What happens when schools move beyond punishment and create meaningful opportunities for accountability, repair, and belonging? On this episode of Restorative Works!, host Dr. Claire de Mézerville López speaks with Erin Chávez, the restorative practices coordinator at Garfield STEM Magnet and Community School in Albuquerque, New Mexico, about building a safer, more connected school community through restorative practices.
Erin shares how Garfield STEM has integrated restorative practices across classrooms, families, and student support systems. She also highlights the Circle Keepers, a student leadership group that puts young people at the center of restorative implementation. What began with 12 students has grown to 25–40 students each year who facilitate circles, support school events, teach future educators, and share restorative practices with university and community partners. Through this work, students develop leadership, communication, and conflict-resolution skills while helping shape their school culture.
The conversation also explores a common question: Are restorative practices too "soft" to create safe schools? Erin explains how restorative practices can strengthen accountability and safety rather than diminish them. She discusses alternative-to-suspension supports, repair plans, mediation, reentry meetings, and the importance of helping students return to the community after harmful behavior. Erin also shares compelling data from Garfield STEM: over five years, the percentage of staff who reported feeling safe increased from 43% to 83%, while student perceptions of safety rose from 34% to 89%.
Erin is a 20-year educator, having worked as a teacher, school administrator, and currently a restorative practices coordinator. She also sponsors the school's Circle Keepers student group, putting students at the forefront of restorative practices. Her students have partnered with the University of New Mexico's DEI Department and the College of Education and Human Sciences to highlight the role of restorative practices in building safe, connected, and thriving school communities. Erin has experience training all levels of educators, from early childhood educators to university faculty. She is also the owner of The Restoring and Rising Collaborative, providing restorative practices implementation support to youth-serving institutions. She earned her bachelor's degree in elementary education and master's degree in educational thought and sociocultural studies from the University of New Mexico.
Tune in for a practical look at restorative practices in schools, student leadership, school safety, accountability, reintegration, and sustainable implementation.
Transcription
Claire de Mezerville López
Hello everybody and welcome to Restorative Works!, a podcast where learning, practice, and research open new paths for transformation. My name is Claire de Mezerville López, and it is a joy to introduce our guest, Restorative Practices Coordinator at Garfield STEM Magnet and Community School, Erin Chavez. Welcome, Erin. How are you today?
Erin Chavez
Thank you, I'm great. Thank you so much for having me.
Claire de Mezerville López
Thank you so much for being here. Before getting started, I'm going to share with our audience a little bit about yourself. Erin Chavez is from Albuquerque and earned her bachelor's degree in elementary education and master's degree in educational thought and sociocultural studies from the University of New Mexico. As a 20-year educator, she has worked as a teacher and school administrator and currently serves as the restorative practices coordinator at Garfield STEM Magnet and Community School, where she supports school leaders and staff in implementing restorative practices school-wide. She also sponsors the school's Circle Keepers Student Group, putting students at the forefront of restorative practices. Her students have partnered with UNM's DEI department and the College of Education and Human Sciences to highlight the role of restorative practices in building safe, connected, and thriving school communities. Erin has experience training all levels of educators from early childhood educators to university faculty. And she's also the owner of the Restoring and Rising Collaborative, providing restorative practices implementation support to youth-serving institutions. And Erin, I have been looking forward to our conversation. Welcome to the podcast. How about we start with you, with your own journey? What brought you to restorative practices and what is that discovery you cherish from that journey early on?
Erin Chavez
Yeah, Yeah, thank you. Thank you for that introduction. Like you said, I've been an educator for about 20 years. I'm always here in Albuquerque, born and raised here. I started out as a teacher in middle school; I really loved that. But as I got further into my career, I decided to make the transition to an administrator. So I was an assistant principal and interim principal for about four years at the middle and high school level. And while I was there, a big part of my job was dealing with discipline. And some of the things that I was seeing within that was when you're taught to be an administrator and how you deal with discipline, it becomes very black and white. So, I would follow that behavior matrix to a T. You do this, you get a day of detention. You do it again, you get two days. You do it again, you're suspended. But what I saw and found was just that it didn't change student behavior. And a lot of times, in fact, made it worse. So as an administrator, I had the opportunity; there was a big grant with our district to bring restorative practices to the middle schools. So, I was lucky to learn about restorative practices through that and be trained on circles and mediation and school-wide implementation. And it just really became such a successful part of the school that I was at for the few years I was able to help implement there.
So, I continued as an administrator doing that work, but during the pandemic, I had a middle school reach out to me, some folks who worked there, and say, hey, we have this position, this restorative practices coordinator. We're looking to transition when we come back from the pandemic, and would you consider coming? And for a long time I was like, no, no, I can't leave my school in the middle of the pandemic, you know, but I finally just, you know what, this is my passion, an opportunity that's not gonna come along probably anytime soon. So I took that opportunity about five years ago. So since then I've been at Garfield STEM Magnet as the coordinator and we've just really made a huge transition into restorative practices and seeing just such positive effects across the board and classrooms with families, with students. So that's how I got into where I'm at now. I just love it. And I think, you know, you asked something that a discovery I cherished, you know, that has come about from learning about and implementing restorative practices. And I think one of the things is probably the transformative powers of restorative practices that I've discovered, not just in the schools that I've worked at, that's a huge part of it- but in my personal life, too. You know, I say I wish I had these strategies and skills when I was raising my daughter, who's in her twenties now. It's just such a shift in mindset and the way I deal with relationships in my own life, being much more open to listening to others and solving conflict instead of shutting people out or holding grudges, as I used to be a huge grudge holder. So, it's really transformed the way I try to manage conflict in my own relationships with family, friends, and then, of course, within the school. I've just seen such positive impacts on every level of the school, whether that's with students and staff. So, I think that's the biggest thing that impact that has been on my life is just the transformation that I've seen all over.
Claire de Mezerville López
That is wonderful. That is so moving. This reminded me. I often mention in the podcast in interviews that I try to apply this with my children in my own personal life. And sometimes it's tough. It's y you really need to make that mind shift on working restorative practices with your own family. But I just had a very sweet moment because in Costa Rica our Mother's Day is on a different holiday. So, it was recently Mother's Day. And we were talking about things that the kids wanted to do for me that were actually things that they wanted themselves.
Erin Chavez
Mm-hmm. Yes.
Claire de Mezerville López
So we were having a conversation about well, but you need to know what each of us likes, not only what you like, and then apply it to the other person. And one of the children said, Well, mom, we can make a circle about what each of us likes tonight. And it felt like such a win.
Erin Chavez
I love that.
Claire de Mezerville López
And it kind of leads me to my next question because, on reading about your work and experience, I love the idea of putting students at the forefront of restorative practices. You know, getting the kids to have their initiatives and leadership going on. So, will you please tell us about the Circle Keepers student group?
Erin Chavez
Absolutely. Basically, they learn about restorative practices, you know, the what and the why, and also how to run circles so that they can help in the classrooms. They lead circles at family events and those types of things. But we started, like I said, we were coming back from the pandemic, so we were still virtual. And I had this small group of advisory students and said, hey guys, like we're getting ready to come back in. I really want you guys to help me, you think about how we bring kids back in. Because we really wanted to think about, you know, at this point, everybody was out of school. So we know that reintegration is a huge piece of restorative practices as, you know, before the pandemic, I wasn't at the school. So I didn't experience what the teachers were telling me was happening, but it sounded very chaotic, lots of harmful behaviors, lots of big fights, things like that. So this was really an opportunity to kind of reset and say, how do we bring the community back and rebuild in a way that everybody feels safe, welcome, happy, right? So these kids, they came up with their own ideas. And so they started off more as like just doing things for the students in the school. So they made little care packages for every student coming back. They put together mental health resources, planned things like outdoor dances, you know, just to bring the community back together. But as we moved into the next school year for the first full year back, that's when I told them like, okay, so now we're really gonna move into you guys helping out with circles and learning more about restorative practices. And they were all for it.
So we started off very small, it was about 12 kids. But each year we've grown and the focus has really become, they still do all the little nice things that they do for the school and the events and things, but they really do have a deep understanding of learning about restorative practices, the harmful effects of suspension and how restorative practices help with that. They learn about the school-to-prison pipeline, all those types of things. And mostly, you know, the circles, the leading of the circles. Because like you said, you know, if students don't have ownership of this, it's not going to go anywhere. They really have to feel like they're a part of it. And of course, we know students are sometimes more likely to listen and follow the lead of other students, right? So these kids have really become those leaders and our work has just expanded. You know, we fluctuate between 25 to 40 kids a year, depending on other things they have going on.
Claire de Mezerville López
Wow.
Erin Chavez
But yeah, so and now it's not just within the school, you know, we've reached out to other people in the community, other partners in the community to teach them about restorative practices. So we've gone to UNM and worked with the student teachers and teacher residents and their faculty. The students have done multiple different things to teach them about restorative practices, whether that's a presentation; they made a documentary one year. For the last two years, they've created art related to restorative practices. So that's how they have taught other teachers who are preparing to come into the school, why it's so important to start with these things. They run circles with them. And this last year, it really kind of grew because, you know, after it was like such a hit at the College of Education, then the Department of Health Sciences said, well, we want to see their art and hear about it. So we moved the art over there and did a presentation there. And then the Court of Appeals said, well, we want to see this and the School of Law, you know, so it's really cool to see how interested people are and also the connections that the kids can make with outside agencies and different types of people and really like honing their leadership skills too. You know, they come in, some of them just hate speaking in front of people. And I'm like, well, why did you join? You knew you were going to be leading circles. You know, you knew you were going to be talking in front of people. But the growth I see in them and what they say about how it helps them in their relationships too is just, it's just really great. I'm super proud of these kids. They are just such great leaders in the community.
Claire de Mezerville López
I love that. And I love it because when we talk about how we need to do restorative practices WITH the students instead of doing them FOR them or TO them. Erin, this is wonderful. We're going to take a very short break and then we're we're going to continue with this conversation. Please stay tuned.
Welcome back. I am so happy to share this conversation with Erin Chavez. Erin, the relationship between restorative practices and safety is quite important, especially when restorative practices are sometimes questioned as being soft. What would you advise communities implementing restorative practices when these questions arise?
Erin Chavez
Yeah, I think that this is always going to be a battle, you know, that has to be kind of fought, if you will, because we're always going to have new people coming into the community, you know, and it's like we talked about before, such a shift in mindset. And of course, you know, just messaging from all over about safety and hard on crime and all those kinds of things. But what I, you know, tell people I train or the staff or even families, you know, who are surprised sometimes with, you know, when their kid is not suspended or, you know, they find out another kid that didn't get what they thought they should get or whatever it might be. I always really try to explain that, you know, we are holding everyone accountable. In this case, we're talking kids with discipline, but restorative practices- we're really looking at how can we hold people accountable while maintaining that they are still a valued part of our community and they deserve that love and respect and dignity just for being a person. Right. And that accountability piece is hard for people. So I tell people, you know, sitting down face to face with someone you have harmed is really hard. Right. And this is what we avoid in life. We don't want to have hard conversations. We don't want to take responsibility and try to repair what we've harmed. So I think sometimes the impression is there's no consequences, but that's just not true, right? So there might be consequences, but they look different because we're really giving kids the opportunity to have a say in how they want to make things right. So, you know, we give them a chance to sit face to face with the other person, make a plan for repair. And if they're not willing to do that, then we assign it for them, right? It's not like they're going to get away with nothing, right? But I also think, you know, something that we do at our school that I believe helps to still maintain that sense of safety while, you know, removing kids if they need to because, you know, we can't have kids throwing chairs and punching people in class, that sort of thing. So of course, kids for some points may need to be removed, but we have our Student Success Center, which is our alternative to suspension program. So we have, you know, if kids go in there, they are spending the whole day with our students' success coordinator who's really great. And she works to help them reflect on what happened. They make a plan for repair. If there's time during the day, we help them to follow through with the plan. If there's something like a mediation they might need, I come in and do that mediation with them and the other person. We find out things maybe are going on at home so we can set them up with the counselor or the community school coordinator. So it's not just about punishment, right? It's about learning from the mistakes that they made and giving them the opportunity to change because ultimately that's what's going to make us safer is when we change those harmful behaviors. And we know that when we are excluding and excluding kids, it doesn't usually make the behavior change. And I think I always encourage people to look at your own data, you know? Look at your suspensions: do you feel like you have better relationships with those kids now? Do you feel like they're engaged in school and have learned from their mistakes and the answers are probably no.
There are some kids who it gets through to them, but not most kids. So I think I hope that answers your question. It's about holding everyone accountable and what I've seen too in our school is just this huge shift. And we do collect data to measure safety as best as we can. You know, in 2021, we gave the staff a survey. So that was our first full year of implementation, and only 43 % of staff said they felt safe at the school. And we gave the same survey last year, so five years later, and 83 % of staff said they felt safe. And the same thing was true for students. In 2021, only 34 % of them said they felt safe. Last year, 89% felt safe. So, in five years, you know, we've seen a huge change and it takes time. You know, that's always the last thing I emphasize is that implementation research tells us that it takes five to seven years to see true, change, sustainable change.
Claire de Mezerville López
Well and and five to seven years with consistency and with intention and with engagement of people. And and I can understand the fear of people that only know punitive responses in saying if we're doing something different, does that mean that we're doing nothing or that we're ignoring bad behavior or that we're letting go situations? But safety goes in all directions, and restorative practices actually means engaging more when behavior happens. I had this experience last week working with juvenile justice, and this kid that has worked wonderfully with us before, there was a... I'm just gonna say that there was a mental health situation that he was not being himself. So the counselor and I spoke with him and said, we really think it's better that you don't continue this session today. But it's not because you are doing something wrong, and you've been working wonderfully with us, and next week you are going to participate. And we just wanted you to make sure that we're not punishing you, we're just responding to a situation because we want you to feel welcome when you come back.
Erin Chavez
Mm-hmm.
Claire de Mezerville López
So that is that is tricky because you want to attend to the behavior, but you don't want to lose the student. You don't wanna lose the kid. But the group is observing what's happening and that's difficult.
Erin Chavez
Yeah. Right, and that's a huge part of it too is that reintegration piece when kids are out. You know, so that's why it's important when there's you know, if we suspend a student, which we have to sometimes, we always have a reentry meeting. You know, we require that the family comes in. Administrators are there. I'm there. We talked to the kids about what happened, but we also talk about, "Who's your support person here? Your go-to adult? Who's your go-to peer?" You know, "What do you need from us?" You know, "How are we gonna let teachers know you're having a hard time?" All those things. So, it's not just about here you're back, sign this contract, right? It's about how we're happy you're back, welcome back, let's get you the support you need so that this doesn't happen again.
Claire de Mezerville López
Yeah, that is so important. Erin, before wrapping up, would you tell us about the trainings you're currently working on? Maybe share some of the experience you've had supporting youth serving institutions?
Erin Chavez
Yeah, so over the summer I'm in the building stage of what is called the Restoring and Rising Collaborative. So really this is just kind of an extension of what I've done in the past. I had a friend and colleague that we had a similar business together supporting schools. So we were supporting schools, counselors, the city, youth and family services. So just all kind of different entities with implementing restorative practices for different settings, right? They're very different, you know, a community center and a preschool and very different. So this is just really me kind of expanding on that keeping some of those contacts and working with them, but moving into really trying to make more connections and also connect those people together, right? Because it's one thing to go from place to place and give these kind of isolated trainings, right? But what I have found in my own practice is that it can be lonely. Like sometimes you feel like the only, you know, kind of person or school that's doing the work and you need partners in this. You need like-minded, you know, peers who are doing the same work to talk with and problem solve with, you know, because it's hard and kids are changing and the things that I know maybe don't always work, right? And so I'm sure everyone has those experiences. So I've started, you know, with an alternative high school. I was lucky to start this summer. I'm looking forward to working with some counselors again and a preschool, some preschool teachers. So I'm just really trying to build and make it then so we can somehow find connections, whether that's through a book study or a training altogether, follow-ups altogether to share what we're doing and just really support one another.
Claire de Mezerville López
That's wonderful. Community work is done in community, right? Erin, thank you so much for being in the podcast today.
Erin Chavez
Thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed it.
Claire de Mezerville López
Yes, me too, and thank you all for tuning in to Restorative Works. To learn more about our guests, log on to IIRP.edu, and let's continue to build transformation through dignifying relationships, kind conversations, and stronger communities. Until our next episode.