As creators of The Peace Room™, we are a teacher and an administrator who have spent our entire careers (well over 50 years combined!) passionate about honoring the dignity and self-worth of students. We believe in empowering kids and equipping them with tools to self- monitor and build relationships.  The Peace Room™ is a direct reflection of our philosophy that kids, especially when home is not happy, deserve a safe harbor, permeated with joy and unqualified acceptance while they are with us each day at school.

The Peace Room™, as we know it today, grew out of our commitment to the premise that the atmosphere of schools should be one of mutual respect but that we in particular, as adults who chose this profession, must heed our greatest responsibility; we must treat students with kindness and care, acutely aware that we are entrusted with a precious piece of their childhood and what will become their memories as adults. We have been charged with the powerful responsibility of creating their image of the world and of adults and of themselves.

The Peace Room™ evolved over the years as we struggled to create a positive, practical implementable approach to discipline….one that would assist in the daily need of immediate behavior intervention in schools; a solution rooted in respect for students, staff, and families.  Our specific expertise is with elementary and middle school applications; however we know that the ideas are easily adapted to high school settings. We are happy to see that the other cities committed to the adoption of restorative justice are implementing it at all levels. We firmly believe in building a caring culture from the ground up beginning in the very early influential years!

While long-term visions of positive safe school climate are essential to the agenda, such systemic reforms do not rescue the struggling teacher and student who are ablaze with conflict in the hall right now at 9:25 AM on Monday morning. As practitioners, we need a solution for that as well and we need it right now; therefore The Peace Room™ as we know it was born! We are aware of “peace rooms” surfacing around the country, particularly those associated with the movement toward adoption of restorative justice in schools. We feel wonderfully validated but offer that The Peace Room™ we developed and refined years ago is what we believe to be a more comprehensive approach with a much greater emphasis on prevention than some of the current descriptions of peace rooms.  In addition, The Peace Room™ offers the advantage of an immediate and practical intervention.

The Peace Room™ is not a program.  Nor is it just a room with a “grown-up where you talk about stuff.”  The Peace Room™ is a place of refuge, prevention, redirection and yes, often restorative justice. It is a carefully designed atmosphere that invites students to use any of its features as a vehicle for restoration.  It is a place that students learn to visit, and teachers learn to send students to, before they get in trouble. A child bursts into the classroom late, angry, noisy, hungry, with fists poised.  An alert teacher greets the child at the door and gently guides them in the direction of The Peace Room™.  An attention seeking student continues to rob teacher and fellow peers of instruction time. Rather than an office visit, the student is diverted to The Peace Room™ while teaching and learning resume in the classroom. A student who has made a poor choice needs to understand its impact on others and how to restore relationships.  The teacher recognizes that a poor choice does not a bad person make and utilizes The Peace Room™ to debrief and build character incident-by-incident, day-by-day.  And so it goes, a slow steady march towards self-awareness and mindfulness by both students and staff. Peace reigns and we can celebrate success when the school community learns to recognize the underlying need that led to misbehavior and demonstrates a peaceful solution.

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