In the midst of the pandemic, this school district made a significant investment with recovery dollars to expand enrichment opportunities in art, music, and physical education for students in their K-8 schools. The hypothesis was increasing the quality and quantity of these opportunities, the school district would increase student engagement, lead…

This research was a descriptive study in which the researcher explored the beginning phases of Ethnic Studies implementation in a Kindergarten through Eighth grade (K-8) school district in Northern California. Using a social justice lens, and through a review of Ethnic Studies, Collective Efficacy, Critical Consciousness, and School Culture…

The purpose of this study was to examine faculty, staff, and administrative perceptions regarding implementation of trauma-informed care (TIC) in a small suburban school district. All employees of the district were invited to participate, with 91 submitting completed surveys. Participants completed the ARTIC-35 to measure perceptions of TIC. While…

School districts choose programs based on limited data, word of mouth, or cost-effectiveness. STEM-based schools often choose project-based learning (PBL) programs to deliver curricula through limited research and word of mouth effectiveness. This study evaluated one PBL program implementation in the context of a suburban Texas middle school by…

An urban southeastern state school district has implemented the Positive Behavior Intervention Support (PBIS) framework since 2014. However, campus administrators from six middle schools in the school district faced overcoming the PBIS emerging status as designated by the State Board of Education. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to…

The Coordinated School Health (CSH) reports describe how the CSH program was implemented at AISD campuses. The report provides district summary information about achieved CSH action goals and information about changes in physical fitness of students at the campus since the previous year.

This article describes the challenge of engaging educators in professional development (PD) that is timely and relevant to their work, and effective in stimulating instructional changes to improve student learning. The authors highlight the competing needs and goals for PD that create tensions among the external accountability demands, school…

The purpose of this study was to investigate how school districts dealt with the challenges of implementing new science learning standards in their middle schools. Six Long Island school districts of varying size and levels of need, with different curricula models, and distinct building grade-level configurations were purposefully selected as case…

Despite the link between school-lunch participation and student health, only half of adolescents with the program in their schools participate on a given day. A multi-pronged school lunch promotion intervention was implemented in middle and high schools in an urban, low-income school district to improve school lunch participation and reduce food…

The Coordinated School Health (CSH) report describes how the CSH program was implemented at AISD campuses during 2017-2018. The reports provide summary- and campus-level information about achieved CSH action goals and information about changes in physical fitness of students at the campus since the previous year.

The multitiered framework for preventing and addressing discipline and school climate, school-wide positive behavioral interventions and supports, is widely adopted across the United States with much of the focus on Tier 1, universal prevention supports. The following case example describes district-wide adoption of a systematic framework for Tier…

Most schools throughout the United States are adopting Schoolwide Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (SWPBIS). Many school administrators and PBIS teams appear to be implementing SWPBIS without the implementation of a needs assessment to measure preparedness and buy-in prior to a schoolwide initiative. The current research on SWPBIS…

The K-8 Early Implementers Initiative has found that careful planning is critical. With thin planning, unexpected detours or dead ends are likely. However, with solid planning, districts are more likely to achieve their implementation goals and may discover some express lanes for their implementation journey. This evaluation report documents…

How educational leaders initiate and sustain change is often hotly debated by those inside and outside of the system. Given the many reform initiatives of the past 30 years, and the resulting changes public educators have made lurching from initiative to initiative, one must ask if public education has truly improved. The answer to why public…

In 2010, California adopted the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for math and English. The new standards are part of a state effort to prepare students for college and careers in the 21st-century global economy and narrow longstanding achievement gaps. The state's implementation is complete, but because districts decide whether and when they…