Staff circle

On Monday, we had another staff circle with AV running it. I was excited about this because he was taking the initiative and we were getting more staff buy in on the circles. I mean we all got trained in it and were all behind it so it was good to see that people still believed in the process. I think that people realizing that we had to make it happen collectively for it to work. The process of restorative justice is a commitment. It is a different way of living. This was also a meeting that included all of the teachers on staff. This was the first time to happen since we started rebooting the circles.

AV started with asking questions as to how we would run staff circles and when. A problem that I saw was that everyone was having a say but there was no one taking notes other than me and so no consensus was actually made. We said what we wanted to the answers but we didn't actually make any decisions about them. 


As we moved on, the circle invariably moved to a venting session. It's telling that our circles keep becoming a venting session. Teachers are frustrated. The students are dropping out like flies. This time of the year is always very hard for people. Winter is always a hard time. Christmas heightens the awareness of students' disparity. The sun ain't out. SAD Seasonal affective disorder. LOL! It was around this time that all the craziness was going on last year. Winter is a fucked up quarter.

We also recognized that the staff circle was incomplete without our principal and BY. For RJ to work at our school we need complete buy in and not having BY a part of RJ is a serious problem. 

Probably one of the best things that came out of the circle was our recognition that we have to hang out more as a staff. When our school works best, we are a family. RJ is a way for our family to hang out. Also, it was a way of interacting with a new staff member (NL)  that I rarely interact with.