Students train to facilitate justice program
Jul 07, 2010
from Kari Keller's article in the Longmont Times:
On Tuesday morning, five Longmont High School students met at Teaching Peace to be trained as student team facilitators for their school’s restorative justice program.
This is the first year that Teaching Peace plans to use a student team to help handle the restorative justice program in schools.
....Teaching Peace is a nonprofit that oversees the Longmont Community Justice Partnership — a citywide restorative justice program — and the RATE (Restorative Alternative to Expulsion) program in the St. Vrain Valley School District.
Throughout the school district, restorative justice is available for students facing non-mandatory expulsion through the RATE program.
However, in the three schools that plan to implement the new student team, that team will handle all levels of infractions, from non-mandatory expulsion to lower-level offenses such as truancy and student conflict.
When a student facilitator is called in to process a lower-level case, he or she will pair with another student facilitator and act as a mediator to restore justice.
In high-impact cases such as non-mandatory expulsion, the school program works the same way the LCJP program does. A facilitator brings together the student accused of an infraction, victims (if there are any), family members, school officials and perhaps others to discuss the infraction and come up with a plan the student must follow.
student facilitators
The students become co-keepers in Circle, each take turns introducing a concept and they are great role models in the Circle.
It's important to make sure that you reinforce equality.
thank you.