Background: Little is known about the effectiveness of school district concussion policies on reducing the concussion prevalence among students. Methods: Data from the 2016 School Health Policies and Practices Study and 2017 Youth Risk Behavior Survey for 10 school districts were linked. The outcome variable was having a sports- or physical…

This article examines the administrative and bureaucratic barriers faced by trans and nonbinary high-school students in the School District of Philadelphia. Despite strong gender-inclusive policies like the district's Policy 252, student interviews, first-hand observation, and document analysis reveal a variety of stress points that trans and…

I examine a unique facet of Japan's public education system: "jinji idou," a mandatory teacher rotation system governed by the prefectural board of education where teachers are systematically transferred to other schools throughout their careers to appropriately staff schools, facilitate varied career paths, and identify future leaders…

Background: School-level implementation of district-level local wellness policies (LWPs) is needed to create school environments that promote nutrition and physical activity (PA). Disparities in classroom-specific LWPs implementation were examined. Methods: administrator survey (N = 756 schools; 24/24 districts) included 6 classrooms LWP…

The impact of chronic absenteeism is devastating nationally as it can lead to poor academic achievement, increased dropout rates, and the school-to-prison pipeline (Balfanz & Cornfeld, 2016). The purpose of this program evaluation is to examine the attendance program at large suburban high school in the southeast United States. This program…

Initiatives to integrate technology into teaching and learning often lack a long-term follow up to gauge if those same initiatives set the stage for teachers to easily adopt the next stage of learning technologies. Using the ten-year anniversary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's Classroom for the Future grant, where $200 million were allocated…

In the United States, sex education in schools varies significantly across districts. Many schools operate without state-guided health education curricula, leaving decisions up to individual districts. The purpose of this study was to explore what type of sex education is being offered in U.S. high schools in addition to assessing the frequency of…

Making Music: Composing "with" Young Musicians was a multi-year, multi-site research project partnered with the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board and the Canadian Music Centre to commission composers to collaborate with teachers and students to write educational music. On-site observations undertaken by the co-author and examined…

In recent years, many journalistic exposés and research reports have raised concerns about the quality of credit recovery programs, which are available in about 75 percent of US high schools and serve about 6 percent of students. Stories relay how schools from Los Angeles to Washington, DC, have used the system of makeup courses to boost…

The research objective was to develop and evaluate systematic learning resources management process in inputs, process, outputs, outcome, and feedback of Nong Kung Wittayakarn School in Thailand. Research participants and key informants were 5 Grade 7-9 teachers, 34 Grade 7-9 students, 34 student parents, and 9 school board members totaling 82…

When COVID-19 hit, Holyoke School District was nine months into an ambitious three-year strategy, the Homegrown Talent Initiative (HTI), designed to help rural communities across Colorado better prepare youth for success after high school by offering new career exploration and training opportunities. In the midst of school closings, remote…

This policy brief focuses on a specific subgroup of ELL students: newcomers who enter a school district in the ninth grade knowing little or no English. Many of these immigrant students also have interrupted or limited formal education. In this brief we address two issues within the control of local school districts: 1) how to define and track…

Special education teachers' practice is influenced by an understanding of special education policy and knowledge of implementation practice. This study examined the perceptions of nine special education teachers related to their interpretation of assessment, progress monitoring, and transition mandates in a large urban district. Qualitative…

A Pennsylvania high school newspaper published an editorial in Fall 2013 announcing its decision to cease using the name of the school's sports teams, Redskins. That decision prompted the local school board to institute a policy giving administrators more editorial control over the newspaper. The controversy resonated with U.S. professional…

Critical thinking has gained much attention in many countries over the past few decades; however, there is no clear definition of what it is due to the richness in meaning of the term 'critical thinking' and the ambiguity of the word 'critical'. In spite of this, many scholars had contributed their conceptions of critical thinking, in which…