Teaching youth how to self-regulate is a focus of a trauma-informed school approach. Peace Spaces, including Peace Corners and Peace Rooms, are a trauma-informed intervention used to teach self-regulation skills to students. The current study used a Consensual Qualitative Research design to identify and describe the thoughts, concerns, and…

Adolescent school connectedness generally protects from risk behaviors such as tobacco use; however, its relationship to e-cigarette use is unclear. This study examines the relationship between adolescent school connectedness and e-cigarette susceptibility in a diverse longitudinal sample. This secondary analysis of a school-based intervention…

This qualitative descriptive case study, set in an urban middle school environment, utilized Epstein's Six Types of Involvement as its theoretical framework to explore the complex issue of chronic absenteeism among middle school students. The primary focus of the study was the exploration of parents' perspectives on this issue, particularly in…

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…

The purpose of the Dissertation in Practice was to explore the experiences and perceptions of a group of middle school teachers and administrators that were implementing a Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) program. The setting for this case study was an urban, Title I middle school located in Florida. Interviews were conducted…

High teacher turnover in urban schools, such as at the school in which this study was conducted, has persistently negatively impacted school reform efforts aimed at closing the achievement gap (Donaldson & Johnson, 2011; Ronfeldt, Loeb, & Wyckoff, 2013). Since effective teachers have the greatest direct impact upon improving student…

School policies and interventions are implemented with the hope of increasing achievement, but that alone has not been found to support all students in accessing their potential (Savitz-Romer & Bouffard, 2013). The disparities that exist within the education systems provide unfair advantage to some students over others and this is seen across…

An urban middle school goes through the transformation of becoming a university-supported lab school. Drawing upon design thinking principles, the planning team cultivates a sense of shared empathy, creative problem-solving, and an ethos of curiosity and learning in a collaborative environment.

Partner reading with paragraph shrinking has been shown to be an effective classwide reading intervention in elementary school, but has yet to be studied with eighth-grade students or with content area reading such as science and social studies. The current study examined the effects of implementing the classwide intervention for 3 wk with 86…

Context: This study analyzes the implementation of a blended learning middle school mathematics intervention in a large urban school district in the northeastern United States. Blended learning models integrate online instructional tools within traditional methods of classroom instruction. Focus of Study: As their use increases in classrooms…

This case study was designed to investigate the implementation of a cross-content academic vocabulary intervention in an urban school. Two aspects of the intervention were the focus of interest: student learning and teacher sensemaking. Participants included four content-area teachers and their sixth-grade students. Each week, students received…

Identifying factors that help or hinder the implementation of school environment interventions such as the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program (OBPP) is needed to inform strategies that bolster implementation quality in low-income urban middle school settings. We used qualitative methods to identify supports and barriers for OBPP implementation…

Given the growing evidence of academic language demands embodied in science practices, this study aimed to design and evaluate the effectiveness of a literacy-science integrated program that emphasized the incorporation of academic vocabulary instruction and collaborative discussion of a socio-scientific issue in sixth-grade science classrooms in…

The "Cultural Adjustment Group" is a pilot school-based group intervention for recently arrived immigrant middle school students. This study examined the feasibility, acceptability, and provided preliminary assessment data to guide future intervention research. Seventy (Male, n = 43; Female, n = 27) immigrant students who were…