This article conceptualizes the materialities of school governance council meetings. A concern for the material a/effects of spatial positioning emerged during a participatory action research project concerned with secondary school students' sense of the benefits and challenges of student representation on school councils. Attending to affective,…

Purpose: The purpose of this explanatory sequential mixed-methods study was to identify and describe what strategies exemplary urban superintendents perceive as most important to build trust with school board members using the 5 domains of competence, consistency, concern, candor, and connection. In addition, it was the purpose of this study to…

In this issue of the "Equity Dispatch" we focus on the collective power of minoritized communities to positively impact the quality of education students receive within their districts through the selection of equity-focused, locally-elected school board members.

This article analyses the stakeholder model of boards that is widely used in public and third sector institutions in England and Wales. The central tenet of this model is that such institutions should be strategically led by individuals who are representative of and from the groups that have an interest in them. The article focuses in particular…

Background: Many state agencies have developed model wellness policies (MWPs) to serve as examples for schools when writing their own school wellness policy (SWP). The purpose of this study was to evaluate if a MWP aids schools in writing stronger, more comprehensive SWPs. Methods: For this cross-sectional study, 91 school districts submitted…

The primary purpose of this study was to survey Illinois public school board members to examine the association between local public school board member beliefs and behaviors and student academic achievement. Relatively little research exists linking school board member behaviors and beliefs to school district student academic achievement data.…

Listening and speaking are active language skills and need special attention in English language pedagogy, especially in ESL/EFL contexts. English in India is taught as a second language in almost all the states, and the secondary education boards stipulate the teaching of all the four language skills as the objective of teaching English, yet the…

Under England's Children and Families Act 2014, local authorities (LAs) have a statutory responsibility to provide an independent mediation service for cases of disagreement between parents or young people and the LAs where parents or the young person are considering an appeal to the First-tier Tribunal Special Educational Needs (SEN) and…

Counties, districts, and schools have had to respond to ever-shifting issues related to COVID-19. This brief describes the complex challenges that district superintendents faced, which often required expertise in areas beyond traditional expectations for the role, particularly in public health. The brief gives examples of crisis management…

Charter schools are public schools of choice, according to the Nation's Report Card (NAEP). The U.S. Department of Education uses the term "public charter school." A public charter school is a publicly funded school that is typically governed by a group or organization under a legislative contract--a charter-- with the state, district,…

To best train and support school leaders in their evolving roles, they require high-quality preparation and in-service pipelines that both address the changing demands on their positions and acknowledge the cascading effects that well-prepared leaders have on both student outcomes and in school culture and retention. Including school leaders in…

In this article, we share findings from an analysis of Ontario Catholic school board policy documents (N = 179) containing Canada's newest human rights grounds: gender expression and gender identity. Our major finding may be unsurprising--that Ontario Catholic boards are generally not responding to Toby's Act (passed in 2012) at the level of…

In this article, we extend and complement previous studies on self-descriptions of superintendents' administrative work by examining the influential role of a relatively new actor in charter schools: the charter school district superintendent. In particular, we examine the influence of a charter district superintendent's leadership on…

Recognizing the essential value of the arts, the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) included the arts as an indicator of school quality and student success in the state's Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) plan, which the U.S. Department of Education approved in August 2017. The indicator currently has no weight in Illinois's accountability…

In line with the Center on School Turnaround's charge to support states' efforts, they sought to highlight three districts engaged in focused turnaround efforts where their respective boards played a key role in catalyzing, shaping, and supporting targeted improvement efforts. This brief is one of three describing the work. The three briefs…