Across the United States, schools are implementing Restorative Practices (RP) to improve school climate and address disparities in discipline. The scope of such RP initiatives can remain ambiguous to school leaders. Given the need for greater clarity about RP initiatives, the current study sought to identify the varying components of RP…

We investigated the effects of My Teaching Partner-Secondary (MTP-S), a teacher professional development intervention, on students' peer relationships in middle and high school classrooms. MTP-S targets increasing teachers' positive interactions with students and sensitive instructional practices and has demonstrated improvements in students'…

Black students are issued school discipline sanctions at rates higher than members of other racial and ethnic groups, underscoring the need for professional development that addresses this gap. In 86 secondary school classrooms, a randomized controlled trial examined the effects of a 2-year teacher-coaching program, My Teaching Partner Secondary…

Student behavioral engagement is a key condition supporting academic achievement, yet student disengagement in middle and high schools is all too common. The current study used a randomized controlled design to test the efficacy of the My Teaching Partner-Secondary program to increase behavioral engagement. The program offers teachers personalized…

This study examined the relationship between structure and support in the high school climate and suspension rates in a statewide sample of 199 schools. School climate surveys completed by 5,035 ninth grade students measured characteristics of authoritative schools, defined as highly supportive, yet highly structured with academic and behavioral…

This quasi-experimental study examined the adoption of the Virginia Student Threat Assessment Guidelines in 23 high schools. After training, school administrators and other staff members demonstrated substantial increases in knowledge of threat assessment principles and decreased commitment to zero tolerance approaches. Schools using the…

In this study we examined authoritative discipline theory, which posits that 2 complementary aspects of school climate--structure and support--are important for adolescents' safety in school. Using a statewide sample of over 7,300 ninth-grade students and 2,900 teachers randomly selected from 290 high schools, we showed, using hierarchical linear…