Dec. 12, 2019 — Researchers in the UTSA College of Public Policy, assistant professor of social work Jelena Todic and criminal justice lecturer and restorative justice coordinator Robert Rico are joining forces with Up Partnership and three local school districts in a collaborative applied research project to rethink discipline in San Antonio schools.
The UTSA team is assisting Up Partnership with Rethinking Discipline Community of Practice implementation and process evaluation. The project, funded by the Strive Together Promising Practice Fund grant, is one of the My Brother’s Keeper San Antonio collaborative initiatives.
Up Partnership, a nonprofit and community-based organization that facilitates the MBKSA, is dedicated to ensuring that “all young people across Bexar County are ready for the future.” My Brother’s Keeper San Antonio is a network of cross sector partners, including UTSA, working together to change outcomes for boys and young men of color.
The Rethinking Discipline Community of Practice, which includes nine elementary, middle and high schools in San Antonio from Harlandale, Judson and San Antonio ISDs, is just one of the many initiatives aiming to reach this goal.
The Community of Practice aims to introduce, scale and accelerate implementation of restorative practices in San Antonio schools. Evidence indicates that school-based restorative justice can increase students’ sense of school connectedness and decrease suspensions/expulsions, ultimately increasing graduation rates and interrupting school-to-prison pipeline.
Rooted in the practices of the indigenous people of North America and New Zealand and the peace philosophy of the U.S. Mennonite community, restorative justice seeks to involve all impacted by wrongdoing to collectively repair harms and make things right. Any misconduct is a violation of people and relationships rather than a violation of the law or school rules. As a result, violations create obligations to address the needs of those who experienced harm, those responsible for harm, and the community.
Providing an opportunity for those most directly impacted by the harm to be involved in responding to and repairing the harm is a central feature of the restorative process. Ultimately, restorative justice is a relational process that integrates support with accountability.
The research team, which also includes an M.S.W. student, Norma Almazan, has been collecting quantitative and qualitative implementation process data, using it to inform monthly capacity building and problem solving sessions.
The final process evaluation report, due Feb. 1, 2020, will identify implementation facilitators and barriers and evaluate the local implementation efforts against the recommended best practices. The research team hopes the report will assist the local schools, districts and Up Partnership in ongoing strategic planning, resource allocation, and funding efforts.
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Covidence is a systematic & scoping review tool used to streamline the process of screening and reviewing articles. Using this software, research teams can easily import studies, perform automatic deduplication, and extract data using templates. This workshop will show attendees how to start a review in Covidence, add collaborators, and get started on screening.
Virtual (Zoom)In this workshop, attendees will be introduced to Pandas, a Python tool for working with data easily. It makes it simple to organize and analyze information when data is organized and categorized, like spreadsheets or tables.
Group Spot B, John Peace LibraryEach fall and spring semester, students convene at the Main Campus at UTSA with booths, ideas and prototypes. A crowd of judges, local organizations, students, faculty and sponsors walk around and talk to the students about their projects and ask questions. Students get the real-life experience of "pitching" their project with hopes of getting funding or support to move to the next level.
UTSA Convocation Center, Main CampusJoin the doctoral candidates for the Doctoral Conferreal Ceremony and celebrate their accomplishments.
Arts Building Recital Hall, Main CampusCelebrate the graduates from the Carlos Alvarez College of Business, College of Education and Human Development, Margie and Bill Klesse College of Engineering and Integrated Design and University College.
AlamodomeCelebrate the graduates from the College for Health, Community and Policy, College of Liberal and Fine Arts and College of Sciences.
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