Justice for All? Suspension Bans and Restorative Justice Programs in the Los Angeles Unified School District

Abstract

To address disproportionalities in suspensions for students of color, many districts have prohibited schools from suspending students for willful defiance of school authorities and implemented restorative justice programs (RJP) that address student misconduct using alternative conflict resolution practices. However, there is limited evidence on the efficacy of these new policies. This article examines how the Los Angeles Unified School District's (LAUSD) suspension ban and RJP are associated with student suspensions over time, as well as suspensions across different groups of students and schools targeted by these policies. We employ an interrupted time series design using 12 years of studentlevel administrative data from the 2003–2004 to 2014–2015 school years, which allows us to examine trends in student suspensions in LAUSD before and after its suspension ban in 2011–2012 and rollout of restorative justice practices and training to schools in 2014–2015. We find large rates of decline in suspensions in the years following LAUSD's suspension ban relative to the years leading up to the ban, as well as evidence of reduced suspension gaps between frequently disciplined students and their less-disciplined peers. Additionally, we find the district's public identification of schools most in need of continued reform, and provision of restorative justice training to these schools, is associated with further reductions in suspensions. Despite this progress, suspension gaps between black and non-black students, and between special education (SPED) and non-SPED students, still persist in our data, suggesting that districts may need more time and comprehensive strategies to fully resolve these inequities.

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