Research: The goal of this study is to understand the experiences of Black and Latino former high school students who dropped out, or were pushed out, of a large urban school district in Southern California. Specifically, this paper examines the barriers students faced that contributed to them leaving high school and their journey afterward.…

The purpose of this qualitative document analysis research study was to explore how public high schools in California create local unexcused absence and truancy policies in similar and different ways. The study used Lipsky's "street-level bureaucracy" and the American Psychological Association Zero Tolerance Task Force's definition of…

The report contains real-world, proven school climate strategies to guide policymakers in building a comprehensive and coherent state-wide approach for improving school climate. It features 12 recommendations linked to existing state policy examples policymakers can use to build a comprehensive, coherent state-wide approach for improving school…

Supposedly designed to improve student attendance, the aggressive truancy policing in Los Angeles (LA) has discouraged students from going to class and often pushes them to drop out and into harm's way. Truancy tickets play a role in the school-to-prison pipeline. Students are being brought up in an environment that is a pre-prisoning of youth. LA…