Ritha Smith, assistant superintendent, and Seth Hanson, principal, are faced with a difficult decision. Taylor Harper is a transgender student who identifies as male and is openly attracted to females. Taylor's parents, Lane and Morgan Harper, are lesbians; they are fully supportive of their child's identification and are well versed in their…

Leaders must know how to use evidence to inform district decisions, particularly as decisions related to learning become standard practice, and provide professional development that builds the organizational capacity needed to support continuous and sustainable district improvement. Collaboration and implementation of a shared vision and mission…

Child Sexual Abuse is a growing epidemic. In the United States, 1 in 6 boys and 1 in 4 girls will be sexually abused before reaching adulthood. From a legal standpoint, inappropriate sexual relations between a faculty/staff member and a student are a growing national concern. In 1991, the Supreme Court heard the Franklin v. Gwinnett County Public…

Online education has become an accepted part of the educational landscape over the past two decades. Digital resources are the norm in classrooms. The expectation is that all students will benefit from technology some way. In order for that to be the case, however, sometimes more overt action is needed to ensure that all students do in fact get…

School districts are often given the challenging task of addressing problematic online behaviors committed by students while simultaneously protecting themselves from civil liability by not overstepping their authority. This is difficult, because the law concerning these behaviors is ambiguous and continuously evolving, and little consensus has…

This white paper was prepared at the request of the Advisory Committee to the Athletic Study Center as a result of their concern over poor graduation rates in football as released by the NCAA in 2012. The paper received extensive review by the members of that committee as well as several other knowledgeable faculty and senior administrators before…

Although single-sex education was once the norm in the U.S., the practice has largely been confined to private schools for more than a century. However, with the introduction of the final version of the U.S. Department of Education's so-called single-sex regulations in 2006, public schools were allowed greater flexibility to offer single-sex…

Recent incidents of school violence have brought bullying to the nation's attention in a dramatic way. Research shows that approximately 30% of teens in the United States either bully, are targets of bullying, or both (National Youth, n.d.). Bullying causes adverse physical, psychological, and social effects. It erodes feelings of self-worth and…