There is growing concern about zero tolerance disciplinary practices in schools throughout the US. High suspension rates, specifically amongst African American and Latinx students are strongly correlated with negative student outcomes, and for some students may create an entry point into the school-to-prison pipeline. Furthermore, discipline data suggest that there is an over-representation of African American students and, depending on the district, Latinx students who receive school suspensions and expulsions as a result of zero tolerance policies. Restorative Practices (RP) is an approach designed to remedy the overuse of exclusionary discipline practices while sustaining safe and just school communities. It is unclear how teacher characteristics of empathy and cultural awareness might be associated with the implementation of RP. Empathy might be a potentially important characteristic that can impact the way teachers interact with their students, and could be related to teachers' propensity to use RP. Moreover, as classrooms become more diverse, teacher cultural awareness is necessary to accommodate the divergent ethnic, racial, cultural and socio-economic experiences that the diverse student population bring to the classroom. The degree to which empathy is related to RP implementation could be expected to depend in part on teachers' cultural awareness. Although scholars have implicated both empathy and cultural awareness as important constructs in the classroom context, there has yet to be research conducted on possible relationships between these teacher characteristics and the implementation of RP. The current study examined the relationship between teacher empathy (as coded from a written vignette) and the implementation of RP, and the extent to which teacher cultural awareness moderates this relationship. The participants in the current study included 102 teachers from 9 elementary, middle and high schools in a school district in the Northeast. Results demonstrated a positive association between teacher empathy and RP implementation, even after accounting for school membership. Teacher cultural awareness was not significantly related to RP implementation or teacher empathy, and as such, did not moderate the relationship between empathy and implementation of RP. Implications for research and practice are discussed. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]