The purpose of this study was to explore constituent perspectives of the California Community Colleges Historically Black Colleges and Universities Transfer Guarantee Program. The researcher queried representatives from participating community colleges and Historically Black Colleges and Universities regarding their perspectives of the program.…

This study explored the practices and experiences of food resource managers at ten community colleges in the southwestern United States, highlighting their use of food resource rooms to assist food-insecure students. Utilizing the CFIR's domains of intervention source, inner setting, and process, the study probed into the food resource managers'…

In many school systems, classrooms are filled with students who are performing well, but among these are students who are failing due to an array of barriers to learning. These barriers stem from external factors such as homelessness, abuse, and others, or internal factors such as mental disorders and learning behaviors. Addressing these barriers…

Despite music education being endorsed by researchers as an effective tool to improve the social-emotional competence of students who live in poverty, African American students, who are overrepresented among the population of students who live in poverty, often fail to take advantage of music education programs (Elpus & Abril, 2011; Hoffman…

The High School Aerospace Scholars (HAS) program is an out-of-school-time (OST) science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) program that aims to encourage and inspire Texas high school students to pursue STEM degrees and careers. The program gives Texas high school juniors the opportunity to participate in an interactive online…

Police organizations routinely train their officers on the use of deadly force policy and procedures. The topic addressed in this study is that deadly force policy training may be inadequate in combining policy along with discretion in shoot or no shoot situations often resulting in improper use of deadly force. The problem is the training that…

Educational literature has established that over half of all teachers leave the profession within 3 years. Exploring the 1st-year teacher transition and its inherent challenges has been necessary to educational stakeholders seeking to achieve national standards and improve the educational environment, student achievement, and teacher retention.…

This dissertation consists of four individual, but related chapters. Chapter 1 provides an introduction to competitive employment for people with disabilities who have individualized support needs and the Family Employment Awareness Training ("FEAT"). This chapter also provides a general overview of the other chapters in this…

This research study intended to discover the perceptions of 10 Illinois Generation Y novice high school principals pertaining to the effectiveness of their principal preparation programs in terms of how well it prepared them to lead in the first three years of their principalship, and what subsequent professional development they deemed necessary…

The purpose of this retrospective study was to develop an understanding of how one group of adults who graduated from a Virginia regional alternative program made sense of their experience in an alternative education setting. Specifically, this study sought to determine if adult participants, several years later, perceived participation in the…

The prevalence of autism locally and globally is significant. The Autism Foundation of the Carolina's (AFC) recognized the need to fill a gap in services to families coping with autism, while educating future professionals about the condition and its effect on families. The purpose of the mixed-methods, participant-oriented, participatory study…

The purpose of "Non-credit community arts programs: A comparative case study of three programs within research universities" is to examine the perceptions of the various stakeholders of non-credit community arts programs to determine the perceived benefits received by all stakeholders from the non-credit program, the university, and its…

This study evaluated program graduates of National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship 1 to years after completing the program in inner city schools of Los Angeles, California. Twenty-seven out of 150 graduates participated in 2 semi-structured interviews in Northern and Southern California, or long semi-structured telephone interviews for…

Students, who are at risk of academic failure, are reading and achieving below their grade level yet the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act requires that all students perform on or above grade level. Results from the 2003 National Assessment of Education Program (NAEP) showed that 37% of fourth graders across the United States are reading below grade…

The purpose of this study was to examine the professional impact of the National Board Certification from the perspective of teachers who have achieved National Board Certification, which is granted through the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards. This phenomenological study involved interviews with 10 National Board Certified…