Background: Specialists working in school settings provide crucial psychological and pedagogical support to students, teachers and other members of the school community. As the roles played by psychologists, educators, speech therapists and other specialists vary internationally, more needs to be understood about their lived experiences and…

Appropriate, efficient and effective staff training and development programmes have the tendency to enhance work performance in an organisation. The study analysed technical staffs' conception of training and development (T&D) and its influence on work performance in the University of Cape Coast. The mixed methods approach was used to collect…

School-based speech-language pathologists serve a growing population of students with complex communication needs, many using augmentative and alternative communication. The problem was the inconsistent assessment of communication and language skills that led to varied communication descriptions and reduced diversity of communication goals in…

While the need for teachers is surging, the supply of teachers is decreasing, resulting in a pervasive teacher shortage (Carver-Thomas & Darling-Hammond, 2019; Sutcher, Darling-Hammond & Carver-Thomas, 2016). Teacher vacancies perpetuate the opportunity gap that already impacts students of color and low-income students across the country…

Limited research explores postsecondary disability resource professionals' (DRPs) perceptions and experiences supporting students during the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of a larger study utilizing national survey and interview data, this paper explores DRPs' experiences and observations related to student mental health during the pandemic-related…

There are many types of jobs under the heading education support professionals (ESPs): paraeducators, technical service workers, skilled trade workers, and health workers. Making up about one third of the public education workforce from early education through college, ESPs not only ensure that schools run smoothly, they also play a role in…

School-university partnerships (SUPs) have been used for decades to address a variety of university and k-12 school needs, including teacher training and research (Allen et al., 2013; Bebas, 2016; Walsh & Backe, 2013). While beneficial, their use in other areas such as school-based mental health services have largely been neglected.…

Schools today require many individuals to work together to attain learning goals since no school functions without broad, active involvement of all community members. In addition, successful school improvement efforts operate well when there is a coherent vision for student achievement. While principals are aware of the need to include disparate…

America's K-12 public education system has experienced tremendous historical growth in employment, according to the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics. Between fiscal year (FY) 1950 and FY 2009, the number of K-12 public school students in the United States increased by 96 percent, while the number of full-time…

All too often, the public perception of school administration is that it is a large bureaucracy diverting critical resources from instruction. According to "Answering the Critics of School Administration: What Are the Facts? Second Edition," by Nancy Protheroe, the data show otherwise. Six common misperceptions of school administration are…

While preparing a previous ERS Report, Employee Absenteeism: A Summary of Research, Educational Research Service found relatively few published studies on school support staff compared to the immense literature on absenteeism in business and industry. ERS found no nationwide data relating specifically to either teacher or school support staff…

This paper is a book review of William M. Phillips, Jr.'s "The School Sociologist: A Need and an Emergent Profession" (Washington, DC: University Press of America, Inc., 1981; 216p. ISBN-0-8191-1946-6. $12.95). Dr. Phillips defines a new professional field and expounds upon the role of the professionals within it. He seeks to combine factual…

Information regarding the Bush Administration's six national education goals as they apply to personnel/human resource staff is presented in this report. Personnel/human resource staff, who are instrumental in providing effective teachers, will play a major role in achieving the nation's educational goals. Each goal statement is followed by a…

Objectives of a study of the role of the school nurse were (1) to clarify the role of the school nurse within a particular setting, (2) to identify perceptions of key school personnel concerning the nurse's role, and (3) to identify and compare areas of perceptual congruity-incongruity between school personnel and school nurses. The instrument…

Part 13 of a series of 13 instructor's manuals for the competency based training of curriculum consultants for exceptional children focuses on the advisory role of the consultant. Four comptencies are considered: (1) that a curriculum consultant should be capable of functioning in an advisory role; (2) that a curriculum consultant should be…