Are public schools suffering from a “time-out” mentality?

A growing number of school officials believe so, as a trend known as restorative justice picks up momentum.

The case of Ahmed Mohamed illustrates the issue.

Ahmed was the 14-year-old Texas boy whose teacher mistook his homemade clock for a possible bomb. The school notified police, who arrested Ahmed. The incident sparked widespread ridicule of school officials and accusations that Islamophobia may have played a part.

Amid the uproar, Ahmed got an invitation to attend an astronomy night at the White House. But he also got an automatic three-day suspension — essentially a “time-out” — under his school district’s zero-tolerance disciplinary policy. Even though Ahmed clearly intended nothing malicious or even mischievous, he was given the suspension with no appeal.

That’s not only unjust; it’s also a lesson about injustice, teaching Ahmed and other students — predominantly minority students — to distrust authorities who give them no opportunity to explain themselves or offer a defense.

A growing number of educators recognize this flaw in school discipline and are working toward a remedy. Many districts, including some of the nation’s largest, have been softening their approach, foregoing automatic suspensions, expulsions and calls to the police for one-on-one counseling and less severe forms of punishment, according to an Associated Press report published Monday.

School districts in New York, Los Angeles and Denver, among others, have adopted restorative justice policies while moving away from policies that relied heavily on suspensions. State governments have also been taking action: This year, Connecticut limited out-of-school suspensions and expulsions for students up through the second grade, Texas decriminalized truancy, and Oregon limited when suspensions and expulsions can be applied to students up through the fifth grade.

Last year, the Obama administration asked schools to abandon policies that send students to court, issuing guidelines to encourage the training of school personnel in conflict resolution.

The idea is to turn discipline problems into teachable moments.

Denver Public Schools started implementing a restorative discipline program in 2008 after the grassroots group Padres & Jovenes Unidos pointed out that suspensions were being disproportionately used to punish minority students. Since then, suspensions have dropped by about two-thirds.

Schools in other states report similar declines. Three years after starting a restorative discipline program at Ed White Middle School in San Antonio, Principal Philip Carney said out-of-school suspensions have dropped 72 percent.

“We even got to the point where students are handling their own conflicts,” Carney added, “with us just observing and setting up the process.”

Carney’s school appears to have achieved what might be a realistic objective for all public schools — a peer-review process that emulates our court system. It makes sense that the best way to learn about our system of justice, and to instill faith in our system, is to practice it.