Archive for category: In the Spotlight

Every day, schools make decisions about how to respond when challenges arise- when a student disrupts class, misses school, or experiences interpersonal conflict. These moments are often treated as routine disciplinary matters and assumed to be resolved through removal or other surface-level responses, despite being more complex and rooted in underlying needs or harms. 

Too often, responses fail to meaningfully address root causes and can perpetuate the original harm. How schools respond in these moments shapes a student’s relationship with education and determines whether schools function as a source of support or as another system of exclusion.

Massachusetts has taken steps to limit exclusionary discipline, acknowledging that removing students from the classroom undermines their ability to learn. State policy reinforces this by requiring schools to make meaningful efforts to implement alternatives before resorting to removal. Yet policy has not fully shifted practice. Incidents of conflict or disruption are often still treated as routine disciplinary issues and managed through removal or other limited responses, rather than as complex situations requiring meaningful intervention. For many young people, discipline operates less as a moment of accountability and more as a point of disconnection. Even when alternatives exist, exclusion often remains the default–especially in schools that lack the structure, capacity, or resources to implement different responses. 

When meaningfully implemented, restorative justice offers another way forward. At its core, restorative justice shifts the focus of discipline from punishment to repair. Rather than asking only what rule was broken and what consequence should follow, restorative approaches ask what harm occurred, who was affected, and what is needed to rebuild trust. This approach recognizes that accountability does not have to come through removal. It can happen through dialogue, relationship-building, and meaningful opportunities for students to take responsibility and remain part of their school community. 

The principles and purpose of restorative justice have been widely recognized by schools across Massachusetts, many of which have begun implementing restorative practices to improve school climate, strengthen relationships, and reduce suspensions. These efforts reflect meaningful progress. At the same time, implementation varies widely and is often constrained by limited resources and capacity, which can position these practices as supplementary rather than foundational. 

The consequences of relying on punitive responses rather than meaningful intervention extend beyond the classroom. When young people’s needs are not addressed early through supportive, community-based approaches, challenges can escalate and lead to deeper system involvement. Data from the Juvenile Justice Policy and Data Board’s 2025 Annual Report shows that nearly two-thirds of juvenile cases are ultimately dismissed, raising questions about whether formal system involvement was the most appropriate response in many instances. Despite this, Massachusetts has continued to see increased use of youth arrests and pretrial conditions (Juvenile Justice Policy and Data Board, 2026). Together, these trends highlight the need to examine how schools, communities, and systems can intervene earlier to support young people before challenges escalate into justice system involvement. 

Schools are a key point of entry into this broader landscape. When discipline relies on exclusion or disengagement, it can contribute to patterns of disconnection that extend beyond the classroom. What begins as a school-based response can quickly become something larger: another system a young person must navigate.

Restorative justice interrupts that pattern by shifting how schools respond in the first place. When it is used early and consistently, it keeps students connected, creates space to address underlying challenges, and reduces the need for more formal interventions later on. In this way, restorative justice is not simply an alternative to discipline. It is part of what makes meaningful access to education possible.

Massachusetts Appleseed’s work on educational justice reflects this broader understanding. In its report, “I Just Want to Learn”: Girls of Color and the School-to-Prison Pipeline in Massachusetts, Appleseed centered the voices of girls of color, who emphasized the importance of meaningful restorative justice practices in schools to create more supportive and equitable learning environments. Whether addressing school discipline, access to information, or pathways into the legal system, the focus remains the same: systems should support young people, not push them further into crisis.

Reimagining discipline means treating restorative justice not as an add-on but as a foundation. When it is positioned upstream, before exclusion occurs, it becomes more than a response to harm. It becomes a necessary condition of educational justice. 

When I began my summer at Massachusetts Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, I set out to examine youth-serving systems across Massachusetts, including education, juvenile justice, housing, and mental health. My goal was to understand how each influences outcomes for young people, with a focus on identifying the most significant and deeply entrenched barriers to justice that shape their experiences. It quickly became clear, however, that these systems cannot be understood in isolation.

The same patterns surfaced across domains, often affecting the same young people. A student excluded from school was more likely to come into contact with the juvenile legal system. A young person exiting foster care often faced immediate housing instability. Youth navigating mental health needs did so while moving between schools, courts, and service providers that operated independently of one another.

What initially appeared to be a series of distinct system challenges began to point to a shared condition: fragmentation. The question shifted from where individual systems were falling short to how their lack of connection shapes outcomes in the first place.

Across education, housing, mental health, and juvenile justice, a consistent dynamic emerged. Systems operate in parallel rather than in coordination. Eligibility requirements shift across agencies, and information about rights, services, and pathways forward is often difficult to access or communicated inconsistently. Even our understanding of these systems reflects this fragmentation: data is often siloed, making it difficult to see how young people move across systems over time or how experiences in one domain shape outcomes in another.

Over time, what began as a landscape analysis evolved into an examination of fragmentation itself as a structural barrier. The issue is not only what systems provide, but how their disconnection shapes who is able to access those supports at all.

You can read more about the research behind these findings in the white paper here. 

Addressing fragmentation requires more than improving individual programs or services. It requires understanding how systems connect, where transitions break down, and how young people experience these structures in practice.

This work has deepened my interest in the intersection of policy, design, and implementation, particularly in how systems can be structured not only to deliver services but also to ensure those services are truly accessible, navigable, and effectively coordinated in practice.

Because the issue is not only what systems offer. It is whether young people can move through them in ways that create stability rather than reinforce fragmentation.

Too often, they cannot.

Bio: Kate Bishop is a rising senior at Boston College and a Gabelli Presidential Scholar studying Transformative Education and Sociology, with a minor in Restorative Justice. As a summer fellow at the Massachusetts Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, she supports legal rights education and advocacy initiatives.