Local nonprofit seeks to make change the way students receive punishments in schools

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- It's a problem that has always troubled education experts.

Studies show Black students are often given harsher punishments than their counterparts, so how do you make sure discipline is doled out fairly?

As part of ABC13's commitment to covering stories that impact our Black communities this Black History Month, we're investigating how a local non-profit is working to change how we view punishment in schools.

Many gathered in a conference room at a library on the east side of Houston in part of a learning circle.

"Trying to express yourself to other people, that's the most important thing to me," high schooler Jennifer Amaugwu said.

"I think the words, 'Love yourself, be confident with yourself,' get thrown around a lot, especially in this generation that I'm growing up in, it just gets thrown around a lot, but nobody actually tells us how to get to it," said high schooler Maithreyi Asthagiri.

"We really talk about things that happen within our community and things within our schools and try to see if we can better ourselves," recent graduate Zerestra Dirden said.

The students are from all different school districts in our area, meeting to address issues before they become behavioral concerns that are often irreversible.

"I started teaching in 2001. There is this rote number of 'we're going to suspend people for three days.' No one knows why it's three. That's just always what we did. We did not have a reparative process or a restorative process," Wadwa, a former HISD teacher and the Executive Director of Restorative Houston, said. "Restorative just means to fix, to repair, and restore our dignity and humanity in the process."

It's a kind of justice that focuses on reconciliation rather than zero-tolerance punishment measures.

According to the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan agency that reports to Congress, Black girls make up 15% of all girls in public schools but receive almost half of suspensions and expulsions.

The agency's review of 2017-2018 data shows Black girls received harsher punishments than white girls for similar violations.

Black girls are 5.2 times more likely to receive out-of-school suspensions than white girls.

"The likelihood of you graduating diminishes. The likelihood of you ending up in the criminal justice system goes up," Wadwa explained. "There are lower health outcomes, the ability to get certain employment diminishes, and it all could start with things that if we would have just had a conversation."

Deshandrea Yates got involved with Restorative Houston to help her daughter.

"My father literally was in jail my whole life, prison," Yates said. "My daughter's father, as well, was in prison growing up."

For Yates, circles and other outreach are about reversing a family cycle.

"That's the only thing that gets me not upset about going through adversities; things are getting to me," Yates said. "That's the way it's supposed to feel like when you're elevating your life when you're elevating yourself. That's my only logic."

The group has worked with local educators and school districts.

However, its effectiveness is difficult to measure, and the practice has been controversial, especially in recent years, as education leaders have struggled to address violence in schools.

At Fort Bend ISD, an effort to add restorative justice principles to the district's code of conduct was recently shot down, with trustees calling the approach too soft and the implementation process too demanding for teachers.

"We incarcerate 1% of our population. That's the highest incarceration rate in the world," Wadwa said. "What we are doing is not working. So, I would ask people to, instead of dismissing it immediately to remain curious and open and to participate and see what it feels like."

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