The overuse of exclusionary discipline practices, such as out-of-school suspensions (OSS), have consistently been documented over several decades. The resulting racial discipline disparities and the negative outcomes related to OSS have led policy makers and educators to consider other approaches to school discipline. One such approach, which has…

The overuse of exclusionary discipline practices, such as out-of-school suspensions (OSS), has consistently been documented over several decades. The resulting racial discipline disparities and the negative outcomes related to OSS have led policy makers and educators to consider other approaches to school discipline. One such approach, which has…

Educators across the U.S. struggle to provide an equitable education to their diverse students. Since the 2020 COVID pandemic and the national call to end racism after George Floyd's murder in Minneapolis, chronic absenteeism and students' substantial mental health challenges have disrupted their efforts. Schools have struggled more than ever to…

Background: Substance use in minoritized youth is associated with negative long-term health and life outcomes. The present study explores perspectives of school stakeholders at urban minority-serving schools regarding integration of an evidence-based intervention, screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment (SBIRT) into existing…

Due to the impacts of overrepresentation of historically marginalized middle school student suspensions on the prison pipeline, there is urgency in addressing disproportionality in suspensions in school districts nationwide. Although Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) and Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) models have shown an…

This study tests the impact of adding Restorative Practices within secondary schools implementing the Diplomas Now turnaround model in 8 large U.S. urban districts on: (a) the severity of disciplinary problems in these schools, (b) the probability that students would be suspended three days or more during the school year, and (c) the chronic…

A wealth of evidence shows that exposure to the natural environment and nature-based learning can benefit children's physical, mental, social, and emotional health. Despite this, children are spending less time in nature and nature-based learning remains an underutilised pedagogical tool. Several barriers are frequently reported by teachers,…

This action research study explored the use of mentorship as an intervention to improve the attendance chronically absent ninth grade students at an urban high school. Chronic absenteeism is a phenomenon with multiple compounding negative impacts on students. Moreover, it is a complicated problem with multiple contributing factors and potential…

Public policies targeting individuals based on need often impose disproportionate burden on communities that lack the resources to implement these policies effectively. In an elementary school setting, I examine whether community-level interventions focusing on similar needs and providing resources to build capacity in these communities could…

National interest is growing in Integrated Student Support (ISS) interventions, which offer schools systematic ways to reduce barriers to learning. The present study exploits the random component embedded within the school assignment system of a large urban school district to estimate the effect of schools providing ISS on student academic…

Targeted Tier 2 interventions are critical to supporting students with challenging behavior and decreasing the resources associated with highly individualized and intense interventions. This study extends findings from recent single-case design studies and case example applications of the Tier 2 Identification and Intervention framework with the…

As a growing base of evidence links student success with attendance, many states have chosen to include measures of student absenteeism in their accountability systems under ESSA. Consequently, school districts face strong incentives to improve attendance. We report on a randomized field experiment in which parents of early elementary students…

This study examined the effects of Reading Intervention for Adolescents (RIA) and a mentoring intervention (MI) implemented for 1 year with ninth-grade English learners (ELs) with reading difficulties. Eligible students enrolled at three urban high schools were randomly assigned to the RIA (n = 142), MI (n = 163), RIA and MI (n = 164), or…

Black male community college students have the lowest retention and completion rates among any racial group (National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, 2017). During this dissertation, I examined the root causes of Black male community college students' low graduation rates through a systematic literature review, and then identified mentoring…

Creating Compassion is an empathy-focused creative arts curriculum designed to provide short-term, low-cost, high-quality social-emotional learning (SEL) to communities and settings with limited resources. The present study sought to determine whether Creating Compassion was effective for increasing displays of prosocial behaviors and broad SEL…