NYC Schools Replaced Discipline With Therapy. It’s Blowing Up In Their Faces

Interesting high school, nyc, suspension, violence admin May 27, 2026 0 Comments

NYC Schools Replaced Discipline With Therapy. It’s Blowing Up In Their Faces

New York City (NYC) handed out fewer school suspensions this year, but violence inside its classrooms climbed anyway.

City schools recorded 9,193 suspensions between July and December 2025, an 8.3% decline from the same stretch a year earlier, while serious assaults rose to 109 from 103, the New York Post (NYP) reported. The toughest penalty, known as a superintendent’s suspension, dropped 21.6%, falling to 1,608 from 2,052, according to data.

New York Police Department (NYPD) data showed police arrests for felony assault involving people under 21 during school hours grew to 34 from 28, Manhattan Institute fellow Jennifer Weber reported in the Washington Post. Weber tied the divide to restorative justice, the city’s favored answer to misconduct, which trades punishment for a guided talk among the offender, the victim and a staff facilitator. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: School Violence Prevention Fund Being Used To ‘Welcome’ Violent Immigrant Children)

Following an altercation, the school brings the offending student, the classmate he harmed and an adult facilitator together in a circle, according to Weber’s Washington Post piece. The facilitator leads them through a prescribed list of questions covering what happened, who got hurt and how the wrongdoer can set things right. The talk itself becomes the punishment.

The city seemingly steered around $97 million into the programs from 2015 to 2024, starting the year rule changes made suspensions hard to impose, according to a Manhattan Institute report. School districts across the country later copied the model.

Research has not backed the shift. A 2022 evaluation of high schools in NYC’s District 18 turned up no measurable effect on disciplinary incidents or suspension use, the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) reported.

“The suspension measure is such a bad measure in looking at overall behavior, because suspensions have been discouraged, and the decision is ultimately made by school administrators,” Weber told the NYP.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani left $6 million in city restorative justice money out of his preliminary budget, Chalkbeat reported. Some advocates still credit the method for the calmer suspension figures, and Bronx Legal Services attorney Nelson Mar said alternatives to removal are taking firmer hold in schools.

The stakes reach past paperwork. Youth victimization across the city hit a five-year high in 2024, with police investigating 2,400 felony assaults against minors, CBS News New York reported.