The roles and responsibilities of school counselors who serve in rural settings have increased dramatically over the years. One new aspect of the school counselor's role is to provide inservice/preservice training for teachers and school staff. With the increasing numbers of paraprofessionals now working in the schools, there is a need to provide…

This invited commentary includes observations about the article "Building Local Capacity for Training and Coaching Data-Based Problem Solving with Positive Behavior Interventions and Support Teams," published in the July 2011 issue of the "Journal of Applied School Psychology." In this article Newton and colleagues present an interesting field…

The federal School Improvement Grants (SIG) program aims to improve student achievement by promoting the implementation of four school intervention models: transformation, turnaround, restart, and closure. Previous research provides evidence that low-performing schools adopt some practices promoted by the four models, but little is known about how…

"Success for All" (SFA) is one of the best known and thoroughly evaluated school reform models. Further evaluation of the initiative is especially important for two reasons. First, the program model has continued to evolve over time, with a greater emphasis placed on the use of engaging technology in the classroom and on the deployment…

The focus of this study was to examine the leadership role as lived by teaching principals in a selection of small primary schools in the west of Ireland and in particular the implications information and communications technology (ICT) has for that role. The study involved the use of individual one-to-one semi-structured interviews with a…

Response to Intervention (RTI) is an instructional framework through which schools can provide early intervention for students experiencing academic and behavioral difficulties. It is also promoted as an alternative to the IQ-discrepancy model for identifying students with learning disabilities. Most states have developed, or are developing,…

Response to intervention (RTI) is a framework for providing interventions and services at increasing levels of intensity until students succeed. The framework helps teachers and schools provide instruction and interventions matched to student needs, monitor progress frequently to guide decisions about changes in instruction or goals, and apply…

Video self-modeling (VSM) is a relatively new technique for modifying and training behaviors and has accumulated a relatively impressive track record in the research literature. Using only positive examples, VSM gives persons the opportunity to view themselves performing a task just beyond their present functioning level via creative editing of…

Check & Connect was created in a five year period from 1990 to 1995. The original manual, entitled "Keeping Kids in School: Using Check & Connect for Dropout Prevention" and written by David Evelo, Mary Sinclair, Christine Hurley, Sandra Christenson, and Martha Thurlow, was published in 1996 (ED398701). This newly revised Check…