The 2022 edition of the Annual Condition of Education Report (COE) marks the 33rd edition of the report. For over 30 years, the Department has published the COE in order to provide education stakeholders critical data about the status of Iowa's education system. The 2022 COE includes a wide variety of content including information about Iowa's…

Weight-related outcomes were examined among high school students in Minnesota public school districts according to the quality of district wellness policies. Wellness policy strength and comprehensiveness were scored using the Wellness School Assessment Tool (WellSAT) for 325 Minnesota public school districts in 2013. The associations between…

This randomized controlled trial or "true experiment" examines the effects of a school garden intervention on the science knowledge of elementary school children. Schools were randomly assigned to a group that received the garden intervention (n?=?25) or to a waitlist control group that received the garden intervention at the end of the…

Despite promising evidence that school-based health centers (SBHCs) and school mental health (SMH) services can reduce disparities in access to mental health care for underserved populations, little is known about what predicts retention of youth in SMH services. This study aimed to identify individual- and school-level factors associated with…

This study compared the employment, extracurricular participation, and family structure status of students from low socioeconomic families that achieved state-approved benchmarks on ACT reading and mathematics tests to those that did not achieve the benchmarks. Free and reduced lunch eligibility was used to determine SES. Participants included 211…

Background. Family homes are a key setting for developing lifelong eating and physical activity habits, yet little is known about how family home nutrition and physical activity (FNPA) environments influence food insecurity (FI) and childhood obesity, particularly in rural settings. Aims. This study examined associations among FNPA, FI, and body…

Purpose: This study assessed student perceptions of school meals under the new federal meal patterns for the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). Student feedback is instrumental in developing strategies to increase and maintain NSLP participation, satisfaction, and ultimately provide students with a healthy meal. Methods: Anonymous…

This article reports on a teacher inquiry project in a primary school that serves disadvantaged communities on the outskirts of a de-industrialised city in the north of England. Of particular concern is a small group of white British boys in receipt of free school meals, who are identified by the school as disaffected and as a consequence…

This article discusses High School Harvest (HSH), an Extension educator-led project in five Vermont schools to provide students with job training and food system education and to provide lightly processed produce to school lunch programs. One hundred and twenty-one students participated, logging 8,752 hours growing, harvesting, and processing…

This paper explores the historical formation of the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) in the United States and argues that programme emergence depended on the ability of policy entrepreneurs to link the economic concerns of agricultural production with the ideational concern of national security. Using a historical institutionalist framework…

Education and health care policies in Ghana since independence have been universalist in approach providing free universal health care and free basic and tertiary education until the early 1980s. Precipitated primarily by a severe drought, stagnant economic growth, mismanagement, and political instability, Ghana undertook major economic reforms…

College decisions are often the result of a variety of influences related to student background characteristics, academic characteristics, college preferences and college aspirations. College counselors recommend that students choose a variety of schools, especially schools where the general student body matches the academic achievement of…

This brief summarizes McKinney-Vento Act mandates for local educational agencies (LEAs) and schools. It includes additional explanation on two issues about which charter schools have frequently raised questions: transportation, specifically to and from the school of origin, and enrollment policies, which may create barriers for homeless students.…

This supplemental report explores the developmental needs of Colorado's recent high school graduates, examines the postsecondary success of students who need developmental education and explores equity gaps as they relate to developmental education. It builds upon the report titled "The Postsecondary Progress and Success of High School…

In 2002 the Council of the Great City Schools and its members set out to develop performance measures that could be used to improve business operations in urban public school districts. The Council launched the Performance Measurement and Benchmarking Project to achieve these objectives. The purposes of the project were to: (1) Establish a common…