This study investigates the significance of integrating social-emotional learning (SEL) into school environments, a trend that has gained momentum over the past four decades. Recognizing that students' social and emotional competencies profoundly affect their academic success, educators are increasingly prioritizing the cultivation of skills such…

Pre-apprenticeship programs are a very effective tool to help youth and adults enter a Registered Apprenticeship program. Participants can also use the experience to pursue further training or enter the workforce. The pre-apprenticeship is designed to help youth or adults take a snapshot of their current skills and use that data to address gaps in…

This paper presents the process of conducting a community-wide needs assessment that initially focused on soliciting information about childcare needs of families with school-aged children. The researchers were interested in understanding whether the method designed to conduct the needs assessment helped to foster collaboration, trust, and…

This study examines the relationship between Individualized Education Program (IEP) goal content and quality and the education outcomes for students in elementary school with complex support needs (CSN) in Utah, focusing on grades three through six. The investigation explores whether the alignment of IEP goals with alternate state standards and…

In the United States, in 2013, 610,042 people were estimated homeless in one night. Improving the effectiveness of homeless assistance programs, particularly aligning programs' practices with their goals, is critical to serving this population. Using a theory that predicts homeless exits, this study presents an innovative, low-cost evaluation tool…

With the establishment of the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, communities have depended on Extension Agents to address relevant needs. Extension Agents have used different approaches such as the Texas Community Futures Forum to obtain information on issues affecting people. The problem was that Texas Community Futures Forums have never…

High-quality preschool programs are heralded as effective policy solutions to promote low-income children's development and life-long wellbeing. Yet evaluations of recent preschool programs produce puzzling findings, including negative impacts, and divergent, weaker results than demonstration programs implemented in the 1960s and 70s. We provide…

This study provides one of the first causal estimates of the impact of housing on academic outcomes. While college students are too often dismissed as a privileged and healthy part of the population, researchers increasingly observe housing insecurity among college students. This problem worsened during the pandemic, underscoring the link between…

Crisis intervention programs have been developed to help educators be better prepared to prevent and respond to students in crisis. Schools spend millions of dollars for the use of these commercial programs, many of which are based on the principles of the Cycle of Acting Out Behavior (Colvin & Scott, 2015), which is considered the "gold…

This paper provides a qualitative review of research related to sexual harassment interventions employed in institutions of higher education (IHEs) and introduces a needs assessment process that IHE administrators can use to inform their choice of intervention. Additionally, this paper provides direction regarding how to assess the impact of…

The current study was conducted to examine the types of adjustments used to support students with special educational needs in mainstream classrooms and how schools monitored the effectiveness of the adjustments they use. A range of stakeholders were interviewed in 22 mainstream schools across New South Wales, Australia, and the interviews were…

In 2022, the Center for the Study of Social Policy and Project SPARC conducted research to better understand the barriers experienced by parenting students participating in CalWORKs, California's cash assistance program for families with children. This brief highlights findings from the research on who parenting students are and their experiences…

The evidence-based school counseling model calls for school counselors to (a) make data-driven decisions to determine needs, (b) identify research-supported interventions to address the previously determined needs, and (c) evaluate the effectiveness of the implemented interventions. This article offers both a process model and logic model that…

This mixed methods program evaluation evaluated the implementation of the multi-tiered system of support (MTSS) framework in one North Carolina school district. It examined the perceived teacher impact of the program implementation for Tier 3 reading students in first through third grades. The vision for employing the MTSS framework in North…

The purpose of the McKinney-Vento Act is to ensure that students experiencing homelessness have access to the education and other services they need in order to meet state academic achievement standards, and ultimately, to graduate prepared for college and career. Most homeless educators work one-on-one with homeless children, youth, their parents…