Public education depends on the collaboration of adults to promote the success of the students who are served. Principal-teacher relationships are a necessary part of the overall learning environment established for students to grow and thrive. In an urban educational setting these relationships can be tested, especially in the transitional grades…

This study aimed to investigate the differential relationship between Temperament, Executive Functioning (EF) and Media Use Motivations and the frequency of two kinds of Media Multitasking (MM) in early adolescence. Results showed differential roles of temperamental Effortful Control, Negative Affectivity and Affiliativeness in predicting academic…

Increased datafication of schooling, a common trend in Australia, the UK, Canada, and the USA, involves the use of standardized testing and its associated systems and practices to achieve high-stakes goals. The purpose of this study, set in an urban, low-income, predominately Black neighborhood in the southeast USA, was to better understand the…

Students with intellectual disability (ID) have been participating in statewide general and alternate reading assessments during the past two decades. However, these students' reading performance on statewide assessments over time has not been adequately examined. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between students with ID's…

The newly released enrollment data from the National Center on Education Statistics for the 2022-23 school year point to moderate enrollment gains for traditional public schools. The recent enrollment gains though are smaller than the cumulative enrollment losses since 2019-20 and are not uniform. This paper takes stock of enrollment losses today…

Adolescent school connectedness generally protects from risk behaviors such as tobacco use; however, its relationship to e-cigarette use is unclear. This study examines the relationship between adolescent school connectedness and e-cigarette susceptibility in a diverse longitudinal sample. This secondary analysis of a school-based intervention…

This qualitative descriptive case study, set in an urban middle school environment, utilized Epstein's Six Types of Involvement as its theoretical framework to explore the complex issue of chronic absenteeism among middle school students. The primary focus of the study was the exploration of parents' perspectives on this issue, particularly in…

This cross-sectional study investigated the conceptual understanding of linear relationships for 195 students enrolled in a single school in a large, urban district across five mathematics courses: Grade 7 Math (n = 24), Grade 8 Math (n = 52), Geometry (n = 43), Algebra 1 (n = 31), and Algebra 2 (n = 45). The following questions guided this study:…

Background: Adolescents and young adults (AYA) with chronic conditions should acquire self-management skills as part of their healthcare transition (HCT) from pediatric to adult-focused care. HCT/self-management skills have the potential to help mitigate health disparities among minority AYA with chronic conditions. This study investigated school…

Principals' instructional leadership has been the focus of research for decades. Research shows that principals' impact on student achievement is second only to teachers (Grissom et al., 2021; Herman et al., 2017). Student literacy achievement concerns that continue trending nationwide, and specifically in North Carolina, indicate the need for…

In the midst of the pandemic, this school district made a significant investment with recovery dollars to expand enrichment opportunities in art, music, and physical education for students in their K-8 schools. The hypothesis was increasing the quality and quantity of these opportunities, the school district would increase student engagement, lead…

In this study, we investigated how secondary students interpret algebraic expressions that contain literal symbols to stand for variables. We hypothesized that the natural number bias (i.e., the tendency to over-rely on knowledge and experiences based on natural numbers) would affect students to think that the literal symbols stand for natural…

With growing demand for online courses, it is important to assess the efficacy of quality online virtual instruction. This study investigates the impact of Edmentum's Courseware Algebra I on student achievement using data on 1,205 ninth-grade students from a large urban school district in the Midwest during the 2020-2021 school year. Utilizing a…

The researcher investigated the effects of learning in an integrated curriculum environment in a Midwestern urban school among 7th grade students. The control group consisted of students who were enrolled in just a 7th grade social studies class. The test group consisted of students who were enrolled in both a social studies class "and"…

In the present study, we explore the perceptions of urban middle school students' representations of nature using participatory photography and their nature connectedness. Preadolescents (N = 108, 6th grade, age 11-13) were asked to take a photo of what nature is to them and write a short description of what is in the image. In a mixed method…