Calls to weaponize teachers with guns as a means of enhanced school safety and protection against a school shooting have intensified in recent years. Arguments for and against arming teachers are relatively well-established, but a paucity of scholarly research exists regarding its effectiveness and whether teachers generally support carrying guns…

This article characterizes and reflects on the possible uses of early warning systems (hereafter, EWS) in the region as effective tools to support educational pathways, whenever they identify risks of dropout, difficulties for the achievement of substantive learning, and the possibility of organizing specific actions. This article was developed in…

Mass shootings in schools raise important questions about how best to keep individuals safe and increase survivability in such situations. One of the most common techniques used is lockdown drills, which train individuals to build time and space between them and the threat. Despite their use in 95% of public K-12 schools nationwide, their efficacy…

Background: It has become increasingly important to shift education research and programming from a deficit focused perspective to a positive youth development perspective in order to identify and promote factors that support students' positive functioning and outcomes. One outgrowth of positive youth development is Positive Mental Health (PMH),…

School attendance is an important predictor of student outcomes. Regular attendance ensures students have access to learning in the classroom and allows students to build relationships with their peers and adults in schools. But too often, students face barriers in and out of school that influence whether they attend school consistently. These…

School administrators are leaving the profession due to limited coping mechanisms and support for building resilience within themselves. Without identified supports, school administrators will more likely succumb to fatigue and face job dissatisfaction. This mixed-methods study examined the relationship between leadership style, engagement in…

Recently, states have enacted teacher-carry laws. While controversial, little scholarship has tapped public attitudes toward such reforms. Because public opinion shapes policy, the public is an important stakeholder in this debate. Thus, we investigated three questions. First, how supportive is the public of arming teachers? Second, what…

This brief examines strategies for leveraging State longitudinal data systems (SLDS) to promote college and career readiness (CCR) goals. The examples provided are based on current state efforts to use their state longitudinal data systems to achieve their CCR vision and goals. The following information outlines the basic purpose and elements of…

The Forum Guide to Early Warning Systems provides information and best practices to help education agencies plan, develop, implement, and use an early warning system in their agency to inform interventions that improve student outcomes. The document includes a review of early warning systems and their use in education agencies and explains the…

The Devereux Student Strengths Assessment Mini (DESSA-Mini; Naglieri, LeBuffe, & Shapiro, 2011/2014) was designed to overcome practical obstacles to universal prevention screening. This article seeks to determine whether an entirely strength-based, 8-item screening instrument achieves technical accuracy in routine practice. Data come from a…

School personnel make a variety of decisions within multitiered problem-solving frameworks, including the decision to assign a student to group-based support, to design an individualized support plan, or classify a student as eligible for special education. Each decision is founded upon a judgment regarding whether the student has responded to…

Over the past decade, research on dropout prevention has become focused on using evidence-based practice, and data-driven decisions, to mitigate students' dropping out of high school and instead, support and prepare students for career and college. Early warning systems or on-track indicators, in which readily available student-level data are used…

The New York State Physical Education Learning Standards for K-12 students were transformed into a survey administered to a sample of teachers of physical education (N = 261), ascertaining their ratings of their knowledge, ability/skill, education/training, and attitudes on the importance of future professionals receiving training to teach…

An early warning system is a data-based tool that helps predict which students are on the right path towards eventual graduation or other grade-appropriate goals. Through such systems, stakeholders at the school and district levels can view data from a wide range of perspectives and gain a deeper understanding of student data. This "Statewide…

Background: Competitive foods and beverages are available on most US school campuses. States and school districts are adopting nutrition standards to regulate these products, but few studies have reported on the extent to which schools are able to adhere to competitive regulations. The purpose of this study was to describe the extent to which…