Background/Context: Racial disparities in school discipline represent a longstanding injustice in U.S. schools. Students of color, particularly Black students, are systematically subjected to harsher school disciplinary actions compared with their peers. A growing body of evidence demonstrates the severity of the problem and the negative…

This prospective study of 276 Virginia public high schools found that the prevalence of teasing and bullying (PTB) as perceived by both 9th-grade students and teachers was predictive of dropout rates for this cohort 4 years later. Negative binomial regression indicated that one standard deviation increases in student- and teacher-reported PTB were…

This study sought to determine the nature of the relationship between cultural competence and teacher efficacy. According to 30 years of NAEP data, stagnant achievement among minority students persists; among factors related to student achievement, teacher efficacy represents the school-related variable that is most closely correlated and…

Students transitioning into the middle school often experience difficulty adjusting to their new environment. During this transition, declines in academic motivation, academic achievement, and connectedness have been noted. Most research on this transition has taken place in public school settings. This research investigated the impact of the…

Threat assessment has been widely recommended as a violence prevention approach for schools, but there are few empirical studies of its use. This nonexperimental study of 280 Virginia public high schools compared 95 high schools using the Virginia threat assessment guidelines (Cornell & Sheras, 2006), 131 following other (i.e., locally…