“Beloved community is formed not by the eradication of difference but by its affirmation, by each of us claiming the identities and cultural legacies that shape who we are and how we live in the world.”
We All Belong. We All Are Valued.
Our mission at ARISE is to empower ourselves with the knowledge, skills, and agency to become highly educated, humanizing, critically conscious, intellectual, and reflective leaders in our community. Restorative Justice Praxis is how we bring that mission to life every day.
Restorative Justice is an ancient Indigenous concept, practiced for centuries all over the world, that centers community and relationships. When harm happens, it creates a break in relationship. Our goal is to repair that harm by addressing the needs and obligations it created, together with everyone involved.
Our Restorative Justice TeamThe Heart of Our Circles
Our Restorative Justice team, Dean Younger, Leslie, and Antonio, leads community circles, restorative conversations, and family conferencing. They walk alongside students and staff every day to build relationships, repair harm, and keep ARISE a place where every Warrior Intellectual belongs.
The Warrior Intellectual Codes of Respect
Restorative Justice Praxis asks all of us to uphold a consistent practice rooted in our Core Values and our Codes of Respect.
How Warrior Intellectuals Rise Up
Warrior Intellectuals follow strict codes to help them live life with integrity and love. These are the school-wide expectations we hold together.
We use the bathroom before school, during passing periods, lunch, and after school. To leave class, students get permission and take the pass, one at a time, and never in the first or last 10 minutes of class.
Electronics are for before school, lunch, and after school. Headphones are off and out of ears. Phones go in the classroom phone holder at the start of each class. Families, please call the main office during the school day.
We clean up after ourselves, treat school property with care, return borrowed materials, and save our creative expression for the right places.
Learning is a right and a privilege. We come to school with clear minds, free of drugs and alcohol.
Our clothes reflect self-respect: no hateful language, curse words, sexualized images, or gang or drug references, and undergarments are not visible.
We use language that is affirming and humanizing, take responsibility for our words, and never use racist, sexist, homophobic, or hateful language.
ARISE is a safe space to learn and be. We respect physical boundaries, and fighting, instigating fights, or bullying are never tolerated.
Attendance is a key to success. Late students sign in at the front desk, and absences are excused with a dated note from a doctor, court, or guardian. Families may excuse up to 9 non-consecutive absences a year without a doctor's note.
Safety, Joy, and Belonging
Restorative Practices are how we build and sustain a safe, inclusive community, strengthen relationships, and repair them when a fracture happens. They show up at every level of ARISE.
Whole School
- Mission, vision, and Core Values
- The physical space
- Systems and policies that are restorative in nature
- Student Support Services
- Team hooks initiatives
In the Classroom
- Culturally responsive pedagogy
- Classroom circles
- Playing games
- Routines and rituals
- Warm demander engagement
- Support services and break space
Each of Us
- Building relationships and humanizing each other
- Self care and self reflection on identity, privilege, and power
- Honoring the strengths of family and culture
- Authenticity: vulnerability, humility, and being an ally
- Growth mindset: believing in the impossible and embracing failure
Moments to Learn and Restore
School discipline is often reduced to a punitive system, where students pay consequences without guidance to find the root cause or build a solution. We do it differently. We recognize that harm and violations of our Codes of Respect will happen, and we treat those moments as opportunities to teach, learn, and restore relationships.
Consistency matters. When our practices and consequences are clear and consistent, our whole community understands our shared commitment to growing as Warrior Intellectuals.