This guide is intended to help school administrators to consider the impact of cultural diversity in the development and implementation of school disciplinary policies while complying with the 1997 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. First it examines how cultural bias, misunderstanding, and insensitivity may impede student and teacher…

Asserting that young children often demonstrate challenging behaviors for any number of reasons, this paper presents strategies designed to prevent problem behaviors in young children. Basic principles for establishing a community of learners are discussed. Strategies for teaching children to negotiate, problem solve, and understand the viewpoints…

This report describes the activities and outcomes of Project ACHIEVE, an innovative educational reform program targeting academically and socially at-risk and underachieving students. Project ACHIEVE began as a district-wide training program for school psychologists, guidance counselors, social workers, and elementary-level instructional…

This paper examines the elements leading to school violence in order to propose strategies to help achieve a peaceful school climate. It states that there is evidence that the brain of violent individuals seems to reveal abnormalities. Brain pathology and genetic vulnerability are only two components that may cause individuals to become antisocial…

In 1998, one decade after the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act was implemented and research results on the impacts of funding were becoming available, an evaluation of the effectiveness of fifteen programs, which included services such as emergency shelter, primary health care, and education, was needed This report presents 13 papers…

Suicide is the fourth leading cause of death among American youth aged 5-24, and small and rural school districts must recognize and address this growing phenomenon. A survey of 462 Illinois principals reported 133 student suicides during the 5-year study period. Small school districts comprised 6 percent of Illinois school districts yet reported…

This revision of the 1996 publication is a tool for identifying promising drug prevention programs. This booklet is designed to help teachers, school principals, and concerned citizens determine how to spend scarce prevention dollars. Many parents assume that school prevention programs will protect their children from drugs; the information…

This report describes results from the 1995 Utah Youth Risk Behavior Survey of Utah's high school students and compares results to selected 1991 and 1993 results. The 76-item survey was identical to the national survey, though it omitted questions about sexual behavior. It examined unintentional and intentional injuries; tobacco, alcohol, and…

This action research project implemented and evaluated a program for enhancing students' social skills in order to increase their ability to work cooperatively and to resolve conflict. The targeted population consisted of kindergarten students in a lower income urban school, located in a medium-sized Midwestern city. The problem of insufficient…

Preventing Agricultural Chemical Exposure among North Carolina Farmworkers (PACE) is a project designed to describe farmworker pesticide exposure and to develop an educational intervention to reduce farmworker pesticide exposure. The PACE project used a community participation framework to ensure that the community played a significant role in…

This report presents procedures for national mental health that involve many levels of government and draws advice from a range of professional organizations. Due to the enormous impact of depression on the social, human, economic, and public health costs to Australians and the Australian government, this initiative focuses efforts on dealing with…

This document presents different strategies and approaches for members of school communities to consider when creating safer learning environments. It contains the distilled collective experience and wisdom of over 500 people. Guidance for school violence prevention and response is offered in the following areas: ways to prevent student violence,…

While the demand for a highly skilled workforce has increased, several reports have highlighted the poor performance of high school students in reading, math, and science. Moreover, the achievement gap between white and minority students is widening. Latino students have one of the highest dropout rates and they perform less well than their peers…

This paper describes strategies for developing drug abuse prevention programs in rural communities, based on available evidence about factors contributing to drug abuse. Comprehensive interventions to prevent drug abuse and other youth problems are needed because drug abuse is entwined with other problem behaviors and stems from a complex set of…

The rural community mental health center tends to serve a large geographic area, have decentralized service delivery, require its professionals to function as generalists, and coordinate closely with other agencies. The last decade has seen an increasing strain placed on this pattern. As block grant and fee-for-service shifts resulting from the…