Examining the Efficacy of Circles on School Safety and Student Outcomes in Boston Public Schools, Massachusetts, 2017-2020 (ICPSR 39254)

Version Date: Dec 2, 2025

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Principal Investigator(s):
G. Roger Jarjoura, American Institutes for Research

https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR39254.v1

Version V1

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Summary

There is increasing evidence that promoting social-emotional learning and positive teacher-student relationships can prevent school violence. Many schools are turning to restorative practices to promote safe schools. When engaging in restorative practices, the emphasize focuses on learning and growth. When harm has occurred, restorative practices emphasize communication and accountability. Restorative practices in schools have been associated with decreased bullying and school violence, improvements in positive school climate and decreased use of suspensions. The current study presents implementation and impact findings of a cluster randomized control trial examining a school-wide restorative practices model called Circle Forward.

Citation

Jarjoura, G. Roger. Examining the Efficacy of Circles on School Safety and Student Outcomes in Boston Public Schools, Massachusetts, 2017-2020. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2025-12-02. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR39254.v1

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Funding

United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. National Institute of Justice (2017-CK-BX-0013)

Subject Terms

Geographic Coverage

Smallest Geographic Unit

None

Restrictions

Access to these data is restricted. Users interested in obtaining these data must complete a Restricted Data Use Agreement, specify the reason for the request, and obtain IRB approval or notice of exemption for their research.

Distributor(s)

Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research
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Time Period(s)

2017 -- 2018 (Academic Year), 2018 -- 2019 (Academic Year), 2019 -- 2020 (Academic Year)

Date of Collection

2018 -- 2020

Data Collection Notes

  1. The raw qualitative data from the Interviews and Focus Groups were not made available. The study team provided codes and response counts released as a restricted data file.

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Study Purpose

The purpose of this research was to study the effectiveness of a restorative practices intervention designed to enhance school safety through improved school climate. The Suffolk University Center for Restorative Justice (CRJ) developed a model called the Circle Forward (CF) Model of Whole-School Change. The CF model is a whole-school model in which the practice of circle is at the center of the training, implementation, and organizational change. In the CF model, the circle is the dominant practice for prevention, relationship building, and responsiveness. American Institutes for Research (AIR), in partnership with Boston Public Schools (BPS) and CRJ, examined the effectiveness of CF on school safety and student outcomes in high-risk communities in Boston, under Category 2 of the National Institute of Justice's (NIJ's) Comprehensive School Safety Initiative.

Study Design

The research team randomly assigned 30 schools, with schools serving 6-8 grade students and schools serving 9-12 grade students assigned separately, to either the intervention group (n=15 schools) or the business-as-usual group (n=15) in February of 2018. The intervention and business-as-usual schools were equivalent on all variables at the time of random assignment.

Full implementation of the Circle Forward (CF) model began in treatment schools during the 2018-2019 school year. During the 2018-2019 school year, a Center for Restorative Justice (CRJ) coach worked with treatment school restorative leadership team (RLT) members to implement the CF model at their school. During the 2019-2020 school year, the CRJ coach worked with RLT members to gradually transition implementation responsibilities to the RLT. By spring 2020, RLT members were expected to lead CF implementation at their school.

Implementation and impacts were intended to be analyzed during year 1 (2018-2019) and year 2 (2019-2020) of implementation in treatment schools. Before implementation began, one control school dropped out of the study and two additional treatment schools closed during the first year of the study. As it is not possible to measure outcomes in schools that no longer exist, the final analytic sample includes students in the 13 treatment schools that remained open and the 15 control schools.

To evaluate implementation, the research team employed attendance records from the CF trainings, in-person observations of one training, implementation surveys from all intervention schools, and interviews and focus groups with staff members and students in the eight site visit schools.

To evaluate the impact, the research team relied on extant administrative data for the 2017-2018 school year to the 2019-2020 school year. Data included student-level data on suspensions, attendance, academic achievement, and demographic data. School-level variables were also calculated using the student-level data.

Sample

The CRJ worked with district leaders to recruit from among the highest-need middle and high schools. Schools were targeted for recruitment if they received Title I funding, had a high percentage of children from low-income families, and were among the lowest performing 20 percent of schools.

Time Method

Longitudinal: Panel

Universe

Boston public middle and high schools that received Title I funding, had a high percentage of children from low-income families, and were among the lowest performing 20 percent of schools

Unit(s) of Observation

Individual

Data Source

school administrative data

Data Type(s)

Mode of Data Collection

Description of Variables

The data includes variables about students, such as attendance, days missed due to suspension incidents, and academic achievement, as well as feedback from teachers regarding their training, implementation, and outcomes related to the CF model.

Demographic data, including variables regarding race/ethnicity, gender, enrollment in individualized education programs, economic status, school type, and if the student was an English language leaner were also collected.

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Original Release Date

2025-12-02

Version History

2025-12-02 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

  • Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.

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Notes

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  • One or more files in this data collection have special restrictions. Restricted data files are not available for direct download from the website; click on the Restricted Data button to learn more.