Various educational mandates, including the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and No Child Left Behind (NCLB), and educational approaches, such as Response to Intervention (RTI) and Positive Behavior Supports (PBS), require use of objective data to inform decision making for academics and behavior. However, some traditional…

The Hawai'i State Department of Education is excited to provide a comprehensive menu of engaging summer learning opportunities for students in the upcoming summer months. This summer, offerings will span all grade levels, from a transition program for incoming kindergartners to paid summer internships for our graduating seniors. Schools have…

School social workers are challenged with the responsibility to clinically assist students to the extent that they are ready to learn in school. Because social, emotional, and behavioral issues impact student readiness to learn, these issues clearly fall within the purview of school social work. However, many school social workers have a limited…

On April 20, 1999, two Columbine High School students walked into their school midday and killed 12 students and one teacher. Twenty-one other students were injured. All that had been normal came to an abrupt end. Education leaders in Jefferson County, Colorado, quickly realized they were laying the groundwork for a new normal. Colorado's…

School social work is an integral part of the social work profession. This specialty area within the field of social work often focuses on direct service delivery with the student, sometimes in a more macro level form of intervention; however, it is evident that leadership skills in the field of school social work practice are valuable and needed.…

Food insecurity is associated with a range of child developmental, behavioral, and emotional challenges, all of which can inhibit a child's school success. Schools offer a number of formal and informal services aimed at reducing food insecurity, but the problems associated with identifying children in need, addressing issues of stigma, and…

Today's school social workers are facing unique challenges in the workplace. The results of the 2009 New Mexico School Social Work Survey reinforced the idea that school social workers must be able to prove their effectiveness. Building on the school social work literature on practice outcomes evaluation, a more extensive statewide survey of…

We know that students cannot learn if they are not in school, and that students with economic challenges miss school more frequently than other students. What obstacles create this attendance gap, and how can school districts provide the supports to improve attendance for these students? The authors of this article, who work with the Texas…

The history of school social work in the United States is nearly as old as the history of public education. Despite the presence of social workers in schools throughout this time, the profession has generally been established within schools through confluence of interests with broader social and educational movements or policy windows. These…

Teachers report lacking sufficient knowledge and support for effective management of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), particularly in urban school settings. The school social worker's role has been identified as apposite for collaboration with teachers in the behavior management of ADHD, but their knowledge has not been previously…

The authors, with Swedish elementary school students (N = 201), 9-12 years old, examined the potential significance to self-perceived academic competence of students' cross-ethnic friendship ties and prosocial behavior to better understand education's minority achievement gap. A crossed-lagged panel model was tested to investigate potential…

This qualitative exploration in the form of multiple case studies interviewed a group of seven social workers from the St. Louis Metropolitan area to gain their perception as school social workers concerning their roles in public schools. The literature on school social workers indicated that school social workers brought unique knowledge and…

The ECE workforce experiences high levels of stress, partly because they have low incomes and limited access to professional and personal supports for their own well-being. In addition, the ECE workforce experiences sociopolitical stressors (i.e., stressors that arise from political legislation or from political leaders' threatening rhetoric).…

The case of a delinquent hard-to-reach client shows the possibilities and limits of the strength approach in youth work with delinquent adolescents. Issues such as: "How does information about the delinquency of a client influence social workers before even have started to attend to a case?" or "What is necessary to maintain a…

Cyberbullying is a pervasive problem among youth that has detrimental consequences on the social and emotional functioning of those involved. Cyberbullying results from the interaction of individual and environmental factors. Thus, strategies intended to address this type of bullying must look beyond individual characteristics and consider peer,…