alumni profile
Le nn y B au t i sta ’ 0 9
Reshaping School Discipline
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n recent years, school discipline has taken a turn away from punitive justice and toward restorative justice—and Lenny Bautista ’09 fully supports the shift. He explains the difference this way: “It’s less about what you did and more about who you hurt.” Bautista has been on the front lines of the evolution in discipline, as lower school dean of students at Boston Collegiate Charter School in Dorchester. Now in his fourth year in the position, Bautista is in charge of school culture and discipline. “I oversee running assemblies and any cultural events that go on,” he says. “And, of course, I’m in charge of suspensions and detentions.” The school’s newly instituted code of conduct, he says, is “more about communication and community building, and hopefully that will lead to fewer suspensions.” Under the new approach, he says, “We’ll meet with whoever you impacted and try to repair the damage that was done.” Traditionalists might resist, but Bautista says, “I’m all for it. This way we get to the root of the problem, instead of just sending a disruptive kid to detention.” Bautista enjoys the varied tasks each day brings and the distinctly diverse culture of the school, whose mission is to see that every graduate is accepted to college. “We are unique in Boston because we are almost 50 percent white and 50 percent Black and Latino. Kids come here from all over Boston, with many different cultures and views. It allows us to speak about things that others might not experience until a later age.” Bautista’s experiences at Rivers may have paved the way for those conversations. When he arrived at Rivers, as a ninth grader, he underwent a bit
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of a “culture shock,” he says. He had attended Nativity Prep, in Jamaica Plain, which serves low-income Boston families; one of his teachers was a Rivers graduate who took him on a tour of the school when he was pondering his high school options. “The only time I had been around that many white people was when we played private schools in basketball,” says Bautista, who is Dominican. “But everyone was very welcoming.” As his choices narrowed to Rivers and a Catholic school, Bautista had a lunchtime meeting with his coaches and teachers, who made their preference clear. “They said, ‘There’s no way we’re letting you go anywhere but Rivers.’ So I shrugged and said, ‘I guess I’m going to Rivers.’” The choice proved fortunate— after an adjustment period. “The first couple of weeks, I remember coming home and telling my mom, ‘I don’t think this is for me.’ She said give it a year. And after a year, I fell in love with Rivers and said this is where I have to be.” After Rivers, at Trinity College, Bautista thought he might major in
economics. “After one econ class,” he recounts, “I knew it wasn’t for me.” Instead, he found his way into social services; a stint working with the children of incarcerated women was especially powerful. He left college thinking he’d become a social worker and began a master’s degree in the field, but the fit wasn’t quite right. Bautista took a job at a Somerville school, working with special-needs students, and that’s when it clicked: Education felt like the right setting and, after he’d held a few different positions at different schools, school culture and discipline felt like the right lens. He earned a master’s degree in educational leadership and policy studies at Boston University and joined Boston Collegiate Charter School in 2017. This year, of course, looks very different from other school years. As of mid-October, Bautista said there was no set date for an in-person return. Typically, he’ll work at camps and academic programs over the summer months, but with those programs on hiatus over the past summer, he says, “This is the longest I’ve gone without having students. It’s a long period of time, and the reason I chose this career is that I like having a student-facing role.” It may be delayed, but Bautista is eagerly awaiting the day he can return to the work he loves: supporting students by uncovering the root causes of behavior issues. “We’re finding out if they’re having a bad day, or just need something like a pencil. Sometimes kids will act out just because they don’t want to ask for a pencil,” he says. “Instead of detention, the conversation starts with ‘What do you need? How can I help you?’” — JD
