Public education depends on the collaboration of adults to promote the success of the students who are served. Principal-teacher relationships are a necessary part of the overall learning environment established for students to grow and thrive. In an urban educational setting these relationships can be tested, especially in the transitional grades…

This study examined the impact Restorative Justice (RJ) practices had on black boys and the teachers who teach them school experience. The setting of this study was an urban inner city middle school, located in the Northeast region of the United States. This study examined the experiences of these two distinct groups, and ultimately how their…

Equitable instructional practices are vital to closing the educational achievement gap for African American students. However, there is a gap in research on understanding the lived experiences of educators and the ability to provide equity instruction to African American students. The impact of equitable instructional practices and the role of…

The purpose of this study was to examine the experiences of parents and educators after the implementation of an immigrant parent program in an urban middle school that lacked parental involvement support. This qualitative study used multiple data collection methods to triangulate the data. Study participants provided their contributions through…

State reading exams are crucial in determining students' reading proficiency. The problem is students in inner-city Title 1 middle schools in New York City are consistently performing below the national average on the mandated New York State Reading Exam. The purpose of this qualitative exploratory case study was to explore barriers teachers and…

The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to examine the relationship between teacher's perceptions of school climate and student achievement of middle school students. Two hundred twenty middle school teachers, from a large urban school district located in the Southwestern region of the US, participated in the "New Jersey School Climate…

During the 2020 pandemic, global governments imposed COVID-19 restrictions. Among the restrictions were K-12 school closures, which caused an abrupt change from in-person to virtual learning. These circumstances damaged students' mental health even after constraints were lifted. The problem was the socio-emotional learning (SEL) deficiency…

The purpose of this study was to assess the perceptions of middle school math teachers, as captured by survey ratings, of the frequency and quality of professional development programs. The study further examined the relationship of these perceptions to the degree to which professional development increased self-efficacy and social connections.…

Equity between racial/ethnic groups has become an important factor in education, and scholar-practitioners have focused on closing the equity gap in both student academics and discipline. Research has shown the inequity in student discipline dating back to the 1950s when schools began to integrate and Black students were allowed to attend the same…

This study addresses teacher retention in Title 1 urban middle schools, focusing on why veteran teachers remain despite the challenges. Anchored in self-determination theory, the study explores how fulfilling the psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness impacts teachers' decisions to stay. Employing a qualitative descriptive…

The purpose of this case study was to explore administrator, teacher, and parent perceptions about the resources needed to increase parental involvement. Leveraging three theoretical frameworks of Epstein's overlapping spheres of influence, the Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler model, and Vygotsky's sociocultural theory, this study utilized qualitative…

The goal in this qualitative phenomenological study was to discover the experiences of middle school teachers as they pertain to culturally responsive pedagogy, student engagement, and student growth. Participants who taught culturally diverse students in Grades 6-8 were recruited from public charter middle schools in an urban district in the…

Examining school-wide factors that can positively influence student and school success is especially crucial after the COVID-19 pandemic, which resulted in a period of online learning that led to a decrease in student achievement scores across the nation. As a result, this study sought to assess how schedule design specifically affected teacher…

This qualitative case study served to investigate teachers' and students' experiences implementing BASE Education, an electronic learning (e-learning) platform for social and emotional learning (SEL), in an urban charter middle school in Paterson, New Jersey. Convenient purposeful sampling was used to recruit seven students and three…

This case study clarifies the relationship between the five social-emotional learning competencies and academic achievement among African American middle school students attending urban public schools from the perspective of students and teachers. This study also explored the ways in which high-achieving African American middle school students…