Background: Schools are important contexts for preventing sexual violence (SV) among adolescents. Evaluating whether programming is effective requires surveying youth about SV experiences. However, school communities often have concerns about asking students, particularly those in middle school, about these experiences. This study sought to…

Public school board members are charged with the responsibility and accountability to provide governance-level advocacy for equity and excellence in public education. This qualitative study examined the perceptions of school board members in three K--8 school districts in the midwestern part of the United States regarding the 50+ year Race-Based…

School districts continue to strive to enhance students' academic achievement. Various studies and literature highlight the significance of the role of non- academic subjects, which in Ontario, Canada, are referred to as learning skills. Teachers in Ontario are mandated to report on six learning skills three times in a school year within their…

Inquiry-based working contributes to teacher professionalization and educational improvements. This article presents the key findings of a qualitative case study carried out in three primary schools in the Netherlands. That study focused on the inquiry-based working of school boards, school leaders and teachers, with the goal of better…

Background: Although nearly all states in the United States require school districts to adopt anti-bullying policies, little research examines the effect of these policies on student bullying and health. Using a statewide sample, we investigated associations between the quality of school district anti-bullying policies and student bullying…

In the face of stagnant achievement and persistent achievement gaps in mathematics, school districts have enacted a variety of changes to varying levels of success. On the heels of an Algebra for All model that failed to generate desired outcomes of students, San Francisco Unified School District adopted a policy in 2014 that dramatically changed…

California's shift towards continuous improvement in education makes understanding how districts and schools can learn to improve a more pressing question than ever. The CORE Improvement Community (CIC), a network of California school districts engaged in learning about improvement together, is an important testing ground to learn about what this…

We present the results of a study of local education agency (LEA)-based interventions to improve the reading outcomes of struggling readers in sixth grade. The sample included 1,076 intervention students and 3,644 comparison students. Regression discontinuity was used to evaluate intervention impact. The study contributes to the field by…

This report examines the population of Alaska Native students who are classified as English learner (EL) students and how EL policies function for these students, focusing on EL identification, classification, service provision, and reclassification as fluent English proficient. Alaska is one of several states where Indigenous students make up a…

This paper examines the impact of a school board's one-to-one iPad initiative on equity and inclusion. Data include: questionnaires from Grade 7-9 students, teachers, and administrators; focus groups with inclusion coaches; and interviews with classroom teachers. The results show that the iPads have supported equity among students in the district;…

The Washington Comprehensive Assessment Program (WCAP) is a maturing and stable program. In 2016-17 it included: (1) Smarter Balanced Assessments (SBA) in English Language Arts (ELA) and math for students in grades 3-8 and high school; (2) Measurements of Student Progress (MSP) in science for grades 5 and 8; (3) End-of-Course exams in math and…

In 2008, the California State Board of Education voted to require all students to enroll in algebra by 8th grade. This policy initiative, yet to be actually implemented, represents the culmination of a decades-long movement toward offering algebra instruction before the traditional high school years. Nationally, the proportion of 8th grade…

Margie Trovao has taught at Lord Nelson Elementary School in east Vancouver for the past 15 years, but this fall she is also a student in her own classroom. Under an initiative by the Vancouver School Board, Ms. Trovao is being mentored by a tech-savvy teacher, Zhi Su, from another school on how to use iPads and other devices in her split Grade…

Teacher absenteeism is expensive, disrupts the continuity of educational activities, and results in students attending classes with less qualified substitute teachers. The purpose of this study was to analyze the relationships among teacher variables, teacher absenteeism, student achievement, and school district policy governing teacher…

The No Child Left Behind Act requires state boards of education to identify schools that are unsafe. Schools that are identified by measures such as suspension and expulsion rates are subsequently labeled "persistently dangerous." To our knowledge there is no published research that attempts to characterize fighting behavior among youths…