New San Juan HS Students in Charge of Campus Discipline

Students who get in trouble at Citrus Heights's this year will face a new authority: their fellow students.

The school has set up a Peer Judicial Panel, a 12-member student review body that will consider individual student behavior issues and make recommendations to school administrators.

There is also a Restorative Justice Team, a student-led group that will resolve conflicts through mediation and identify negative behaviors.

Administrators met with students at the end of last year to craft the new approach, said New San Juan High principal Gloria Ervin.

"For students, school is their culture," Ervin said. "With this way of doing things, students have an active voice and I believe we'll see a change in how they behave and respond to each other."

Students who violate school policies, like hall pass requirements or the dress code, will receive a warning after the first offense. If there's a second offense, they'll go before the peer panel.

Students say the new program, known as "restorative justice" and led by the school's interventional program director Bobby Clark, gives them a sense of ownership at school.

"We're enforcing looking at the rules from a different angle," said student leader Nelson Perez, 17. "It makes us feel listened to instead of the principal and teachers dictating to us."

For example, previously, if a student was caught fighting, he or she may have received a five-day suspension, but the fighting may have resumed later, said Annalissa Thompson, 15. With restorative justice, students talk out their differences and sign a contract to end the fighting.

"Students and parents I've talked to say it's a good alternative," Thompson said.

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What do you think of New San Juan High School's restorative justice program? Will it make a difference or will kids just run wild? Tell us in a comment below.

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