Alternatively certified teachers constitute a growing portion of public school educators in the U.S. This is a trend that is expected to continue, due to the declining enrollment in traditional teacher preparation programs across recent years. As such, this report examines the profiles of alternatively certified teachers working in South Carolina…

Summer programming is one of the main ways school districts have sought to help students recover academically from COVID-19 pandemic-related setbacks. Authors use a survey administered to a nationally representative sample of kindergarten through grade 12 public school districts to investigate the prevalence and structure of districts' programming…

The pandemic has heightened awareness of the gaps in education quality between the nation's most vulnerable students and most well-off students. And the reopening decisions school districts made in the 2020-21 school year may have both short- and long-term impacts on the academic achievement of the most vulnerable students. In addition to racial…

This survey wanted to obtain a national picture of teacher and principal turnover at the end of the 2021-2022 school year and districts' staffing shortages at the beginning of the 2022-2023 school year, researchers surveyed 300 district and charter network leaders in the American School District Panel from October to December 2022. Key findings…

This brief gives a snapshot of how school districts across the country are currently planning for fall 2020, how they are planning for contingencies of COVID-19 spread, and how this varies based on district characteristics. From August 17-21, we reviewed district websites, social media, and local news to collect data from a sample of 477 districts…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper was to determine what experienced school leaders learned through participating in a three-year leadership initiative, called the Leadership Learning Community (LLC), that helped them coach less experienced leaders to lead school improvement efforts. Design/methodology/approach: Data were collected and analyzed…

This study examined how superintendents and principals' childhood experiences influenced the decisions they make regarding their students of poverty. A qualitative research design was used to gather findings and draw conclusions through an interview process of three superintendents and nine principals. The criteria for participation was being…

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to examine how the leadership coaching capacities of experienced school leaders can be developed to support less-experienced school leaders to lead continuous improvement efforts. In this article, we report the findings of a 2-year study of experienced school leaders who developed their leadership coaching…

Reform efforts in schools have become increasingly focused on the nature and direction of teamwork in efforts to achieve sustained and systemic districtwide capacity for innovation and needed change. The six-year study reported in this article involved development, implementation, and assessment of a unique collaborative process for districtwide…

Located in southwestern Pennsylvania near the borders of Maryland and West Virginia, the district has 1,483 students, with 21% minority enrollment. The district and its students have experienced many of the problems related to the opioid epidemic, including many students being raised by grandparents due to parental drug use. The district has three…

In 2012, the United States Department of Education announced the Race to the Top-District grants. One joint award was made to two large educational cooperatives in the same state that together represented 111 mostly rural schools in 22 districts. One of the grant's identified four essential projects was the implementation of personalized learning.…

Background: The school nutrition environment has a large impact on child diet. However, there is a paucity of nationally representative research on factors that predict effective nutrition policies, practices, and education in schools. Purpose: The current study utilized Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data from the 2016 School…

Rural poverty rises to higher levels than poverty in urban and suburban areas, and rural communities and their schools face greater isolation, which means that families must travel farther than their urban and suburban counterparts to access available services and learning opportunities. Elaine Weiss describes two rural communities, one in…

The departure of an effective school leader can influence staff turnover and student achievement for several years. With school systems facing an unprecedented public health crisis due to COVID-19, principal retention is a key area of concern for many local and state education agencies. The Regional Educational Laboratory West undertook this study…

This Study Snapshot highlights key findings from a study of principal retention rates to help leaders in Arizona, Nevada, and Utah better understand principal retention patterns in their state, so that their new statewide leadership support initiatives could identify areas where support could be most effective. With school systems facing an…