Current educational practices acknowledge student and staff social-emotional needs; however, there is also an emphasis placed on student compliance and achievement. Impersonal, test-driven approaches and the recent demands of a teaching career can cause teacher-student relationships to suffer. The emphasis on data, rigor, and accountability, together with increased public scrutiny, leaves little time for teachers to focus on compassion and care. The intent of the current mixed-methods study is to consider the phenomenon of caring and the interrelated perceptions from both teachers and students. An additional outcome of this study is to inform teachers of how their competency of care in the classroom is perceived by their students, particularly those at-risk. The current study took place in a highly-rated public school district located in Northeast Ohio. An adaptation of the Pianta Student-Teacher Relationship Scale was used to collect the quantitative data from teachers disclosing 41 student profiles. Utilizing a pre-existing student drawing task, 283 first through fourth-grade student drawings were explored to determine a correlation, if any, between students at-risk and their typical-learning peers regarding their perception of teacher care. As a result of the qualitative analysis, four themes of caring-uncaring behaviors emerged: nice, kind, and helpful, mad and yells, teaches content, and praises students. The drawing-task results propose that student discernment of teacher care does not always align with educator beliefs. However, descriptive statistical data indicates that there is no association between a child's risk status, a child's grade, and a child's artwork depictions. By giving voice to students, especially learners in need, it is the hope that this study will bring awareness to not only the barriers that may mitigate teacher care but to the importance of caring for students, and to the significance of understanding how teachers? expressions of care are perceived by students. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]