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An incident report from Parents Defending Education exposed a multi-year relationship between Hartford Public Schools and the International Institute of Restorative Practices (IIRP) to order to train staff to implement restorative practices throughout the district.

The contracts totaled $445,195, and appear to have been funded, at least in part, through the ESSER COVID-19 relief/stimulus package passed on March 11, 2021.

"Restorative Practices" is an emerging field in the social sciences that studies how to strengthen relationships between individuals as well as social connections within communities.

On the surface, restorative practices might seem like a good thing, but in reality such practices are often used as a pathway for promoting political activism and educational "equity" (aka "critical race theory").

You can readily observe such activism on the IIRP website, which links to a number of racially divisive references, trainings and research materials. For example:

• A training on how to navigate "whiteness" that asks guiding questions like, "how do we create truly restorative communities amidst the persistence of White Supremacy?" This training assumes “whiteness” is a “social construct” used to maintain and exert "power and privilege over non-white individuals and communities” and further discusses the tools of whiteness, white fragility, and exerting whiteness in restorative practices.

• A number of articles (here, here, here, here) on the IIRP website directly reference critical race theory by name, such as "Toward a Tribal Critical Race Theory in Education".
• This article covers the importance of "acknowledging race" and achieving racial equity in school by holding "critical conversations about inequities” designed to make students feel uncomfortable.
• Another document encourages engaging in "critical conversations" by asking questions like: "what’s your earliest memory of becoming aware of your own white identity?" and "what privileges do you have that others do not?"
• The IIRP Facebook page includes a link to the 'Worldwide Climate and Justice Education Week', because climate justice is somehow related to restorative justice.
• IIRP even recommends a toolkit on restorative justice from the radical Southern Poverty Law Center, which features links to even more race-baiting articles on topics like what it means to be an anti-racist teacher and the classical roots of white supremacy in the curriculum.

According to the Hartford Public School (HPS) district, IIRP provided 22 days worth of training including
Train the Trainer, Intro to Restorative Practices, REST (Restorative, Equity, SEL, Trauma Informed), and Intro to Circles and Technical Support in the 2021-2022 academic year.

IIRP training was expanded in the 2022-2023 academic year.

Collectively, IIRP has already trained and certified over 1,700 HPS staff members, along with Administrators, Behavior Technicians, Student Engagement Specialists and Para-educators.

But HPS doesn't want to stop there, so it's still doing the "work" and making sure that new staff as well as staff who were not trained last year have the "opportunity" to get indoctrinated into restorative practices.

At the BOE meeting on December 19, 2023, a motion was passed to authorize the Superintendent to execute a contract with IIRP through June 30, 2024.

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