Closure

Closure is simply getting together with a student following some kind of behavioral incident to try to re-engage the student toward more appropriate behavior. The goals of closure are:

1. Ensure that the student knows what the behavior of concern was. What did they do wrong?

2. Ensure that the student knows how they may have handled the situation differently and how they may do so in the future.

3. Most importantly, closure is your arena to communicate to the student that it is their behavior that we want to change, that we support and like them and welcome them back. Relationships are everything at MRA and we go out of our way to separate in the mind of the student their behavior from our feelings about them. "I like you; I do not like your behavior"

There are different kinds of closure.

Type 1 Closure.  Ideally, we want there to be a discussion-a dialogue-where the student can speak their perspective and the teacher can as well and the two can come to some amicable agreement as to what    occurred, how it should have been different, how we will handle this moving forward. Often an apology is warranted. We can present this to the student and suggest this. However, we do not demand an apology and we do not hold a student in Mediation until an apology is given.

Type 2 Closure. At times a student will not be in agreement with staff, will not see the errors of their ways and will not take ownership of their behavior. In these situations staff can just reiterate to the student what the expectations are moving forward-- and then leave the student with a word of encouragement e.g. "In my classroom we are respectful to one another. This is not negotiable. I am confident you can be respectful in my classroom and I look forward to you coming back to class". Do not get into a power struggle.