Brooklyn Friends School treats interpersonal conflict as developmental opportunity rather than disciplinary infraction. Crissy Cáceres, who leads the 158-year-old Quaker institution, rejects the term “bullying” when describing student missteps, preferring “mistake making” as a framework that acknowledges children’s neurological development while holding them accountable for their actions.
“Bullying is not a hot topic issue at Brooklyn Friends School,” Crissy Cáceres states directly. “That is not to diminish that there are incidents where the outside world would describe it as bullying. And we would describe it as children growing.”
The distinction carries weight beyond semantics. Brooklyn Friends School operates in downtown Brooklyn, serving students from age two through twelfth grade. The school’s conflict resolution methods stem from Quaker principles of peace, integrity, and community that have guided the institution since its 1867 founding. Crissy Cáceres applies these values through restorative practices that prioritize understanding over punishment.
Truth as Foundation
Three seventh graders recently thought they had discovered a clever workaround for inappropriate language—replacing letters in offensive words so the meaning remained clear while the actual terms went unspoken. Their first meeting of the day occurred at 8:20 a.m. with Crissy Cáceres, who began by establishing ground rules for the conversation.
“The first thing is that we cannot have a conversation unless you begin with truth,” Crissy Cáceres told the students. “So you have the gift of taking this opportunity to only connect to the truth. And without that, I actually can’t help you and you can’t help yourselves.”
The students received several seconds to consider their responses. The first child raised his hand and described what actually occurred. The second student provided additional details. The third student contributed their perspective. One child admitted he had initially lied to his father about involvement, claiming innocence and reporting that his father threatened expulsion for whoever committed the offense.
Crissy Cáceres asked what changed when the father learned his own child was responsible. The student acknowledged his father “no longer used the word expelled.” Another student in the group recognized the shift: “Because his father now had empathy because it was his own child.”
This observation opened a discussion about how empathy develops more easily when someone has a direct connection to another person’s humanity. Crissy Cáceres explained that engaging in harmful behavior distances students from recognizing the humanity of those they hurt. The school cannot function when students take themselves further from that recognition.
Developmental Reality
When parents report their child experienced bullying, Crissy Cáceres offers a perspective that challenges conventional terminology. She explains that true bullying requires three elements: active intent, understanding of personal gain from the behavior, and conscious effort to hide or deny responsibility for impact.
“Their frontal lobes have not fully developed enough for all of those three things to be true,” Crissy Cáceres notes. “So that is not bullying, that’s mistake making.”
The school acknowledges neurological development while avoiding excuses for harmful behavior. Children’s brains continue developing through their mid-twenties, with the prefrontal cortex — responsible for impulse control and consequence evaluation — maturing last.
Crissy Cáceres reminds parents that their own children will eventually make similar mistakes and would want the school to maintain its restorative orientation rather than shift to punishment. This framing encourages parents to consider how they hope the school will respond when their child occupies the position of having caused harm.
The three seventh graders spent their entire day engaged in restoration. They met with Crissy Cáceres, participated in discussions about their choices, and reflected on impact. The students later wrote letters to Crissy Cáceres without being assigned to do so. When she asked why they sent the correspondence, they explained that she had told them the conversation transcended immediate school consequences.
“You told us that what was about to be happening in your office wasn’t about what was happening at Brooklyn Friends School right there, that it was about our lives,” the students wrote. “That if we took seriously what we were about to have a conversation about, it would affect us for our whole lives.”
Classroom Restoration
A visiting committee observed Brooklyn Friends School for three days, attending classes and meetings across all divisions. During one second-grade classroom visit, a student engaged in disruptive behavior. The observers watched to see how the teacher would respond with outsiders present.
The teacher brought all students into a circle and initiated immediate restoration. The child at the center described their actions. Other students asked questions: “What made you do that right now? What were you thinking about?” They offered suggestions for different choices. The teacher then returned to the lesson.
Classrooms at the school often arrange seating in circular formations, reflecting Quaker Meeting for Worship traditions where all participants face one another as equals. This physical arrangement supports the pedagogical philosophy. Students practice listening to one another, speaking when they have something meaningful to contribute, and recognizing that everyone’s perspective holds value.
Brooklyn Friends School implements a student handbook policy addressing behavioral expectations. Crissy Cáceres emphasizes that consequences depend on whether behavior suggests a student needs support beyond what the school can provide. Causing “undue harm” that demonstrates inability to benefit from the school’s methods would indicate a need for different educational setting.
During her tenure beginning in 2019, zero students have been asked to leave Brooklyn Friends School for behavioral reasons. The handful of students who could not remain at the school left because their social-emotional or academic needs exceeded available resources. Crissy Cáceres addresses these situations by acknowledging the school cannot uphold its agreement with families if it lacks capacity to serve a child’s requirements.
Crissy Cáceres connects Brooklyn Friends School’s restorative methods to broader cultural conversations about accountability and consequences. She rejects what she terms “cancel culture”—the notion that someone’s humanity can be erased through a single action or series of mistakes.
“Everything I’ve just said would make the cancel culture an impossibility,” Crissy Cáceres explains. “The idea is that nobody is cancelable. To say that is to say that your humanity and your life suddenly got snuffed, and it went away. No. No. That can never be true.”
