With the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) in 2015, as part of the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), it prioritized schools to include families as collaborative partners in schools' improvement efforts. Minimal family voice existed at two elementary schools. Thus, this mixed-methods action…

There is a need to engage people with chemistry and to facilitate learning about chemistry in both nonformal and informal learning environments. A variety of platforms have been used to achieve this, including science festivals, summer camps, and so on. The events are voluntary, and participants need to be motivated independently to engage. The…

Background: Since the COVID-19 pandemic, American students have demonstrated substantial losses in achievement (Amplify, 2021; Domingue et al., 2021; Dorn et al., 2020; Storey & Zhang, 2023), while chronic absenteeism doubled after the pandemic, with the largest increase among low-income students (Chang et al., 2022; Dorn et al., 2021). Among…

This dissertation explores the perceptions of elementary families in Washington, DC Public Schools and their perceived engagement with their elementary schools over the course of five years from 2018-2022 using an established family engagement quantitative survey tool called Panorama. This data will be analyzed for trends between both Title I and…

To influence school achievement, researchers investigate student academic help-seeking. However, a growing population of students of color combined with the risk of poorer academic performance yields attention toward African American student academic help-seeking. In this review, 13 studies analyzed sampling characteristics, theoretical…

This brief is part of a five-part series that reports findings from research conducted by ACT in collaboration with Region One Education Service Center. This brief focuses on family engagement with social and emotional learning (SEL) and includes results from surveys administered to two samples of parents/family members, one sample within Region…

According to the U.S. Census Bureau (2019), approximately half of U.S. children come from nontraditional families, such as those with divorced parents, multiracial families, one-parent families, and families with same-sex parents. Although family structures have diversified dramatically (Powell et al., 2010), the traditional family remains the…

Deciding on an educational setting for children who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) is a complex process that is not well understood. In the present study, the researchers' objective was to understand the factors caregivers consider when choosing a school for their child. Six caregivers of children who were DHH participated in semistructured…

Associations between home learning opportunities, parental growth mindset (the belief that intelligence is malleable), and children's academic skills have been documented primarily in European descent communities. Less is known about other communities. This study examined associations among home learning opportunities, parental mindsets, and child…

Associations between home learning opportunities, parental growth mindset (the belief that intelligence is malleable), and children's academic skills have been documented primarily in European descent communities. Less is known about other communities. This study examined associations among home learning opportunities, parental mindsets, and child…

This study aims at describing differences in internal and external resources of students to handle mathematics learning from home. Based on data from N = 223 7th-grade secondary school students gathered via an online survey at the end of the first school year during the COVID-19 pandemic, we used latent profile analysis to identify student…

Future Forward is an early elementary literacy program which, through a family-school-community partnership approach, integrates one-on-one tutoring and family engagement to support literacy development at school and at home. In the 2020-21 school year, as part of an Education Innovation and Research (EIR) Mid-Phase grant, the impact of a modified…

Family-school engagement has been found to influence students' emotional and mental well-being. Meanwhile, culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) families have often been found to perceive and respond to engagement efforts differently than Euro-American families. The unique needs of emergent bilinguals, a subsample of the CLD community,…

The Countdown to Kindergarten (CTK) program was developed to increase family awareness of kindergarten expectations, create a positive relationship with families, and support smooth school transition and kindergarten readiness for children who were from diverse backgrounds and/or had adverse experiences. We used a mixed methods design to study the…

Based on an overarching analysis of the ecological levels or contexts that implementers experienced as barriers and facilitators in the delivery of a mindfulness-based social-emotional learning program, this study reveals the importance of relational trust between the implementer and actors within the various ecological levels. This study applies…