School leaders must make decisions and implement strategies to improve a school climate and student achievement, and it benefits them to understand which areas of school climate have the greatest impact on student achievement. The State of Georgia measures school climate and student achievement with its school accountability measure, the College…

Beginning in the early 1990s, many school districts began to implement zero-tolerance discipline policies that relied heavily on the use of suspensions. As a result, the number of students removed from the classroom and the school environment has dramatically increased over the past 30 years. To increase school safety and combat the rise of school…

Report cards are states' most public-facing documents. To support COVID-19 recovery, states and districts must fulfill their responsibility to the public and demonstrate their commitment to transparency by sharing this information in clear, actionable report cards. This resource shares short- and long-term action steps for state leaders to release…

The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated racial disparities: while reading and math scores decreased for all racial and ethnic groups from 2020 to 2022, scores dropped the most for Black and Hispanic students. Creating healthy schools that specifically support students' and educators' health and well-being is a critical step in addressing these…

This report presents information garnered from a comprehensive review of the literature on restorative justice in U.S. schools. The purpose of the review is to capture key issues, describe models of restorative justice, and summarize results from studies conducted in the field. The authors first conducted and published a literature review on this…

There has been little research on the school experiences of Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ) students in general, with a particular paucity of literature surrounding their overlapping?sexual orientation, gender, gender expression, and race/ethnicity?identities. This report focuses solely on…

LGBTQ+ students have worse academic and health outcomes than their heterosexual counterparts, and these disparities increase when taking race/ethnicity into account. 57% of Latinx LGBTQ+ students report feeling unsafe at school due to their gender expression, and 35% are more likely to miss school due to feelings of unsafety. This fact sheet…

Nationally, school-based mental health (SBMH) is seen as an avenue to increase access to children's mental health services and promote mental health awareness. The current article describes the implementation of a statewide SBMH program focusing on partnerships between community-based providers and local school systems, with providers embedded…

With the increase in school violence on campuses all over the country and the increased media attention that these incidents receive. The amount of pressure on school leaders to develop and implement interventions for students is mounting from all angles. Politicians, parents, students, advocates and others have been extremely vocal in their…

As demonstrated in extant research, there are significant distinctions across urban, suburban, and rural communities both in the experience of school violence and in the resources allocated toward safeguarding schools from violence. What remains unknown is how the relationship between weapons at school (i.e., possession of a weapon and attacks…

The purpose of this research is to evaluate the impact of uniform dress codes on a school's climate for student behavior and learning in four middle schools in North Carolina. The research will compare the perceptions of parents, teachers, and administrators in schools with uniform dress codes against schools without uniform dress codes. This…

Existing research has illustrated that both Black as well as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth often face unique challenges at school related to their marginalized identities. For example, previous studies indicate that Black youth experience harassment and discrimination at school related to their race, resulting in…

Existing research has illustrated that Hispanic and Latino/Latina/Latinx youth (in this report, inclusively referred to as Latinx) as well as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth often face unique challenges at school related to their marginalized identities. In addition to anti-immigrant rhetoric that is often directed at…

Existing research has illustrated that both Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) as well as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth often face unique issues in school related to their marginalized identities. For instance, AAPI youth are also challenged with the model minority stereotype that all AAPI students are…

Existing research has illustrated that Native American, American Indian, and Alaska Native youth (referred to, henceforth, as Native and Indigenous youth in this report) as well as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth often face unique challenges at school related to their marginalized identities. A long history of violence…