This qualitative study investigated the teacher evaluation systems currently in place in diocesan high schools in California and the ways in which those systems could be improved. Diocesan schools are private, Catholic institutions that do not subscribe to federal regulations when creating their evaluation instruments. Measuring effective teaching…

This dissertation project used an interpretivist qualitative research design to study how the right-to-read claim made by seven teenagers attending Detroit public schools in 2016 reflects, addresses, or describes contemporary discussions about educational access. Using situational analysis (SA) as a theory/method, the entirety of the claim…

The objective of the qualitative study was to investigate the perceived competency of school counselors in working with at-risk students who engage in self-injury, and their use of professional standards to effectively navigate their intervention. Self-injury (SI) is a behavioral concern defined as the intentional injuring of body tissue without…

Georgia established the Dual Enrollment Accelerated Career Diploma (ACD) program in 2015 to address its skilled trades workforce shortage (Dual Enrollment Act, 2015: Williams, 2015). ACD allows high school students to earn their diplomas by replacing several of their graduation-required credits with technical college credentials earned through…

Alternative high school students are a demographic often relegated to the margins throughout their educational journey, stripped of the agency necessary for them to authentically engage in their learning. This Action Research study aimed to investigate the relationship between attendance and student engagement, with a particular emphasis on how…

Chronic absenteeism continues to be an ongoing problem for schools in the southern Illinois region. This project aims to examine how schools meet the basic needs of chronically absent students, and if there are systems in place to track how student's basic needs are met. Basic needs were defined by the theory and work of Abraham Maslow. The data…

This study investigates the impact of various types of absenteeism--excused, unexcused, and suspensions--on 2024 English I and II EOC scores among 9th and 10th graders at a suburban North Texas high school. This quantitative analysis aimed to understand whether different absence types influence academic achievement when controlling for ethnicity…

My goal with this study is to understand the role school academic grading policies play in shaping teacher expectations for students. In the cooperating district, the newly adopted grading policies address the frequency of grades inputted, the weighting of the grades, the required types of assignments, and the various timeline requirements for…

This qualitative study explores teacher enactment of education policy, specifically Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS), in a large suburban Midwestern high school. Participating educators constructed policy meaning while they sought to understand it, over a multi-year rollout process. Data were gathered using five teacher and…

Existing research has suggested numerous advantages of dual enrollment, which allows high school students to concurrently earn high school and college credit through enrollment in a single course, including an increased likelihood of high school to college transitions and stronger postsecondary outcomes such as a reduced time to degree completion.…

The Province of Ontario welcomes the largest population of high school Students with Limited or Interrupted Formal Education (SILFE students) in Canada to its secondary schools. Many of these students arrive late in age with significant academic gaps and face many barriers to reaching their post-secondary goals in Canada. Literature has identified…

The practice of grading students began in the late 1800s and became institutionalized within the educational system. Grading in K-12 education has remained relatively unchanged in its purpose, intent, and use for nearly a century while simultaneously becoming an increasingly critical factor that impacts student opportunities, external perceptions…

The lack of formal grading policies within individual schools and school districts results in differential grading across classrooms. In many secondary schools, an individual course may be taught by multiple teachers. This study aimed to determine if the existence of differential grading results in disparate outcomes for students based on their…

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the perspectives on engagement of students who had passed Model School Math (Integrated Math 1 or Algebra 1) and graduated within the years 2015 to 2019 from a Model Continuation High School in California. This study sought to discover the strategies, policies, and procedures which best…

The purpose of this research is to evaluate the use of and the attitude towards smartphone technology for in school and remote learning by urban high school students to reduce digital inequalities. High school students use smartphone technology in today's society as an integral part of their lives. Yet the majority of the large school districts in…