This doctoral dissertation was a study that assessed the impacts of a student-driven student voice and student leadership program in a secondary public school in a rural district in Maine. Using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, this study gathered evidence of the impacts of the Student Summit Leadership Program (SSLP) on…

This dissertation investigates the efficacy of LitFit, an innovative reading workshop program, in enhancing the reading skills and habits of male high school students in a rural setting. The study addresses the critical issue of lower reading proficiency among male students, a demographic that has historically received limited attention in English…

This qualitative evaluation of Emory's Oxford Summer Experience Program examined rural students' college aspirations. Educational and economic barriers hinder rural students' college enrollment and degree attainment (Adelman, 2002; Byun, Meece, & Irvin, 2012; Means, Clayton, Conzelmann, Baynes, & Umbach, 2016). Because of these barriers,…

This quantitative study examined the impact of the use of Response to Intervention (RTI) on student performance at a small rural high school. The strength of RTI is the identification of student need and the weakness is the lack of consistent application of interventions. The problem this study addressed was low student performance as defined by…

Student success and achievement can be measured in myriad ways; however, the impact of teacher effectiveness in each classroom is an essential part of the formula for student success. Although most teachers work in isolation in their classrooms, it is important for school leaders to support student success by supporting teachers. This study…

The use of exclusionary discipline practices in schools has continued to increase since the advent of Zero Tolerance discipline policies in the 1990s. Research indicates that these practices are largely ineffective in addressing behavior, and result in detrimental outcomes for students and communities. This study focused on the use of Disciplinary…

A case study was conducted to establish baseline data in determining the efficacy of the safety and security program at two rural high schools. Using a publicly available Likert scale survey provided by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), district and school leaders were surveyed to determine their perceptions of safety and security on the two…

Dual enrollment programs have been in existence for decades in public high schools in the United States. While there is literature on the academic impact of these programs with a focus on high school and college outcomes, there is a gap in the literature regarding what is known about students' experiences in dual enrollment programs that allow…

The purpose of this mixed-methods action research study was to understand how a knowledge-building intervention changes the perception of rural high school juniors on the perception of staying local for college after high school. This study also investigates the ways in which participants used their social capital to begin to change the stigma of…

Every student deserves to be educated by a highly qualified teacher. Since teachers have the greatest impact on student success (Sheninger & Murray, 2017), it is critical to ensure teachers are afforded opportunities to build their capacity through professional development. When teachers perceive that professional development sessions offered…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to gain insight into school staff's perceptions on the effectiveness of positive interventions and supports in Mississippi classrooms. Qualitative data were collected through semi-structured interviews of 10 participants, each working at the same public high school in rural Mississippi. The study was…

Providing high-quality services to students with disabilities in rural settings can be challenging, as rural schools often lack resources both in and out of the classroom. One potential option to provide high-quality mathematics instruction to students with disabilities in rural areas is using virtual manipulatives and online instruction. In this…

Students living in rural areas are less likely to attend schools that offer computer science (CS) courses largely because educational institutions in these remote areas lack the resources to staff teaching positions for these courses. This study investigated the impact of WeTeach_CS, a program designed to train teachers to become certified to…

Purpose: The aim of this study is to explore how outdoor education can influence foreign language anxiety (FLA) and foreign language enjoyment (FLE) when young teenagers are learning a foreign language (FL). We applied a dynamic perspective to investigate if using English in an outdoor context would reduce FLA and boost FLE, leading to a stronger…

Many districts have adopted social-emotional learning (SEL) curriculum that teachers must incorporate into their lessons. The purpose of this qualitative dissertation-in-practice was to explore teachers' perceptions of the quality of SEL program professional development (PD) for teachers at a small, rural West Texas high school. For this study,…