This dissertation documented the process of developing, implementing, and assessing a low-cost staff development project in an urban elementary school. The purpose of this study was to plan a staff development project that would improve the interactions between instructional staff (teachers) and non-instructional professionals (psychologists). An action research methodology was utilized focusing instructional and non-instructional professionals on the topic of support services in the Roosevelt Schools. The flexibility of this method encouraged collegial interaction and connected participants to the larger issues of change and school improvement. Twelve workshops were collaboratively planned with twenty voluntary members of the Ulysses Byas staff. Needs assessment and formative evaluation tools were utilized to obtain feedback from participants and organize workshops. School climate, bureaucratic structures, the process of change, staff development, and issues of race and equity appeared to impact on staff interactions. Workshop sessions provided an opportunity for instructional and non-instructional professionals to grow both personally and professionally and to develop mutually agreed on goals for support services. The results of this project indicated the following: (1) The instructional staff was interested in improving support services in The Ulysses Byas School. (2) Misunderstandings that occurred between instructional and non-instructional professionals erected territorial boundaries, and the participants recognized the necessity of breaking through the barriers and establishing new relationships. (3) The collegial atmosphere of the workshops was a step in breaking down negative, defensive attitudes toward colleagues. (4) The instructional staff had skills, expertise, motivation, and interests that were essentially untapped and could be utilized for the benefit of children. (5) Instructional and non-instructional professional staff would benefit from trusting, caring, cooperative relationships. In conclusion, low cost staff development activities were an appropriate direction for schools to begin the process of change vital to school improvement. In addition, staff development was a viable means for struggling, urban districts to provide additional training for staff.

This study examines the effectiveness of a site-based staff development program as one component of a Chapter I Schoolwide Project. The study utilizes and fully implements an Action/Descriptive research model, a participatory model which implements self-reflective cycles of planning, acting, observing and reflecting. The setting of the study is an elementary school in Quincy, Massachusetts with over ninety percent of the children from predominantly white low income families. A large proportion of the children are at-risk. The purpose of the Schoolwide Project is to upgrade the entire educational program of the school. The most important feature of a Schoolwide Project is that Chapter I personnel, as well as educational hardware and software, can be utilized by all children, not only those qualifying for Chapter I remedial services. Other instructional initiatives to enhance the program of at-risk students also were utilized. A review of the "Effective Schools" literature was accomplished in order to determine the essential key ingredients necessary for a staff development program for upgrading the entire educational system. The key ingredients for effective schools from the literature are: Leadership, Environment, Curriculum/Instruction, Teachers and "Total School" ingredients. Reactions to Effective Schools research was also included. The study's purpose was to establish a school-based staff development effort, based upon the "key ingredients" for Effective Schools, for total school improvement. The measurement instruments used in the study included the: Parent Opinion Inventory, Effective School Battery, Measuring Stages of Concern About an Innovation, Open-Ended Stages of Concern Questionnaire, and an Informal Student Survey. The study details the variables of an educational environment and provides suggestions for improving the total educational setting.

This study is motivated by the fact that pedagogy has become a major political issue in this decade. State and Federal Governments, Boards of Education, School Systems, and Educators at all levels are trying to come up with strategies to put education on the right track and to recapture the interest of young people. Financial problems, drugs, lack of interest from parents and students, and poorly motivated personnel, may be some of the factors affecting the teaching process in school environment resulting in the lowering of the quality of instruction. Among the factors that might be affecting the teaching process in the schools are poorly motivated instructional personnel, who play so important a role in creating a successful school environment. If a teacher is not well motivated, student achievement will be negatively affected and the schools can still fail. Even if one works in a new building with modern facilities, with the best instructional materials, selected students, flexible schedules, is fairly well paid, and has competent colleagues, there are no guarantees of success if teacher motivation is low. If a supervisor detects that the staff is not well motivated for whatever reason, a solution must be found. Through this study, I reviewed various styles of supervision that instructional supervisors can use as models for assessing classroom teachers. The study focused on five of the most common models used in different school districts within the state. (1) Cooperative Supervision; (2) Self-directed Supervision; (3) Clinical Supervision; (4) Oriented Monitoring; (5) Differentiated Supervision. The study was conducted among teachers in a Western Massachusetts Public School System. A questionnaire was administered to collect the data. The collected data answered the following questions: (1) Is the teacher evaluation process contributing to the teaching-learning process in the classroom? (2) Are supervisors providing information about the options that teachers have to be evaluated? A theoretical model based on Clinical Supervision and Administrative Monitoring was prepared by the researcher as an instrument that supervisors can use to evaluate teacher effectiveness.

Participative decision making has been identified as a crucial aspect of current American public school restructure efforts. The calls for school improvement through collective decision making by the educational team (i.e., principals and teachers) have been frequently referred to as an effort toward teacher professionalization through empowerment. Given central office support, principals have been cited as playing a major role as potential change facilitators who can enable or sabotage meaningful participative decision making in their schools. Subsequent to being identified by their school superintendents as having initiated participative decision making in their schools, this study investigated a stratified random sample (based on the Massachusetts Department of Education "kind of community" descriptors) of seventy-three (73) southeastern Massachusetts elementary school principals. Their feelings (concerns) regarding participative decision making in their schools were examined using the central instrument from the Concerns-Based Adoption Model (C-BAM): Stages of Concern Questionnaire (SoCQ). It also contained a comment section to allow for further clarification of feelings or concerns. Additionally, a customized demographic survey was included as two basic research questions were asked: (1) What are the perceived stages of concerns of a stratified random sample of southeastern Massachusetts elementary school principals who have initiated participative decision making within their schools? and (2) What are the relationships among these elementary school principals' selected demographic variables and intensity of concerns toward participative decision making in their schools? The SoCQ data analysis, noting relative intensity of concern, indicated the participants' highest intensity of concerns as follows: 53% in the "Awareness" stage; 16% in the "Personal" stage; 12% in the "Informational" stage; 8% in the "Management" stage; 11% in the "Consequence," "Collaboration," and "Refocusing" stages. Among conclusions from the data analysis, indications were that the majority of (mostly male) principals are non-users, or in a very early developmental stage. Further, number of years as principal at a school showed correlational significance. The theoretical underpinnings of change, concerns theory, and the practice of participative decision making are included in the review of the literature. Concluding chapters provide a review of methodology, data analysis presentation, summary, recommendations and conclusions, and further research ideas.

The dual focus of attracting and retaining teachers in classroom positions and encouraging them to improve has been central to the school improvement literature. Review of research in teacher retention and improvement finds results consistent with a theory of employee motivation developed by Frederick Herzberg--the two-factor theory. The same factors that lead to dissatisfaction in other jobs seem to dissatisfy teachers; likewise, the satisfiers that encourage improvement in other settings motivate teachers as well. Previous research on middle school organization has suggested that team membership provides some of the satisfiers suggested by Herzberg's work and it would appear that team leadership could provide more of them. In order to explore the role of team leader, eighteen teachers from three suburban Massachusetts middle schools were interviewed in depth to determine what they expected to gain from team leadership, the benefits and frustrations from serving in the role, and the conditions in the schools that were related to the benefits and frustrations. Although there were differences among the schools, results indicate that teachers seek the position in order to have more influence over how the teams function. Some have specific practices they want to change, others simply want to guide the team. The most identified benefits are having influence on policies of the team and the school, receiving additional money, and being "in the know." The major frustrations are resistance from team members and lack of time to perform the duties of the job. The duties and responsibilities of team leadership are most related to the benefits and the frustrations. Serving as the liaison between teachers and principals either informally or through team leaders meetings, coordinating team meetings and the team process, and coordinating interdisciplinary activities are benefits when the process goes well. These same duties lead to frustration if there are difficulties engaging team members or insufficient time to complete the tasks involved. The study concludes with an examination of the results in terms of the two-factor theory, some reflections, suggestions for middle school organization, and directions for further research.

Over the last 30 years, the nation has endured frequent news stories about school shootings. In many of these incidents it has been discovered that a member of the school community was responsible for the act, leading the community to ask if these incidents could have been avoided. Students, faculty, and staff have the expectation that their educational communities will be safe spaces to learn, live, and work. In addition, there is an expectation that support will be provided to those within the community who may be struggling . In response, educational institutions have implemented Behavioral Intervention Teams in order to assess risk around student behavior. Research conducted up to this point about threat assessment and behavioral intervention has focused on the teams themselves, including their composition and training. There is little information available about the effect of the actual interventions that are applied. This study examined the way in which one behavioral intervention team, from a large public institution in the northeastern part of the United States, engaged students, specifically looking at the types of interventions applied, and how these interactions affect student persistence. The study was designed to look for a relationship between the interventions applied and the student’s ability to succeed academically one semester after their referral to the intervention team. The study showed that on average there was improvement in students’ GPAs one semester after referral to the Behavioral Intervention Team. However, results did not show a significant difference when considering age, gender, and student GPA. In addition, there was no significant relationship between the level of intensity of the intervention applied and academic persistence one semester after the intervention. / Educational Administration

The Crumpton School District (CSD) is a high performing school district in suburban Philadelphia that has expended a great deal of energy and work to close gaps in the achievement of its Black students. Despite these efforts, 2016 standardized test data reflect a reading achievement gap of 28 percentage points for Black boys attending four of the CSD schools with the largest percent of Black boys enrolled. This qualitative study was designed to provide the CSD with implications for practice to continue and improve its work related to increasing the reading achievement of Black boys. More specifically, this study examined educators’ perceptions of the effectiveness of strategies and conditions in place to close the reading achievement gap of third grade Black boys. This study also examined the roles of CSD administrators in their efforts and plans for closing the reading achievement gap of third grade Black boys. Individual interviews of 11 third grade teachers, seven reading specialists, four special education teachers, four curriculum specialists, three principals, one assistant principal, one supervisor of special education, and one supervisor of communication arts, as well as the review of principal’s school improvement plans and goals, were the sources of the qualitative data. Detailed analyses of the qualitative data collected provided recommendations for teachers and educators of CSD to improve the manner by which they provide Black boys with equitable opportunities to achieve in the area of reading. These recommendations, hopefully, could benefit similarly situated districts in the state and nation. / Educational Administration

The purpose of this study was to define equal access to educational opportunity for Mexican American children. The study described three actions of the Federal Government seeking to protect the right of Mexican American children to an education free from discrimination on the basis of race, color or national origin. The three actions were: (1) the issuance of the Memorandum of May 25 by the HEW Office of Civil Rights; (2) the San Felipe-Del Rio School District consolidation case, and (3) the El ♦ Paso Independent School District May 25th Memorandum compliance case. Additionally, the study described a conceptual framework for effecting institutional responsiveness to the educational needs of Mexican American children.

Public education professionals seem to have assumed that their "message" is being shared and received by the various publics associated with their schools. Societal and political concerns with and demands upon public education indicate a significant lack of confidence in our public schools. "School choice" and "competition" plans are the result of this concern and displeasure with the current state of our public education system. Had school districts adequately communicated its plan, purpose, and goals to its various publics the advocates of "school choice" and "competition" may not have had such a receptive audience. However, the "choice" era is upon us. Public school education must make plans to address this initiative. The definition of "school choice" as used in this paper is that of the 1991 Massachusetts School Choice law. Specifically, any child who is a resident may attend any Massachusetts public school whose district participates in the program. The major goal of this study was to undertake research regarding plans that identified "participating" and "non-participating" Metropolitan Boston communities have made to address public perceptions of their school systems. This study was composed of two phases. The first phase involved the administration of the Public Relations Oberg-West Easy Scoring Sheet (PROWESS) to fifty selected superintendents of "choice" and "non-choice" Metropolitan Boston public school systems. Phase 2 of the study involved a more detailed study of a "choice" and "non-choice" school system. A superintendent from a "choice" and "non-choice" system volunteered to participate in a guided interview. Four conclusions resulted from the research. (1) Decisions to participate in school choice tend to be made based on financial considerations, decisions of neighboring communities and geographic location, (2) systems opting to participate in choice tend to have better prepared public relations materials and share information with their community more effectively than do "non-choice" systems, (3) school systems have not adequately planned and implemented school public relations plans and procedures, and (4) staff and administrative involvement in the school system's public relations activities was significantly less in "non-choice" than in "choice" systems. The study makes the following recommendations: (1) school systems must plan and implement a formal public relations plan for their systems, (2) school systems should identify staff members who will be responsible for planning, overseeing, implementing and evaluating the system's public relations plan, (3) "non-choice" school systems should begin to plan for their eventual involvement in school choice, (4) school administrators should treat staff as the most important audience when planning and developing a school public relations plan, and (5) school systems must develop strategies to involve that large majority of the community having no ties to public education.

Urban school systems are increasingly concerned about their limited ability to recruit and retain Black teachers as the number of minority students continues to increase. The picture is not promising. While the kindergarten to grade twelve minority population is increasing, a limited pool of potential minority teachers has a much wider choice of options outside of teaching. At the same time, the requirements for entrance into teaching are increasing, which provides further disincentives to participation. In addition, urban schools most in need of minority teachers are often least able to attract teaching talent for both budgetary and social reasons. This study focuses on how a specific urban school system deals with the problem of recruiting and retaining African American teachers. Current initiatives in recruitment and retention are also examined. A Likert rating scale was used to measure African American teachers' perceptions of how they were recruited and why they have remained in Education. Ninety-two teachers participated in the survey which also included four open-ended questions. Four Central Office school administrators were also interviewed. Data analysis included descriptive and inferential statistics--frequency distribution, measures of central tendency and dispersion, Pearson correlation, cross-tabulation, and Chi-Square. The interviews and open-ended questions of the questionnaire were grouped according to commonalities as well as frequency. The analysis of the data showed that the more academic preparation that the teacher had, the less the recruiter had affected their decision to teach. Training for career advancement and professional development were also felt to be important factors in retention. Most of the respondents did not plan to leave teaching within the next five years. The interviews with the Central Office administrators indicated that they were satisfied with recruitment efforts but unsure of how to plan effectively for retention. The study underscored the need for school systems to have a clear and comprehensive policy for the recruitment and the retention of Black teachers. The researcher suggests components and related action plans that might be included in such a policy.