'Restorative Justice' Offers Alternative Discipline Approach

Timote Vaka, 18, a senior at Ralph J. Bunche High School in Oakland, Calif., is participating in an anger-management program at the behest of the alternative school.

—Ramin Rahimian

By Nirvi Shah

Timote Vaka was running out of second chances.

When he struck a member of a rival basketball team in October after he misinterpreted his opponent's light shoulder bump for something more aggressive, he faced losing his spot on the team and being kicked out of Ralph J. Bunche High , an alternative school in Oakland, Calif.

Vaka, 18, was sent to Bunche High after an incident at his previous high school, also in Oakland. He'd been mistakenly accused of cutting class and was taken to an assistant principal's office. "He was trying to call my Pops," Vaka says. To stop the call, he ended up...