Changes in Washington State law require all school districts to adopt policies and procedures concerned with student reengagement. This dissertation describes the action research undertaken in the Mead School District to address requirements of the new law to successfully reenter students after being absent due to exclusionary discipline. The…

Student failure is a prominent issue in many comprehensive secondary schools nationwide. Researchers studying error, reliability, and performance in organizations have developed and employed a method known as critical incident technique (CIT) for investigating failure. Adopting an action research model, this study involved gathering and analyzing…

During the 2010-11 school-year at Scootney Springs Elementary, an action research project with 8 teachers was initiated to create a culture of distributed leadership in the school building. Throughout phase 1 of the study, we collected data from interviews, surveys, checklists, meeting minutes, observations, and documented discussions with the…

In the next decade, community college English departments will expand their developmental course offerings. The students who take these developmental courses generally have higher incidence of diagnosed learning disabilities, bleak economic circumstances that require them to work full time, greater dependence on public transportation, and some…

In public education we are faced with three realities: (1) our student population is diverse and growing in children of color; (2) children of color are the students most at risk of being caught on the negative end of the achievement gap; and (3) the adopted curriculum and instructional practices are predominately Eurocentric. There is a need to…

The federal mandates set forth by the Individual with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEIA) and No Child Left Behind (NCLB) require an increase in inclusive education for students with special education needs in the least restrictive environment. This type of environment can be in a 'co-taught' classroom. Co-teaching is defined as an…