Direct Admissions is a system developed and piloted recently in the US that defaults graduating high school students into post-secondary admittance by data-matching their profiles (transcripts, standardized test scores, and prerequisites) with institutions' preset eligibility criteria. As applicant and institutional interest in direct admissions…

This report illustrates the statewide implementation and effectiveness of school breakfast in Ohio. In the 2024-2025 school year, approximately 94% of Ohio schools with USDA nutrition programs serve breakfast. In the 2023-2024 school year, 27.2% of enrolled children participated in the School Breakfast Program and 54.5% participated in the…

This qualitative case study provided insight into the effectiveness of rural school leaders' implementation practices during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study addressed the need for knowledge regarding school administrators' and educators' perspectives on the practice changes necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic. This qualitative case study aimed…

The COVID-19 pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on education systems worldwide, leading to significant learning loss, exacerbating existing educational inequalities and disproportionately affecting disadvantaged students. Governments around the world have begun to invest in large-scale tutoring initiatives as a key component of their…

Chronic absenteeism is a widespread and troubling phenomenon affecting high school students nationwide. Existing research identifies an inverse link between student health and chronic absenteeism. Illness is a top cause of student absence, suggesting that school-based health services may play an important role in mitigating chronic absenteeism.…

U.S. public schools are engaged in an unprecedented effort to expand tutoring in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Broad-based support for scaling tutoring emerged, in part, because of the large effects on student achievement found in prior meta-analyses. We conduct an expanded meta-analysis of 265 randomized controlled trials and explore how…

The purpose of this quantitative study is to understand the role that character education curriculum, specifically the "Leader in Me," plays on overall elementary school culture. The primary question guiding this study is, has the implementation of "Leader in Me" provided any measurable impact on elementary school culture prior…

This study examined the impact of a classroom-level component of The Inclusive Skill-building Learning Approach (ISLA), an instructional and restorative alternative to exclusionary discipline, on student behaviors and school discipline practices in middle schools. Intervention implementation, classroom observations, and all other data collection…

The COVID-19 pandemic instigated a global educational crisis, compelling an abrupt transition from traditional in-person instruction to emergency remote teaching. This sudden shift underscored the need for robust learning management models capable of navigating unprecedented disruptions. The objectives of this research were to ascertain the needs…

The phenomenological study explored how effectively the MTSS process was implemented pre-COVID and post-COVID based on participants' lived experiences. The participants were educators with 10+ years of experience who shared their perspectives about the MTSS process before, during, and after COVID. The participant interviews revealed that many…

The problem that drives this study is that, although there is significant research showing positive outcomes from social emotional learning (SEL), many schools still struggle to effectively implement and support SEL (Dix, Slee, Lawson, & Keeves, 2012). The purpose of this study is to understand how school leaders interpret their lived…

The COVID-19 pandemic and related school closures greatly interfered in students' social, emotional, and academic development creating behavioral struggles after returning to school. This concurrent mixed-methods study examined teacher perceptions of student behavioral change and social-emotional learning (SEL) during the return to in-person…

Educators are increasingly using trauma-informed approaches to lessen the harsh effects of trauma on children. Although this practice is becoming more common in U.S. kindergarten through Grade 12 schools, it has been slow to reach the early care and education setting, which includes Head Start programs. Head Starts are encouraged to use a trauma…

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 study examined the impact of a classroom-level component of The Inclusive Skill-building Learning Approach (ISLA), an instructional and restorative alternative to exclusionary discipline, on student behaviors and school discipline practices in middle schools. Intervention implementation, classroom observations, and all other data collection…