incident. The conference consists of the facilitator asking each participant the same restorative questions and giving each the opportunity to share what’s on their heart in front of all other participants.

Internal Facilitators: Fargo Public Schools currently employs restorative practices conference facilitators in some of its secondary buildings. These individuals work to create a positive community in their schools while also facilitating the conferencing process when harm has occurred.

External Facilitators: Restorative conferences may be held by facilitators assigned by the district office. District facilitators may be used in schools who do not have a trained facilitator, or in situations where an outside perspective would be beneficial for all parties involved in the incident.

Moving Forward: Eventually, all participants must reach an accountability agreement by consensus that may include the following: the method in which harm will be repaired; making a plan so that the behavior does not happen again; giving back to the school community; and ongoing support for the person harmed, the person who did the harm, or any other affected person.