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In what appears to be a contradiction within New York City’s public schools, student suspensions have decreased during the first half of the academic year, even as incidents of felony assaults have risen.
Recent figures from the Department of Education reveal that from July to December 2025, there were 9,193 suspensions, marking an 8.3% reduction compared to the same timeframe the previous year. However, serious assaults increased by 5%, with 109 cases reported, up from 103 in 2024.
The most stringent disciplinary measure, known as a superintendent’s suspension—which involves a removal from school for six days or more to a designated facility—saw an even steeper decline. In the last six months of 2025, there were 1,608 such suspensions, a 21.6% drop from the 2,052 recorded in the same period in 2024.
Education officials attribute this reduction in suspensions to the implementation of restorative justice practices.
“Schools across the city are increasingly adopting restorative practices, peer mediation, and in-school counseling, alongside referrals to external mental health services, to address student needs. This approach helps maintain student engagement in their education while ensuring safe school environments,” a Department of Education spokesperson explained.
But restorative justice is a controversial alternative to strict discipline that is geared towards mediation and conflict resolution. In some forms, violent and problem pupils sit in harm-reduction “circles” with teachers and their victims.
Critics say fewer suspensions and restorative justice programs is a woke band-aid that offers little long-term change in bad student behavior.
“Restorative justice is masking the broader behavioral issues because that’s discouraging consequences altogether,” Manhattan Institute education behavioral researcher Jennifer Weber said. “Restorative justice hasn’t been shown to be effective, it hasn’t shown to affect a student’s behavior.”
Brooklyn Citywide Council on High Schools member Linda Quarles was also troubled by the new system.
“If I say I don’t want to face my bully, I become the problem. Nothing happens.” she said. “They use this as a way of completely reframing of what’s suspendable.”
NYC has spent upwards of $100 million on restorative justice practices since 2015, according to a Manhattan Institute study authored by Weber.
Weber pointed out that Big Apple schools are facing an enrollment and chronic absenteeism crisis, and fewer students means fewer suspensions.
“The suspension measure is such a bad measure in looking at overall behavior, because suspensions have been discouraged, and the decision is ultimately made by school administrators,” Weber said.
Despire assaults being up, most crimes were down in city school, police data showed.
The seven major index crimes monitored by the NYPD — murder, rape, robbery, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny, and auto theft — declined to 264 in school for the first half of the school year, down from 290 over the same period the year before, according to police data.
There were 707 fewer weapons recovered in schools in the first half of the school year compared to the same period the year before, with 3,487 recovered, police sources said.