This dissertation examines the fidelity in which school districts are prepared to implement their reunification plan in the event of a tragedy or emergency. School emergencies continue to occur, and safety plans need to be developed and administered to support and protect students and staff. This dissertation is organized into two separate papers.…

This qualitative descriptive study sought to form a foundation for emergency response plan research. The intent was to gather descriptive descriptions from higher education administrators regarding how they communicated and implemented emergency response plans adjusted over the past decade due to the Presidential Preparedness Directive 8. Concern…

As part of Maryland's Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funding allotment, the Maryland State Department of Education created the Maryland Leads initiative, which committed the state's set aside funds to local education agencies to implement at least two of seven high-leverage strategies. In February 2022, 23 LEAs were…

Basic Needs Oregon was established in 2021 through House Bill 2835 to ensure that students enrolled at Oregon's public colleges and universities can meet their basic needs--including food, housing, health care, transportation, and emergency financial support--so they can persist and succeed in higher education. Drawing on Basic Needs Oregon…

School Disaster Risk Reduction Management (SDRRM) plays a crucial role in ensuring that learners, teachers and other school personnel are safe on the school premises. This study evaluated how well coastal schools in Cluster VII of the Division of Pampanga, Philippines had implemented a school disaster risk reduction management system. This study…

This study investigated the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the implementation of Social Emotional Learning (SEL) programs and the relationship between the principals' leadership styles and actions as they implemented in elementary schools in New York State. This study uses Bolman and Deal's (2006) Wizard and Warrior framework. The SurveyMonkey…

High-impact tutoring is a research-based approach to providing individualized instruction for students and accelerating learning. It was one of the most popular uses of federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) dollars, with 10 states spending a portion of their funding on large-scale tutoring initiatives. Illinois was one…

The National Incident Management System (NIMS) is part of the National Preparedness System and supports the National Response Framework. NIMS puts forth a systematic approach to collaborating across disciplines and all levels of government to prevent, protect against, mitigate, respond to, and recover from threats and hazards that impact the…

The world has faced challenges from a variety of viral respiratory illnesses over the past few decades, including the 2002 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome and the 2009 swine-origin pandemic (H1N1) influenza. However, the disaster management guidelines for Early Childhood Education (ECE) programs in California were limited to earthquake and fire…

This study aimed to evaluate the crisis management plans in Saudi Arabian universities by identifying key challenges and obstacles. A cross-sectional study was conducted among 473 faculty members. The participants completed a survey that included the university campus's existing crisis management plans, educational leaders' challenges in…

Our nation's postsecondary institutions are entrusted to provide a safe and healthy learning environment for the students, faculty, and staff who live, work, and study on campus. Planning for emergencies may be challenging for institutions of higher education (IHEs) because of geography, environment, governance, around-the clock-operations, and…

This qualitative study aims to understand further the lived experiences of high school mathematics teachers who underwent a sudden transformation into emergency remote teaching due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The study used a qualitative approach, specifically an interpretative phenomenological analysis. Emergency remote teaching has been a new…

To address the unprecedented challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress authorized the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF I) in March 2020 with over $6 billion allocated for emergency financial aid. In this paper, we utilize the administrative burden framework to analyze HEERF I implementation for a stratified random sample of…

Background: The closures resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted teacher licensure pathways. During that time, prospective teachers had less access to student teaching experiences, fewer program and course completion opportunities, and a reduced ability to prepare for and pass state licensing examinations. In response, a State…

This report provides a first look at how Illinois school districts' uses of Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds were related to their test score outcomes in the years following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using data on districts' ESSER expenditures as of November 2023, the authors analyze test score trends across…