Resident Assistants (RAs) are traditionally upper-class students who are responsible for enforcing residence-hall policies (Heala, 2006). These undergraduate paraprofessional students are consistently asked to hold their peers accountable for their behavior, yet this task can be a struggle for those RAs who are unable to display consistently moral…

This study utilized school-level data from several combined national databases to address two questions regarding school security policy: (1) What are the school characteristics related to levels of security? (2) How does security relate to school suspension, dropout, and college attendance rates? Among the predictors of school security, having a…

The term and construct "school-to-prison" pipeline has been widely used by advocates, researchers, and policymakers to describe the relationship between school disciplinary practices and increased risk of juvenile justice contact. It has been unclear whether the construct is a useful heuristic or a descriptor of empirically validated…

A freshman student posts on her social media account remarks that reflect intolerance and bigotry. Fellow students and faculty are upset, and disciplinary action follows. Was the student's right to free speech ignored or were the rights of others to a welcoming and inclusive environment infringed upon? This case guides the reader through some of…

Over the last decade, school rampage shootings have taken multiple lives and caused widespread fear throughout the United States. During this same period, there have also been dozens of averted incidents where student plots to kill multiple peers and faculty members came to the attention of authorities and thus were thwarted. This dissertation…

At City Springs and many other schools across the country, restorative practices are about holding students accountable and getting them to right a wrong. The approach is getting more notice than ever as criticism grows of zero-tolerance disciplinary policies that often require out-of-school suspension and expulsion. Educators are turning to…

With the passing of the Gun Free School Act of 1994, the 1990s bore witness to the birth of zero-tolerance policies. During the remainder of that decade, several school shootings occurred that solidified zero-tolerance in schools across the United States. With the possibility of threats constantly increasing, school personnel having a thorough…

Truancy, or unexcused absence, is a common problem facing nearly all high schools across the United States and other nations. Understanding how schools typically respond to student truancy and the relative effectiveness of these responses is an important, yet relatively unexplored area. Using a national extant dataset, this study examined which…

This article, written by three research-active teachers with the support of their academic partner, interrogates the achievement-attendance link in the most recent government quantitative data for secondary schools in England: persistent absentees stands at 6.6% for all children, but it raises to 9% for students who are classed as "Pupil…

On the basis of the implementation of Schoolwide Positive Behavior Supports in high schools, the present study examined the effect of supporting buy-in through conducting needs assessments and focused professional development for high school staff when implementing Schoolwide Positive Behavior Supports. The effectiveness of the 2 additional items…

Finnish national data sets on schools (N = 496) and pupils (N = 74,143; 14-16 years) were used to study whether a systematic documenting policy for the violations of school smoking bans was associated with pupils' smoking and their perceptions on the enforcement of smoking bans. Attending a school with a systematic documenting policy was…

Students, as one specific group of school stakeholders, have unique perceptions of school climate, which predict academic performance. In the Program for International Student Assessment 2009 Shanghai survey, 5,115 students from 152 schools participated. The results from this study showed that compared with their peers in the countries of the…

Aggressive behaviors in schools and bullying behaviors amongst children are a serious problem in the school context. As a consequence of an aggressive atmosphere in the classroom, learning processes are disturbed and children are less likely to experience pleasure when attending school. Teachers face a big challenge as a result. As we know from…

An overview is provided of five recent legal developments that merit special attention of special educators: (a) the amended Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEIA) regulations concerning parental consent, including subsequent agency interpretations concerning their practical application; (b) the IDEIA provisions and…

Suspension centres are a government initiative to help address disruptive student beahviour in NSW government schools. The centres are for students on long suspension from school and have not been formally evaluated. Stakeholders were asked their opinions regarding: what are the best things happening with suspension centres or what should be…