This is the third post in a series addressing the 2018 Settlement Collaboration Agreement between Minnesota Department of Human Rights (MDHR) and Hopkins 270 to address racial disparities in exclusionary discipline. In Part 1, I addressed my uncovering the Agreement. In Part 2, I analyzed the primary terms of the Agreement. In this Part 3, I address the absence of any requirements in the MDHR-Hopkins 270 Agreement relating to the application of Restorative Justice/Practices/Culture in Hopkins 270.
The District Administration Affirmatively Stated the Agreement Required Implementation of Restorative Practices…
On December 20, 2022, a Restorative Culture Update1 was provided to the Hopkins School Board during its Workshop session. The primary presenter was Maria Bearre-Boynne, the District Restorative Culture Coordinator. Ms. Bearre-Boynne used a graphic taken from the 2022 MDHR Report that I addressed in a prior post, as shown below, that pointed out disparities in subjective discipline across the State of Minnesota (with MDHR having changed the metric from exclusionary discipline to subjective discipline).
While presenting the above slide (5 of 11) to the Hopkins School Board, Bearre-Boynne stated:
Hopkins Public Schools entered into an Agreement with MDHR in the 2017-2018 school year to address these disparities through the implementation of restorative culture practices district wide.
This was not an off-the-cuff, ill-spoken comment. Bearre-Boynne read that statement from her prepared presenter notes, as shown below from the posted, original full PowerPoint slide deck:
You can watch this part of the presentation here (the full presentation begins earlier at 36:38 on the YouTube video)…
The Collaboration Agreement DID NOT REQUIRE Implementation of Restorative Practices
Not withstanding Bearre-Boynne’s assertion, and the failure of Dr. Mhiripiri-Reed or any member of the school board in correcting that statement, there was NO REQUIREMENT in the Collaboration Agreement for Hopkins to implement restorative practices, restorative justice, restorative culture, or anything else related to the “Restorative _____” movement.
FOREWARNING:
I expect to address this point in much greater detail in later posts.
Causing Confusion on the Hopkins School Board
As a follow-up to Bearre-Boynne’s presentation, Rachel Hartland asked an important question relating to whether there was data that supported the activities being done by the Restorative Culture team. Below is the video of Hartland’s question and the response from the team [spoiler: no, there was not]:
The response that there were no data points as of December 2022 that would demonstrate success of the Restorative Culture program clearly struck then Board Treasurer Steven Adams, who responded with concern, questioning that if there were no data demonstrating success, then when would the Hopkins 270 district be “out of the penalty box” with MDHR?
I’ve placed a clip below and I suggest the reader pay attention to not only Adams’ comments, but moreover, the response from Dr. Mhiripiri-Reed:
Adams comments suggest to me that he believed Hopkins 270 had been cited by MDHR for violations based on discriminatory actions and that there were requirements placed on Hopkins 270 under the 2018 Agreement for implementing anti-racism program, including a requirement for a restorative culture / practices program — in line with what Bearre-Boynne expressly told the School Board in her presentation.
Here was Mhiripiri-Reed’s response:
If I might say Director Adams, we are not in the penalty box. We are in a space where the way we are engaging in these practices is a model for other districts. We are more progressive than most other districts. And we have received the recognition for being in that space. So it’s not a penalty box, it’s more…
Adams’ interrupted her with the following:
Well, we were one of 43 districts that were selected for implementing discriminatory practices, and they didn’t give us any warning that this was coming they called a press conference even before they had notified us that this was going to be the situation, and we’ve been working to you know get out of it ever since but…
Clearly there was confusion and it was certainly not resolved with Mhiripiri-Reed response. I know the impression I was left with after re-watching this exchange and knowing the truth about the 2018 Collaboration Agreement. And it makes me very uncomfortable.
What are your thoughts about what I have found? Are you comfortable with Dr. M-Reed’s response to Steven Adams? Why? Please comment below.
To Be Continued in Part 4:
Final Thoughts on the 2018 MHDR-Hopkins Agreement
- The Restorative Culture Update presentation, delivered to the Hopkins School Board during its Workshop session on 12/20/2022, is available for download at: ↩︎
Hopkins 270 Blog 
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