The City That Kicked Cops Out of Schools and Tried Restorative Practices Instead

Speaker 1 We can try to undo the harm, but sometimes there's more to it. Just a simple conversation won't get over it. It might take years. It might take days or weeks. But mister Musa adds, if we can come to an agreement where kids can say, hey. This happened. We're gonna move on from it. We don't have to even speak to each other, but we can finish out the school year, and both of us will be successful in our own ways. He told me that's the winner.

Speaker 2 Hello, and welcome to episode one twenty four four of our podcast at the Human Restoration Project. My name is Nick Covington and I'm the creative director at the Human Restoration Project. This episode is brought to you by our supporters, three of whom are Marcelo Vianna Neto, Doron Zinger, and Kassandria Skosofava. Thank you so much for your ongoing support and you can find more about our work at humanrestorationproject.org. I'm speaking today with freelance journalist Andy Kopsa, whose work has appeared seemingly everywhere. The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Cosmo, and her most recent piece from the December issue of In These Times that we'll be discussing today, and that you heard an excerpt of in the introduction, is about her investigation of Des Moines Public Schools 2021 shift away from the School Resource Officer or SRO program and toward investing in restorative justice. It has the incredible title, The City That Kicked Cops Out of Schools and Tried Restorative Practices Instead. Andy had mentioned in a tweet before our recording that Iowa is the canary in the coal mine when it comes to public education. That's to say, so much of what Andy reported on in her piece is directly tied to the particular political context of Iowa in the twenty first century. Failing to address deep demographic divisions and whose embrace of endless cynical dead end culture wars has only deepened divisions. Only one third of predominantly older white Iowans live in rural areas. Half of the black population is concentrated in just four cities, of which Des Moines is the largest, and nearly 60% of Iowa farmland owners don't farm. So while Iowa is an increasingly non white urban population, our political and cultural identity is wrapped up in the nostalgia of the white rural family farm. A factor which explains the radicalization and consolidation of political power in the Iowa GOP, who hold a majority everywhere Iowans are represented. A headline from the November elections read, Iowa's GOP clout in legislature and congress most since nineteen fifties. And you better believe they are governing as such. While national headlines often focus on larger states like Texas and Florida, the education culture war really started here. Iowa is the canary in the coal mine. And that's an appropriate lens we should bring to the conversation at the intersection of racialized policing and punishment, and the role it plays in our schools. Particularly when communities of color decide to go another way and invest in restorative practices. Thank you so much for joining me today, Andy Kopson. Well, thank you. I am glad to be here. So the city referred to in the title is Des Moines, Iowa. The content of the piece is so powerful. There's so much that I wanna get into in our conversation, but let's just start at the beginning with the relevant question that a colleague of mine actually taught as a high school history elective, and that now the National Democratic Party is asking and revisiting our first in the nation caucus status, and that's why Iowa? Why not visit and report on what's happening in Los Angeles, Oakland, Arlington, Chicago, these other much larger cities who have made similar moves?

Speaker 1 I'm Iowa through and through. I was born and raised on a farm in the middle of nowhere that is still there. So, you know, everything always leads me home. I mean, and I think too that you you make a really good point here with with your lead and about the first in the nation caucus status, which, of course, is up in the air. But I think that we have a special place or we did have a special place in this sort of national conversation. And so Iowa is always where I am. It's home. You know? I mean, Iowa's home. So that is really why, but I think the reason that Des Moines stuck out to me, frankly, was because it's unique in it it's doing things that LA and Chicago didn't. So there's a part in the piece where it talks about Chicago and LA kind of going halfway and sort of partially removing SROs or partially doing blah, but Des Moines was unique in that it did both simultaneously. And some of that was by design, some of it was just happenstance. And so that was unique in the nation, and I wanted to and I was thrilled to see that that was something that was happening in Iowa because there's precious little good news out of out of Iowa, and this to me was tremendous news. Also, and just sort of selfishly, you know, I, you may have read in the piece, I actually was put into a a juvenile facility when I was 16. And so, you know, there was nothing like this kind of process of restorative practices. So it was it was kind of selfish in that way, but also Des Moines is doing something

Speaker 2 extremely unique, I think, that needs more conversation. And there's it's interesting because you also had put out in a in a tweet this morning, you said that Iowa is the canary in the coal mine when it comes to public education. So what what did you mean by that when when you had Iowa on your mind in that context?

Speaker 1 In that context, I think it's interesting that we hear a lot about the terrible things that, for example, Texas is doing with education, or the terrible things that DeSantis is up to with education, or insert whatever, you know, anti trans girls bills, whatever. It's like people Kim Reynolds has been outflanking DeSantis and Abbott. What is getting ready to happen in Iowa, and you know this, is that they are going to introduce a bill that pushes to defund public education further with voucher bills. You know, I think that the canary in the coal mine to me is that Iowa used to be a sort of bellwether. Right? We used to be a reasonable state. Like, I'm thinking back in the Robert Ray era where people could kinda turn and look at us and, like, oh, we're reasonable folk, whatever. Well, we've shifted that now. We're no longer necessarily a bellwether, which sort of has a has a a good connotation. We're the canary in the coal mine now. Right? And so with public education, I think I think that the attacks and the onslaught last you know, during the election cycle from the Iowa GOP, just they're telegraphing their next move, specifically to DMPS. She is very clear about what she wants to do, and what she wants to do is destroy public education. And, you know, like I said, she's outflanking these other bigger states that are gonna get more and more attention. And I think it's important that people think about Iowa's much smaller, much more manageable, much easier to see what's going on with education or with any policy issue, but the larger states get a lot more kind of attention on that. It's like now everything gets filtered through that culture war lens. And as

Speaker 2 as the country becomes more polarized, the that is reflected in the local state parties too. Even though it something might not be an Iowa issue, suddenly it becomes an Iowa issue because it's a focus of the national conversation, the the national culture war, the national election cycle. And and that's reflected in things like, Kim Reynolds had run this ad, during the election cycle that said, like, Iowans, we get up early, but we're not woke. And it it sounds so hollow and artificial, you know, coming out of her, but it's like, it's so it's but it's so emblematic too of of these longer term, I think, demographic shifts in Iowa, particularly like like these urban rural divides. And I think that'll be something that we start to unpack when we get into this issue with urban education versus rural and and even some of the some of the ideas that that Reynolds and the Iowa GOP have for their voucher programs for all these other kinds of changes that they wanna make. It's all it's it's kind of situated in this culture war context that's not just a political one, but it's a it's one about demographics.

Speaker 1 You know? It's it's very much about the yeah. Go ahead. No. I was just gonna say, and it's made up. It's absolutely it's garbage. It's nonsense. It's crazy talk. And so the but your point about demographics of, you know, when I grew up, everybody I knew, their dad and mom were farmers or worked in the agricultural industry, not big ag. Not not big ag. I'm talking they worked at the coop. They sold seed. They whatever. But now it's like people drive 50 miles to go to Waterloo from, you know, where I grew up to go to work and come back. So it's like this divide doesn't exist anymore. Like, this this this notion of, you know, farm people and and urban people is is garbage, and it's poison. And I think that it is beneficial to one party only, and that's the GOP. More people are of color. Marshalltown, which is a nearby district, is incredibly diverse. And while these are just pockets and while obviously Iowa is white as white can be, there is a shift. You know? There is a fundamental shift in these sort of micrololences like Marshalltown or Fort Dodge or, you know, these other places. Yeah. So I think that rural urban is a real myth. It's hard to you get it. It's hard to explain kind of what's behind that, but I think that it's it's a lot more fluid. Those divides are not as big as we think. And I think that rural and urban in Iowa has become even more of that coded language versus geography.

Speaker 2 Right? I mean, it's like Again, it's a it's a it's a cultural kind of signal, right? Like, you're part of a rural identity, even if you live in a huge suburb of Des Moines. You're still identified as a rural GOP voting person with all, you know, all of the accoutrement that come along with signaling that identity, even though you live in a suburb that has a 100,000 people, you know. But but that differentiates you from, you know, say someone who is urban, in big scare quotes there, particularly for Des Moines. And so if we bring the context into Des Moines public schools, and I think we can start to talk about Roosevelt in particular, right? They Oh my god, I guess we should, right? Yeah. They are a place where the white student population is less than was less than half of the student population. It's kind of impossible, I think, to disentangle those bigger political discussions that are happening between parties and political polarization around demographics and issues of race and geography and those divisions, and both what had taken place in Des Moines public schools, your investigation into Roosevelt in particular, and then the I think also then the pushback and the response that the negative critiques, which I believe do not necessarily come from the students, the teachers, the the people themselves on the ground experiencing it, but are in fact, you know, the result of those external forces viewing people in these, you know, urban school district that has the student population taking control, making these own changes, and kind of wanting to sabotage that. So before before I get too far down into things, the the subheader of the article reads, here's what happens when a school rethinks punishment. So let's just get into what happened. What did they do? What's the background? Well, interestingly

Speaker 1 I mean so, again, I said that Des Moines public schools are kind of unique in this. What happened seemed very sudden. The long story short is that the Des Moines Police Department, contract renewal was up for their work in public, you know, in Des Moines public schools and high schools, and they walked away from the contract. And in the end, it was an amicable kind of divorce, but it was something that was sort of in the works before then. So what Des Moines Public Schools did was made a conscious decision to become a, quote, anti actively anti racist school district. And so that is that's the backdrop. So, you know, and I sort of detail this in the in the piece is that while there was always activism and always push toward, you know, hey. We're this minority majority minority district, is kind of what people would talk about, is that there was, you know, this push to become, you know, not only more culturally aware, but to hire teachers that represent that look like kids. Right? So you hire black, Latinx, get some people in the room. So those kind of wheels had already started turning through town hall meetings and things like this that the that the community was having within itself. And then George Floyd was brutally murdered in front of our eyes. Right? And so that's when there was this, you know, the summer that Andrea Sojourri was arrested, the summer that kids from DMPS really got involved in and really started making the push toward, no. We're not we're not we're not gonna stand for this. And so so this process that had kind of started this conversation that kind of had started with DMPS had gotten kicked into overdrive. And so that summer of twenty twenty or whenever it was, there were town hall meetings that were specifically anti racist town hall meeting. What the takeaway was Des Moines Public Schools brought in an outside sort of moderator to, oversee those that process. They brought in stakeholders that were, you know, including students, involving students in the process. What an idea. Right? Oh my. So involving students in the process, families, community organizations, bringing them in and talking to them about George Floyd being murdered, right, and how that makes the kids of color, black kids feel when they see walk into a school and see a police officer and Lyric Sellers who is amazing, and you should talk to her. You know, she's she said to me safety is subjective. Right? Mhmm. It's subjective. When I walk in and see a cop in a school, I'm not worried that I'm gonna get my brains bashed in Mhmm. Because I'm white. Right? That's not her maybe lived experience. So so all these conversations were underway, and the board and Ahart and this sort of community came together. And it was at the end of that summer, it was the overwhelming message was we need to do something different, DMPS. We need to our our kids don't feel safe. The families don't feel safe, and it's not just the fighting in schools that's gonna happen. Sorry. It's just gonna happen. They're kids. You know? Kids are jerks. I was a jerk when I was a kid. So I was. I was terrible. So it's gonna happen. But the thing that they can control were these armed policemen in the hallway. Right? And so that's one part of their what the what happened is that the data from collected from those town halls, and it is data. There is data to support this. It was clear that that was one thing that needed to happen for for kids of color, black kids to to feel comfortable Mhmm. And that there was already this sort of restorative social emotional learning work that had been going on sort of in the background since twenty eighteen ish in DMPS. And so what happened then was this sort of inflection point when the cops terminated the contract. It was a it was a shock. You know? They weren't expecting it. And so they were caught on the back foot Des Moines Public Schools even though the conversation had sort of started. Hey. Maybe, police officers, consider being unarmed, or perhaps you consider maybe not being in uniform. And d m p the police were like, no. You know what? We're just gonna we're gonna cut our losses here, and we're gonna go away. And so that was like, okay. Well, that's fine because that's what we're hearing from our our people, but thanks for the notice. So that happened in February, I think, of twenty twenty one, which was a sort of which was sort of shocking to if you listen to as many hours the school board meetings as I have, you will register the the shock when that was announced by some of the great people at DMPS who had those conversations with the police. So what happened was that freed up, you know, $750,000. Hey. That's defunding the police. Right. You know, for my fiscal conservative friends, that's, refunding people's, taxpayer dollars and reallocating it to appropriate use. And what that did for DMPS was allowed them to say, okay. We have to implement something immediately now. And so we have to go forward with our plan to implement restorative practices as a proactive, not just reactive. Right? So proactive program to not just avoid, you know, disciplinary issues, but to start, meeting the needs of our kids. Right? What happens before they even get in the door? Do they have food? Do they have health care? Do they have a do they have a home? Right? So that 750 k came in handy when they brought in 20 new people. That's a huge hire Mhmm. During COVID. Right? So it wasn't necessarily planned at that moment, but they met it. They met that moment. That meant they they met that that sort of moment and brought in RP trained staff. Urban Dreams provided I don't know if you're familiar with Urban Dreams, but they're an amazing community organization that has been involved in, you know, the historically black community in over 6th Avenue that was already working in the restorative space. So they started partnerships with them. I think Isaiah Knox, who is now senator state senator elect. Isaiah Knox is the director of urban dreams. So they worked with them and also, with the International Institute of Restorative Practices, which is the only post grad university in The United States that teaches this in a master's level. Okay. They brought them in to do yeah. They brought them in to do training. I mean, they went all in. Right? Yeah. So it was a huge scramble. And so the first year didn't look so hot from the outside. And one thing I want one thing that you've got to that I think is really critical that people understand, and Deb Henry, who is an amazing teacher and was the Des Moines Area Education Association rep at the time, said the the pushback that she was hearing during the first year was from suburban teacher or or, you know, teachers that were like, oh, you know, sort of like tis tisking. And it was funny. It didn't make it into the piece, but God love her. She said, well, guess what? You don't get an opinion. Exactly. You don't live in Des Moines. Is this upsetting you? I'm sorry. It's going it's going okay. And the first year was a slog, and it's not all sunshine and roses. It's just simply not. But I was blown away at how how that buy in from the top administration to the top, like, principal Shapaw is amazing. He is an amazing leader. To his buy in at Roosevelt that empowered his his staff from teachers to food service to operations folks. Like, it is truly a group effort, and that has been critical. So where they're at now from where they were in February 2021 when the cops said, hey. We're leaving, which landed with the thud in the local media. But they're doing a hell of a job. There's problems. There's still calls to police. There always will be. Mhmm. But, you know, they're making they are slow and steady, and it doesn't happen quickly enough for some people. And that is where the exploitation of urban comes in by the GOP. Right? You know, they hired 20 new folks. They've allocated I believe they hired 13 additional this year folks. They do ongoing training. And so I only looked at Roosevelt, and from what I see and from the stats, which, again, Iowa, their stats go clickety clack on your computer, and you can pull them up on the Iowa Department of Education website that that bears out that some of this is working, and it's working well.

Speaker 2 And I think with any huge cultural shift as as this must be, of course, it's gonna take So in order to especially if we're considering February 2021 is near the end of one school year, you know, no major changes are gonna happen from February to May. And yet, like you said, Des Moines was kind of, playing the cards that they were dealt. And when I when I I printed off the piece and read it on on paper here, but I I put about as many exclamation points around that 750 k number as I could imagine because it really is, like, emblematic of that notion people criticize using that phrase of abolishing the police and all those But kinds of the notion is that, well, then it's not just that then nothing happens. That money and those resources actually go back into the community to sort out other ways of, you know Right. Of either being proactive in order to prevent future incidents from happening, or they don't have to be reactive in ways that are overly punitive, particularly when we understand the the racial outcomes of those things. And you outlined all those in the piece. And another part that I had outlined here, because you mentioned the principle, I I I loved his honesty and his candor in his in his answer that he gave here about the replacement of SROs with RP has changed his own thinking. And he said, quote, what I have learned is that there were times that I was asking for the SRO to be present that were not necessary because we do have the skills and resources to deescalate situations now, but when you're in the midst of it, you know you have this resource, it's very easy just to ask for the police. So it's like Right. Just opening up your toolkit and saying, we can't use the cops anymore, you know. We can't use the cops to, you know, arrest kids or then once it gets in their hands, it can escalate, you know, into the the legal system very easily. But now when we have to deal with, you know, students on relational terms, when we have to, you know, use those other tools in our tool kits, well then, we actually start to reflect back on the previous practices and say, well, that probably wasn't right for me to escalate that to involve an officer and then, you know, contribute to consequences that may or may not happen outside of the school system there too. One thing that we kinda can get into here then is the fact that you had actually spent time in these schools. You weren't just, you know, reporting from afar. You went and talked to these people. But what I appreciated is that this wasn't just like a one drop in, one and done kind of thing. Can you describe the approach? Because you actually had a longitudinal. You visited two times for a good lengthy amount of time there at Roosevelt. How did you approach that issue? How did that help you understand what was going on? Explain to us the students that you talked with. Let's talk about the think tank. Like, how is it actually working in those spaces?

Speaker 1 Yeah. You know, I would have hung out longer if they would have let me. I mean, honestly, I mean, it's when I do these these kinds of investigations, it's so valuable for me to just be able to observe. And it's, you know, it's actually an honor to be allowed into that space. I consider any time that anyone allows me to hear their stories and tell their stories, it's a huge honor, and I don't take that lightly. And, you know, the the interesting thing about being able to go in the spring, which was bananas, because everybody was still wearing masks. It was getting towards graduation time, so it was like this different sort of frenetic pace. And and so I was able to establish a rapport with a few of the kids. Right? Right. And and and sort of take my lead from them and be able to meet the community. I mean, honestly, I was expecting from some of the reports that I was just gonna enter, and it was gonna be bedlam. Right? It was just gonna be bananas. It was gonna be like, pack everybody's packing heat. You know? What and it would just it was just high school. Right? Yep. So that's not again, not to say this is a Pollyanna view, but it was very a frenetic pace. I ran around with mister Ahmed Musa who is out there doing the lord's work and running around talking to kids. And and, again, they were still getting their feet underneath them as well. So the restore the RP folks were still getting their feet under them because, again, they had just started. I mean, they weren't even, like, several months into it. Right? So it was great to go in and be able to see that. I think one young girl that I spoke with, Vanessa, who's highlighted in the piece, You know? And I can't help but bring my personal experience into this. And I'm not a I'm not a young black girl. Right? But I but I was a young girl. And to see her, you know, from the spring when she was, you know, very trepidatious. I mean, you gotta you gotta consider that COVID colors the before times and the after time. And with Vanessa, the last time she had been in school was she was in seventh and eighth grade. Right? And that was virtual learning. And so she went from a middle school environment to high school. And so she was completely discombobulated, but she would but she talked to me. And so the importance of making that kind of connection and listening to kids where they are, by the time I went and saw, you know, back in the fall and then transitioned, I've you know, and I say it in the piece, I didn't recognize her. I'm like, who is this kid that's so happy to see me? I'm like, what? And she was like and she started talking, and she's like, oh, well, you were talking about your daughter and blah blah blah. I'm like, holy crap. This is Vanessa talking. And I think that in the piece, I I do take pains to cite actual experts in the field, and I relayed that story of just Vanessa from springtime to fall to Anne Gregory, who is literally one of the foremost experts in this arena. You know, she she was very clear, like, not knowing anything about Vanessa. From the outside, what she was able to identify in that kind of growth aside from whatever personal growth a a girl goes through in a few months was that that mister Musa, the think tank, that Shapaw, everybody responding with a trauma informed view versus punitive view with Vanessa allowed her to feel more comfortable in class and go to class. You know? So that they help facilitate that transition. So those tiny little moment in the hallway, those tiny little point of connection, which is literally one of the tiers of RP is like, hey. How are you doing, Vanessa? What's going on? Why are you in the hallway? What's going are you on your way to class? What's going on? Right? Again, if I go back again, I hope that I'm allowed back in a year. I mean, I wanna see what happens with Vanessa next because if this community approach continues to take place and if students are allowed agency and and understanding in the RP system, you know, I'm excited to see where that kid goes. And I think that that goes with any of the kids I talk to. The time that it takes to report stories like this is supremely frustrating to people, because we all want that quick turn and burn, but you just don't get that kind of perspective on what's going on. You know, things could change drastically, and god knows what could happen in the next, you know, whatever. But for now, it was a win. Right? So it's a big deal working. Just on a side note, as a journalist myself, I work with a lot of folks who have gone through trauma. I work with a lot of victims of sexual assault. I've worked with people from who survived, like, you know, Premier Rouge. You know? So it's like these kids have experienced their own kind of trauma. It's not the same trauma as the assault survivor or the genocide survivor or the whatever. But you come to them and give them the agency and the and the dignity of their humanity as a reporter. That's my job when I approach these kids, and they're all we're all products of trauma. It's just a sliding scale, I think. And that's the approach that I take when I talk to kids, and that was the everlasting frustration to some of my editors because I was like, I'm not gonna push them for what you're asking me to push them for because it's not going to get at the story. So, yeah, it was a gift to have that that kind of longitudinal space. Right? That's not often available. But, you know, I think that that more of that kind of reporting is necessary to actually illuminate what's really going on, not just a a a point in time or not just a one off

Speaker 2 sound bite. You know? Yeah. I think it was incredible in the piece because you got to see the growth in those students as the results of these practices. And then just to hear in their own words too, like, here were, in Vanessa's words, right, the anxiety that she had of coming back to the chaos, you know, the perceived chaos. Right? It might have been fine from everybody else, but for her, it's like overwhelming. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean, going to a high school shit. I mean, I had 70 kids in my high school class. Right? Right. I mean, and that was the largest class to go through. And high school's intimidating. She had 500 kids in her class Yes. Coming from two years of COVID learning. Yes. So it is chaos to go back to that. Yes. Right? So what I think is about the restorative

Speaker 2 approach then is it doesn't take that trauma and then say, Well, the way that we're going to deal with this is through exclusion and through punishment because your behavior in the way that you are dealing with that trauma, the way that you're communicating that to the world doesn't fit into, you know, the norms of school and the norms of the the way that we expect the average person who hasn't experienced trauma, which of course now, if if you have any kind of restorative mindset, you realize, right, again, that sliding scale that you referenced, but those hard and fast punitive policies are made for some ideal person in mind. Right? Right. But the restorative practices acknowledges that, right, not only is that behavior communication, but we can we can mitigate, right, not only the the trauma based approach is we can not only mitigate that behavior, but we can help that person kind of grow and become integrated back into the the learning community of school, back into the communities outside of school. And the people that are going to do that work are not going to come from without. So, for example, one of the things that we learned as a country as a result of Ferguson Black Lives Matter protests is, right, the police in Ferguson, the vast majority of them, did not come from the community of Ferguson. Of course not. So it's so easy to punish and police people that you don't know, that you don't identify with, because the law is something that you can do to them without having to feel the social consequences of it. Right? But it's impossible if you're coming from that community to say, like, well, the people that we're policing and putting in jail are are me. They're my people. They're my neighbors. They're my cousins. They're my, my neighbors They're my

Speaker 1 They're my My 10 year olds. Exactly. It's

Speaker 2 like, what? Okay. So then the people who are coming in to lead the restorative practices, like Mr. Musa that you mentioned in the piece, is from the community and spends time with them outside of school. Mentioned playing pickup ball, you know, down the street, etcetera. So there's a change of tenor, I bet, coming into the schoolhouse door and, right, taking on that role. But the relationship is there because he knows for those kids to succeed outside of the school space and inside the school space, he's gonna have to work to maintain that relationship. Of course, that work is messier, it takes a lot longer, but it's more rewarding in the long run for communities, for schools, for individuals than exclusionary and punitive a bit, which just takes that trauma and bottles it up and tries to push it away somewhere else where then we know, you know, then those students may be more likely to experience drug and alcohol addiction, to experience violence and sexual abuse. And then it just cycles into the community where then they become, right, they become the people who do those things to other people too. So it's like short circuits that whole, you know, trauma loop in the process, which is why, you know, I think this is so powerful. And I think too, like, one of the responses that I started to see on social media once the piece came out, was a tweet from a former Roosevelt student who said, that's my high school. This is amazing. There's no place for cops in schools. Former Grand View professor and and friend of our organization, Kevin Gannon, said, my kids go to this school. The staff there is awesome. They really walk the walk. What has the reception been broadly from when the piece came out? I wanna I wanna touch on one thing before we move Of Yeah. Because the thing that is important, and I think that it will be important to you as an educator who's experienced some

Speaker 1 bad stuff. So you let's get clear. Right? Our our teachers have experienced trauma. Right. Our teachers, especially, I mean, across the country, but they are beaten to a pulp through COVID. I'm sorry. They just are. Right? They're targeted. They're sinister agendas. And what RP does is absolutely take into account the health and well-being, mental health well-being of staff, of teachers, of making sure that, you know, we know this work is hard and it's extra hard, so we're going to support you teachers. What does that look like? Right? So I think that that's an important part of the RP way of of working is that it is about the kids, but you wanna make sure that you take care of, you know, not just the teachers, but all your staff from bus drivers to custodians to blah blah blah. So I just wanted to to make sure that that is in there as well. That is absolutely part of what Roosevelt does, and it's part of this year's you know, they have goal setting. Part of this year's goals is getting what do the teachers need? Is it it sounds stupid, but is it a is it a book group? What are we doing? You know? Or do you just wanna be left alone? What do you want? What do what what we do for you to make your lives better here because this is hard stuff, and it's gonna get harder.

Speaker 2 You know? In my mind, I think oftentimes those the structures and systems of schools that alienate and isolate kids have the same impact on adults too. So Correct. I would say that a practice probably isn't restorative if it makes the situation for the adults equally chaotic and stressful. If it increases their stress and the chaos, etcetera, you know, then it probably isn't restorative either. So it's like the purpose is that it restores the relationship, it restores that, right, that connectivity, that community, both to the adults and kids in the building alike. And that's the part that makes it restorative.

Speaker 1 Right. Right. And so it's what some people experience in their schools as a you know, it it's the same kind of thing with, like, a teacher maybe experiencing something punitive. Mhmm. You know? I don't know if you know anything about that, but, you know, experiencing anything punitive from their administration versus you know, it's the same thing to your point. And but that doesn't mean there aren't guardrails. That doesn't mean there isn't accountability. This kind of dovetails into the response. By and large, it's been a good response. The biggest critics, I was on kind of on tincture hooks about how Lyric was gonna see it. She's like, this is great. And the school, you know, I've gotten some good feedback because, you know, I'm always concerned about how I represent people. And they were like, this seems like it's getting at what we're trying to do. So it was like this very sort of stoic reserve. Good job. So I I took that as a good as a good response. And I think it's getting shared a lot. And and and I think it it's kind of it kinda surprised me. I don't know that it is getting such a big pickup, but I guess it speaks to people's desire to see something different happening. You know, just for me as part of my process too, I do try to engage with folks who try to engage in as honest brokers feedback. One thing that I do think one one response I got was, like, you know, the restorative justice paradigm versus restorative practices. Restorative justice is often in the carceral system where it's adults who have to be you know, where there is a very clear victim of of violence or whatever, and separating that out from what restorative practice school are. So, I mean, I think that there's a lot of education that still needs to happen, and that was a very valid feedback. It's like, but what are we focusing on the victim? There's a lot of language that still needs to be talked about within, you know, the system. I think I think it's perceived as a lot more sunshine and roses than I thought it would be. I mean, there's still issues. You know? And and I and I think we've I've gotten some feedback from parents of middle school kids, and I think middle school is a different animal, honestly. Yeah. It always is. By far and I would love to and I'm and I'm open to speaking with them because I think their experience is valid, and I do think but it is a very different animal than than Roosevelt High School. Yeah. And something that that is a positive aspect of school systems as well. And I I think regarding, you know, the middle school situation, I think it's interesting because

Speaker 2 perhaps, you know, like, there should be, like, an onboarding or transition. Like, hey, if we know these restorative practices work at the high school level and those students are going to eventually become high schoolers, like what are we doing to support, you know, those restorative practices and scaffold them down the line? Like, so that way middle school students can become maybe student led practitioners of that work by the time they become in high school. Like, how far down the line does that then go where we can say middle schoolers become high schoolers and how far down you have to go to start to support and scaffold that work for the to to quote unquote work at the high school. But I also wonder if there isn't a role then in the long term plan for this to have those youngers kind of identify some student leaders. Particularly, I I would lean on kids who would often be the ones who would, you know, get in trouble and be been pushed more of those boundaries and those envelopes and kind of, knight them as the would be, you guys are gonna become the leaders in high school. Right? So it's like, how can we wrap the the supports around you and train you up to become a restorative practices student leader by the time you get to the high school and then that problem maybe takes care of itself. If you can see the transformation of these students who were, you know, quote unquote, the troublemakers when they were in middle school and then become the student leaders by the time they're in high school, I think that's a place for incredible growth. You had mentioned the it's not all sunshine and rainbows aspect of this, and I think we would be remiss if we didn't talk about some of the criticism of restorative practices as well. So Yeah. Did you hear anything either on the ground or what what have you heard either before or since? What are their origins? Do you think they hold up? What's kind of your feel on that?

Speaker 1 I think well, first, just on the middle school thing, that is part of DMPS' long term. Okay. It just makes sense. So I I would say Yeah. So, again, it's, you know, they do have a projection in goals over the next few years. So, you know, they are I think that the maybe the 13 hires that I might be speaking, I would have to check, but I do believe they are moving this into the middle schools. And, again, you know, that I think is is critical. And, you know, I think that there's already some work in some elementaries. But, again, that's just on that front. So I that is part of their yearly planning. It's like we're going to systemically try to roll this out. It's just gonna take time, and I know that's hard. So some of the pushback to I think one of the things that is valid is that RP does not is not a cure all. It's not. And and one of the things that was critical the key is is that it's restorative practices as implemented at Roosevelt High School that has to be restore or it has to be employed with fidelity, right, and with consistency. You can't you can use one aspect. Like, you can use the circle, right, as sort of a restorative model, but that doesn't work in a silo. You have to have that check and connect at the door. So so a lot of, a lot of pushback, to use one example, even within the Roosevelt community, was there was this uptick in fighting or the perception of fighting towards the end of the school year in twenty twenty twenty one after the program had only started. Right? And so there was this new fighting policy that came into effect in December, by DMPS as a response to this perceived, uptick in fighting. And so they implemented this sort of three strikes you're out, which sort of goes in conflict with RP. But this was at the end of the school year, and and, you know, Ahart's term was wrapping up and and and whatever. So there was sort of a knee jerk response to implement something that seemed kind of to go counter to it to Stop gap. Stop gap. But that's because it just got started. Right? But like anything, it has to be, again, employed with Fidelity and with buy in. So it has to be and I will be candid. I think it was a change in Roosevelt leadership, I think, when, principal Shapha took over, that a lot of staff and even students said to me they felt a shift because he he bought into it. You know? He believes in RP and empowers his folks. But before then, sort of towards the end of the year, it was kind of touch and go. And Deb Henry sort of spoke to that. I don't think it made it into the piece, but she said it was sort of like we had to get the right people in place. And so even teachers were like, we do not have the right people in the rooms right now. And so Okay. Yeah. And so the teachers were sort of, you know, pushing back a little towards the end of the year even though they had an overall good ex they were feeling good about it. They were like, hey. Listen, man. We gotta get people in. So there was there's growing pains. I think too that there's this notion that there isn't accountability, which is nonsense.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 1 It's like, you know what? The cops still get called. Right. The cops, you know, I spoke with Jonathan who was arrested, like, maybe three days after I left Roosevelt. It's like, there's still accountability. And so I think it's it's sort of this idea that, oh, we're just gonna let kids run the show. Right. And it's like, no. That's not true. It's not it's not completely true. We're just we're listening to them, but they don't you know, it's not it is a very systematic approach. Can I interject here real Yeah? Sorry. I just want to say too, perhaps a shifting definition of accountability,

Speaker 2 because I think it's a conversation that we've had on our end on, say, the grading side where rather than say if a student turns in work late, right, you wouldn't give them a zero. And a lot of people say that not giving a zero is not holding them accountable. Well, our counter to that would say holding them accountable is just getting them to do the work in the first place. Making them do their job, right? Yeah. Yeah. So it's like, okay, what what is holding them more accountable than saying, no, this if we think this learning is important, this is something you have to do, it's not holding you accountable just to say, okay, you can skip that one and move on, right? Take this Like, year and move we think it's so important that you actually need to learn this. So it's not an option, you know, for you to not Yeah. Do In the same way that I think on the behavior side, I think it's not accountability just to say like, oh, we're just gonna push you through this system now that kind of alienates, isolates, you know, puts you in in proximity to the legal system, etcetera, etcetera, just because we don't wanna deal with you. I can't imagine a more holding students more accountable than, you mentioned in the piece, say, writing and reflecting on the things that Yeah. They had the think tank. Yeah. In the think tank. Internalizing. And then the making amends and reparations and talking to, you know, the adults, the students, the, you know, your peers that you're having beef and issues with. And then, like, that's the whole issue of restoration is actually overcoming those barriers and those obstacles, reflecting on that behavior so that you don't engage in it, in those negative things again. And then building relationships with people to ensure that it doesn't happen in the future. Like, that to me is true accountability, not a particular punishment or following a particular system because it makes adults or outsiders feel good. And you had mentioned that's where a lot of those criticisms come from as well, is that I think there definitely is back to those sort of racialized notions of crime and punishment and crime and criminality of who gets punished and who gets entered into the criminal justice system. When you have, you know, a majority non white school like Roosevelt take those community issues into their own hands and say, like, we're not gonna feed our kids into that system anymore. Yeah. We're gonna try something different. Then, you know, people in the vast majority white suburbs then say, oh, well, that's not accountability. You're not punishing those students. You're not doing those things. And then you turn around and look at what their their white high schools look like and you say, well, how many arrests do you have? How many, you know, of those? Right? What what is what is the racialized policing look like in your context? And you say, oh, yeah. Well, you know, it's it's a the shoe's on the other foot now, and now you don't wanna reflect on your own stuff. Right. So I think that is super interesting too. I think to kind of, transition here, I I wanna know, you had told me originally that the original draft was over 10,000 words

Speaker 1 and had to be whittled down to about half of that, which is 10 pages with the wonderful, you know, photography that you're able to get into. Yeah. Mike is a great photographer, yeah. Yeah. I could imagine reading this as And wait. His kid his kid Mike, the photographer, his kid went to Roosevelt. So he was he was like, yeah. It's old home week. So but, yeah. Years years ago. I love it. Yeah. No. That's I I mean, it's just it's it's, again, That's

Speaker 2 it, right? Like, have a buy in, you have an interest, you don't wanna see those kids, you know, entered into a system that's gonna treat them, you know, racially different than anyone else. 10 k, right. Yes, to return to the word count here, I wanna know what got left of the cutting room floor. What what would you have included in the cops a cut that didn't make it into the in these times piece?

Speaker 1 Well, there was a lot of criticism, thoughtful criticism of, our governor. What's her name? You know, a lot of very specific Iowa stuff and the the specific pressures that, you know, not just Iowa teachers and not just Iowa kids, but my god, our health care system. Right? And and the the punishing, I could not make a fine enough point of how irresponsible governor Kim Reynolds was during the COVID crisis. To in school. Right? Punitive actions taken toward communities of color that are disproportionately impacted with her anti masking mandate, kids with disabilities and medically fragile children. It's policy violence is what you call it, metting out this policy of violence against anti trans. There was some of that in there. I talked to the kids and the and the teachers about what happens on the hill, and that does filter down to them. They do know. What were they saying? I wanna what what what were their common comments saying? I mean, you know, when I was talking to their sort of workers, they're like, well, who cares who plays basketball? Right. Let's just play. It's like we're writers. Right? It's like, who cares? This anti trans bill that was signed with such glee as these kids were trying to make it through another day of school, it filters down because it comes through the adults. It comes through every aspect of of life. And and, you know, not to take away from you know, I pointed out some of the direct racist policies, you know, the de facto redlining bill through anti, section eight housing and doing a like, giving agency to landlords to, refuse public housing vouchers. That that impacts the community and the rural community, by the way. You're gonna see grandma out on the street. But, anyway, so that policy violence, that attack of students, that direct attack that Reynolds did, like, in the wake of the young boy, 15 year old Lopez, it took her a week to respond to that shooting when that young boy was murdered out front of East. Took her a week to respond to that, and I pointed that out in the piece was that and she didn't even respond to it except when she was giving a bunch of American Rescue Plan Act taxpayer US funded democrat bought and paid for funds to Des Moines, airport when a when a some sentient reporter said, hey. Any comment on that shooting? Oh, our schools are failing our kid. You know what, Kim? And so a lot of that didn't make it into it because that I don't care what you say. That impacts kids. It rolls down literal bills. So it was a lot of this nonsense policy violence. It's not nonsense. It has real world impact. And that was crammed into a very small section that had to get edited out that I will be happy to share. But a lot of Yeah. A lot of statistics. So national statistics about, you know, after Columbine, we didn't have cops in schools really until after Columbine. Right. And so what have we seen? Statistically, kids are getting murdered left, right, and so, right, at school. And and it's not not typically by a bunch of young black kids. It's a bunch of young white kids with access to guns, and the governor sat at the desk happily signing a second amendment restoration bill. Right? So it's like and so a lot of these things I tried to pull out of and and and so this goes back to that Iowa is sort of first in the nation status, which is still kind of, like, would be the best thing for that to go away. That was kind of couched in that. It's like, do you see the issues that they are targeting and that are targeting communities of color in Iowa that figures into education. It just it does in the voucher bills. So a lot of that made it and then a lot of very specific data, because I love me some data about how disproportionately girls, black girls, first and foremost, but girls specifically who are being arrested in school. And, again, I mentioned that I was a 16 year old that ended up in a locked facility. I was one of those kids who ended up in the system, and I'm a white kid from a teeny tiny farming community.

Speaker 2 You did mention in the piece that an ACLU report found that black girls in Iowa were nine times more likely than white girls to be arrested.

Speaker 1 You know that, yeah, do you know that Iowa outflanks a lot of the world in jailing, not only kids, but in jailing people in general? I know you're Proportionally. Yeah. Oh, god. I'll stats. Right? So, but that all goes back to, again, sort of my interest in Iowa is that Iowa is an unfortunate outlier in the fact that, you know, we like to talk about farms and farmers, but we have more inmate than farm. Right? We have more prison being built. So there was a lot of sort of backgrounding going on. There was a lot of attention, you know, because I went into this as a young girl who had gone through, you know, who had been actually cuffed and thrown into a cop car and terrified and arrested for, you know, DUI at 16. I don't have any problem sharing that. The disproportionate way that we as girls are impacted and to see it play out in Des Moines, I'm like, what in the it was like 200 some percent jump over this period of time. A lot of that. So that was you know, my original intent was to examine how it impacted girls, just sort of spread out there. So a lot of that was cut just because it became a a different story, a more broadly more broad narrative. So a lot of that, and then just a lot of real legislative policy nerd type stuff that was being done in Iowa specifically.

Speaker 2 All that builds the it builds that important context that we got to Yeah. A little bit at the beginning. People just kind of understand holistically, right, this this situation in Iowa where, you know, you have this GOP trifecta, you have this this demographic shift of a largely aging rural Yeah. You know, Republican population mixed with a a huge growing but increasingly compact in the sense of geography, or compact urban, non white, largely, you know, liberal population, a young a much younger population too. I think I I take a lot of solace in the fact too that there's gonna be generations of people coming out of schools like Roosevelt and all the Des Moines high schools, and as those programs scaffold down into the middle school and elementary school level, who then are gonna go out into the world and think that the restorative practices are the norm, and that policing in schools is not. And so they're gonna be the people to lead the change in the future too. Mean, I don't know. We we we don't have time to go into Lyric Sellers, but she might have to be someone that that that we talk You should talk to her. Yeah. Have to talk to. No. She is one of those activists who kinda got the ball rolling on this, and my understanding now as a as a college student is still engaged firmly in that work. I think is doing some great work there too. So, I mean, anyway, but where she's going to school, you know? Yes. I I think, yeah, like, there's there's there's just a generation of young Iowans who are excited and enthusiastic and engaged in in angry. Doing and angry.

Speaker 1 Yes. And justifiably angry. I'm sorry, but you get to be justifiably I mean, that is okay.

Speaker 2 Use that. So we're seeing then, like, we are caught, in the tension between these things of, like, an aging, older, whiter demographic population who has control of the political reins of the of the state and have a lot of, you know, outsized influence compared to this huge growing younger, right, more liberal in their social views, more tolerant of of, you know, LGBTQ appears and other people more more tolerant and more aware of, you know, the the disproportionate impacts of of all these different ideas and systems. Right? So I guess I take solace in the fact then that, like, they are leading the charge here in in taking control of their own community restoration. And and then in the process of that, building a model for what students are going to expect to see when their own kids go to school. A model that they'll expect to see in the rest of the world. And can prove that to, you know, the rest of Iowa, for the rest of the the country, and become a model,

Speaker 1 you know, for what that looks like. I think so. But but I will push back on that one. They shouldn't have to have that job. Right? Absolutely. They should not have to have that job, especially young black girls, young black folk. They shouldn't have to try to bring all the rest of us along. And I'm afraid, you know, I'm afraid they're gonna leave. Right? Why are why why are we staying? They're passing, again, this policy violence. Why are they gonna stay? Why are they gonna stay? And so, you know, it should not be on them. I mean, it makes me nuts because it's like they shouldn't have to be the ones that have to do this. So so we need transparent, almost white folks like us who are from Iowa, who have a vested interest to to truly just own our privilege and understand it's not their job. How can we help? How can we help? How can I help you? How is it me shutting up and listening to you? Yes. Fine. I will do that. I'll can I tell your story because I have a platform? Because I'm a a white lady,

Speaker 2 old and grizzled as I am? Yes. I will do that. Right? Kudos to the adults in these systems who are, you know, leading the charge and kind of taking that model, and then shame on the political leaders who are actively trying to sabotage,

Speaker 1 you know, those movements as well, certainly. And it's the people in positions of power that have to speak out. We need the white folks in state government to start using their platform in a more forceful way. And you can't fight crazy with being quiet.

Speaker 2 To kind of wrap things up here, I had asked you to think about a part of the piece that you maybe found the most compelling or that exemplified that work the most, and have you read it in your own words. And and maybe we can explain a little bit why that is. And that could probably end wrap us up on a on a bit of a high note here. Would you mind Oh my. Taking a look at that? And I would be interested in what stuck out to you. But I think that,

Speaker 1 when I was speaking to Ahmed, mister Musa, he said, we can try to undo the harm, but sometimes there's more to it. Just a simple conversation won't get over it. It might take years. It might take days or weeks. But mister Musa adds, if we can come to an agreement where kids can say, hey. This happened. We're gonna move on from it. We don't have to even speak to each other, but we can finish out the school year, and both of us will be successful in our own ways. He told me that's the winner, and that's that's that subtle sort of space. It's like, this doesn't have to look like everybody shakes hands and and and walks away friends. That's not what this is about. This is about getting kids through the day, and it's about providing wraparound services. Do they have food? Do they have a home? And that's all that's all part of this. So, I mean, that really stuck out to me as sort of emblematic. It's that tiny victory that adds up over time, and that's not comfortable for a lot of people because they wanna see big splashy change. But I just thought it was so like, yeah. You know, this getting a kid through a day sometimes is the best possible outcome because then there's a chance at there being a next day. Right? And so I think that really stuck out to me. Well, I think one of the other things too that was interesting to me and we haven't spoken about was Jonathan had such a spark when we talked about history.

Speaker 2 I did highlight that. That to me was incredible. I think especially in the I'll try to find it and, and try to emphasize it here. Because I think what what's incredible about that is if we think yeah. Here you go. You say, I asked Jonathan, who was a student who was in the think tank, and you had said that he had been arrested shortly after. Wasn't Oh. Yeah. He wasn't in the think tank. No. He actually just got he actually just got arrested. Yeah. Oh, gosh. Okay. Yeah. Well, yeah. You say you say, I ask Jonathan what his favorite subject is, he answers immediately history. He loves learning about World War II and Vietnam, Korea. He thinks his maternal grandfather served in World War II, and he says uncles fought in other wars. And and what I had put here, I said, here is a subject that is under underrated and underrepresented in the system. As we, you know, as again, let's put it in a policy focus. CRT? Right. Oh my god. It's it's part of the the laws against so called divisive concepts, but then also the bigger pushes that our governor has been really proud of in STEM. And, you know, the history is not a part of building that context for STEM, and yet here is a student who, you know, is at the margins of the system, who is involved in the legal system Yes. Here Yeah. And here he says this is the thing that he enjoys and that anchors him, he might not get to take a history class in the course of his day. I don't know what the curricular requirements are, but there's probably only a couple of years meant to do that. And then it might be math and science and, you know, all those other kinds of things too that we're emphasizing. But, yeah, that was a shocker too. It was that spark. Right? But but the thing was is that his entire

Speaker 1 I mean, he was great to let me sit there and and talk with him. But, man, we I I got the feeling he would have talked about that all day if if they would have let me stay there. But that's that but that's the thing. It's like, what's your favorite subject? History. You know? His immediately, straight away. And so but that to me was great. It's like, you don't expect to so what do people expect when they walk into, you know, a kid who's been arrested for having knives and and, you know, cannabis cartridges? Like, oh, some punk. No. It's some kid that loves history. Right. Right? The Korean punk. So let's just set aside that he may you know, his he's got some prices to pay. He did some stuff that's illegal. That but that doesn't discount from the fact that it's like there's more to it than that. Right. There's more to him. I think yeah. There's more to all those kids. Right? Alright. Well, the piece is The City That Kicked Cops Out of Schools and Tried Restorative Practices Instead.

Speaker 2 The author, Andy Kopsa, thank you so much for joining me today, Andy.

Speaker 1 Thanks for, letting me rant, and we could probably go on, but

Speaker 2 Anytime. Let yeah. We'll we'll do the b side later. Alright. Thanks, Andy.

Speaker 3 Thank you again for listening to Human Restoration Projects podcast. I hope this conversation leaves you inspired and right at push the progressive envelope of education. You can learn more about progressive education, support our cause, and stay tuned to this podcast and other updates on our website at humanrestorationproject.org.