In United States school districts, Black girls experience exclusionary punishments at disproportionate rates, mainly because of discriminatory school policies enacted by educators who hold implicit bias. Although in recent years there has been a proliferation of scholarship investigating Black girls' schooling experiences, there is a dearth of…

School leadership is a key factor in school turnarounds. The general prescription for what school leaders should do tends to be this: Set high expectations for staff and students and give strong instructional supports. Most school systems recognize how tall an order this is, given everything else the principal job entails. Even principals who are…

Elementary school gardens have grown popular and abundant in recent years, and are established with goals ranging from addressing childhood obesity to improving test scores. With this garden-based learning movement come questions of school garden efficacy in achieving stated goals, as well as school garden sustainability and longevity in an ever…

For decades safety has been an integral component of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) and CTE (career and technical education) instruction. Given today's litigious society, safety in P-12 STEM education and CTE has received greater attention. This in part is the result of the rise in popularity of collaborative learning…

Based on events in Florida, this case explores issues that accompany the choice to arm school personnel as a means to address school violence and shootings. Readers consider the issue from the perspective of the school board of a large, diverse district and are presented with dilemmas while they consider the effectiveness, the political…

This article examines the relationship between shared governance and one school district's (in)ability to advance educational equity. Specifically, we consider the district's policies, discourse, and practice around equity within the context of site-based management and shared decision making. We suggest that if equity is indeed a major district…

In this research article, authors Hillary Parkhouse, Virginia Massaro, Melissa Cuba, and Carolyn Waters examine teachers' perceptions of their responsibilities to support undocumented students and the barriers they encounter in fulfilling them. Since the 1982 Plyler v. Doe decision guaranteed public K-12 education to undocumented students, there…

The focus of this study included selected South Carolina public high school leaders' experiences in applying district cyberbullying policies. With the increase in technology use by students, what was school-based bullying has expanded into cyberbullying, the application of electronic devices to harass and intimidate other students. Given the…

"We Dare Say Love" takes up the critically important issue of what it means to educate Black male students in a large urban district. It chronicles the development and implementation of the African American Male Achievement Initiative in Oakland Unified School District, following a small group of Black male educators who changed district…

This paper is a project report of a policy analysis of educational policies aligned to standards set forth for trauma-informed school districts. Current state policies, mandates, and/or frameworks are under development, and in some states, non-existent. More often than not, expectations regarding trauma-informed implementation in the school…

Since the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) era many program improvement schools were prescribed Professional Learning Communities (PLC) professional development as a corrective action by their respective Local Education Agency (LEA). Despite the adoption and implementation of many corrective action measures (including PLCs) recommended by LEA's, the…

When COVID-19 hit, Holyoke School District was nine months into an ambitious three-year strategy, the Homegrown Talent Initiative (HTI), designed to help rural communities across Colorado better prepare youth for success after high school by offering new career exploration and training opportunities. In the midst of school closings, remote…

The Region 12 Comprehensive Center supports the Kansas State Department of Education (KSDE) with implementation and scaling of the Kansans Can Redesign Initiative. Schools engaged in redesign are guided by four core principles--personalized learning, student success skills, family/business/community partnerships, and real-world application--to…

The "IDRA Newsletter" serves as a vehicle for communication with educators, school board members, decision-makers, parents, and the general public concerning the educational needs of all children across the United States. The focus of this issue is "Student Voice for the New School Year." Contents include: (1) LGBTQ+ Inclusive…

The call for more expansive access to bilingual education is grounded in a comprehensive synthesis of evidence on the benefits of bilingual education, bilingualism, and biliteracy for students and the larger social fabric. Many studies find that access to bilingual education programs has a medium to large positive impact on students' academic…