Partnership with U. City High School has led to a drop in suspensions, improved school culture.
For more than a decade, Rowhea Elmesky, an associate professor of education in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has worked with educators and students in University City School High School to create a culture of trust, respect and shared responsibility. The result: a positive learning environment where suspensions are down, attendance and engagement are up and students say they feel heard and valued.
“Honoring the heart — that is what we’re talking about here,” Elmesky said. “And that is not what we hear about very often in education. We hear about test scores. We hear about all of the things related to academics. But we forget that academics are connected to the emotional. So when students are feeling valued and cared about, they are going to learn better.”
Elmesky was honored at the 2024 Confluence Symposium April 10 at the .ZACK Theatre. She received the William H. Danforth St. Louis Confluence Award, which recognizes researchers and community partners who work together to address regional challenges. Jack Kirkland, an associate professor and a 54-year veteran of the Brown School, also was honored with a lifetime achievement award for his long-standing work in East St. Louis, Ill., and his current project in Cahokia Heights, Ill.
“In academia, our focus is often on external funding awards, publication acceptances and journal impact factors. These are important and, with this award, we have an opportunity to also focus on community impact,” Provost Beverly Wendland said. “Purposeful and intentional engagement with the community around us, paired with innovative and exceptional academic research, can create real, tangible change in people’s lives.”
That certainly is true for U. City High School Principal Michael Peoples, recent alumna Kaya Blount, restorative justice instructor Matt Tuths and district administrator Susan Hill, who joined Elmesky on stage to discuss their decade-long collaboration, which started shortly after the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson.
“When I first started with the district, my impression was that there was a lot of pain, misunderstanding and mistrust,” Elmesky said. “It was across the board — teachers to administrators, students to teachers, students to students. So it became a question of, How do we go in and make a difference?”
Elmesky and her then-graduate student Olivia Marcucci, now an assistant professor of education at Johns Hopkins University, immersed themselves in the school. Implementing a collaborative critical research model, they led listening sessions; held research circles, where classroom videos were collectively reviewed with teachers and students; introduced restorative justice practices; and tracked outcomes.
“What Rowhea brought to our school district was identifying a problem, really looking at quantitative and qualitative data and, based on that data, coming up with specific action steps we could implement,” Hill said. “Based on her work, we gradually shifted our policies to being less punitive and more restorative.”
The school introduced daily restorative listening circles to build relationships, promote student well-being and address harm. More recently, it launched a restorative justice class, the first in the state. Since the launch of the partnership, school suspensions have plummeted 41%.
In addition, teachers and students both report increased levels of respect and trust for one another.
“A decade ago, a student told me, ‘Something we should change is the student-teacher relationships … we’re human.’ Now a decade later, there is a new rhythm in the building,” Elmesky said.
Peoples agrees.
“We are not perfect, but I am confident that 95% of our students would report that they have a positive relationship with at least one adult in our building that they know they can go to,” Peoples said. “This journey that we started together has resulted in a culture that centers students while promoting safety and accountability.”
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