The COVID-19 pandemic brought about unprecedented challenges for families, impacting the economic, psychological, and social well-being of parents and their children since the first cases of the virus were reported in the United States in March 2020. The brunt of these effects has been felt by the nation's working parents, who were tasked with…

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore how mothers who were nontraditional students enrolled in a four-year college described their experiences with performance, persistence, and college degree completion. The theoretical foundation was Tinto's (1975) student departure theory. The two research questions were (1) How do…

This study explored the daily routines of caregivers and the coping behaviors of both children and caregivers during the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) global pandemic. We collected data from ten caregivers and their children through caregiver and child interviews, and a caregiver survey in the Summer of 2020. We used descriptive statistics, and…

In this study, we explored Pre-K through 3rd-grade children's home learning environments and caregivers' perceptions, strategies, and attitudes regarding home learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants included 10 caregivers and their Pre-K through 3rd-grade children. Data were collected via caregiver and child interviews, and a caregiver…

Employing phenomenology as a methodological framework, this study sought to capture and understand, from a first-person point of view, what parents, teachers, and administrators in U.S. high-needs K-12 schools experienced related to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Individual interviews were conducted on a video conferencing platform…

Most states in the United States operate their public preschool programs in a mixed delivery system that serves children in local education agencies (LEAs) as well as non-LEA settings, such as Head Start agencies, child care centers, private schools, and family child care homes. To inform state preschool administrators and policymakers as they…

Family child care, which is child care provided in the home of a registered provider for no more than five children at a time, is a vital component of New Jersey's early care and education system utilized by approximately 10,000 families annually. This brief looks at trends, challenges, and opportunities impacting family child care in New Jersey.

Purpose: This study examines foster care reentry after adoption, in Illinois and New Jersey. The provision of services and supports to adoptive families have garnered recent attention due to concern about the long-term stability of adoptive homes. Method: This study used administrative data to examine the pre-adoption characteristics associated…

High-quality early childhood education (ECE) begins with well-prepared, highly qualified educators. This brief offers practitioners and policymakers an opportunity to learn from promising programs that recruit and prepare racially, ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse cohorts of educators to teach in programs serving children birth…

This article explores a first-grade team's efforts to develop a family-school literacy partnership. The first-grade teachers wrote and developed the "Family at Home Literacy Questionnaire" to understand how their first graders selected texts and read with family members at home. The findings identified a number of unexpected at-home…

The United States is becoming a more culturally and linguistically diverse nation. This is especially true when we look at the youngest generation of learners. This growing diversity increases the need to accurately identify young children as dual language learners (DLLs) prior to kindergarten. Ensuring educators have a strong understanding of…

This implementation research report describes the local programs, home visiting staff, and families who participated in the Mother and Infant Home Visiting Program Evaluation (MIHOPE), a national evaluation of the federal Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) program launched in 2011. This national evaluation is…