<p> Although leadership training programs have been shown to better prepare college students for the professional world, higher education needs empirically-based leadership interventions to demonstrate program effectiveness. This qualitative descriptive study describes how a servant leadership training program, completed by students in a higher education setting, influenced the development of their servant leadership knowledge and skills. The goal was to provide empirical research, using servant leadership as the theoretical foundation, on a leadership training program to help build future programs for higher education settings. In three of the research questions, addressed through 10 individual interviews, participants described how their program experience influenced their servant leadership knowledge and skills. The fourth research question, which used archival data on the program, provided the pre and post-test results from the program. The results from the thematic analysis of the interviews and the descriptive statistics of the pre- and post-test results described the value of leadership development programs on a college campus and provided evidence that student growth in their servant leadership knowledge and skills can occur. The thematic analysis identified eight overall themes: awareness of self and others, knowledge gained during the program, self-improvement, shared values, trust, integrity, experience through residence life, and team activities. The descriptive statistics for the pre- and post-test results illustrated that there appeared to be an increase in all seven measured areas of servant leadership. This study encourages ongoing research on the impact of leadership programs including servant leadership initiatives. </p><p>

<p> The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of first-year teachers regarding the use of Evidence-Based Practices (EBPs) within their teacher training programs. Participants in this study included 35 teachers from one of the 46 rural public-school districts in south-central Missouri. The 43 EBPs outlined in Robert Marzano&rsquo;s (2017) <i>New Art and Science of Teaching: More than Fifty New Instructional Strategies for Academic Success</i> were used to frame the research. A survey with Likert-type statements and open-ended questions regarding EBPs taught in teacher preparation programs was completed by participants. Participants were asked to identify EBP strengths and weaknesses of their preparatory programs. Data revealed participants believed four key areas needed to be covered more in-depth within instructional programs: 1) creating and utilizing assessments, 2) classroom management strategies, 3) engaging and motivating reluctant learners, and 4) time management techniques. Participants also indicated the desire to have spent more time in classrooms completing fieldwork, as they believed this to be a valuable part of the training programs. The data suggested reflective practice of theory and classroom experience should be increased in teacher preparation programs.</p><p>

<p> The 2013 adoption of the Local Control Funding Formula and Local Control Accountability Plan provides local communities and districts with educational decision-making and provides a roadmap of how to improve outcomes in low-performing districts. One of the eight-priority areas California public school districts are held accountable to make progress on an annual basis is improving school climate. Building strong trust based relationships prepares schools to address a myriad of complex challenges. This dissertation examined the key facets that build relational trust between high school teachers and principals within a hierarchical role relationship in a public comprehensive high school district in Northern California. This mixed methods study stretched previous research to understand how secondary principals and teachers conceptualize relational trust. Survey and one-on-one interview data suggest gender, ethnicity, and years of experience are not significantly related to the conceptualization of relational trust and that high school teachers largely feel the same way, regardless of gender, ethnicity, or years of experience. Of note, principals and high school teachers may view the importance of the five facets of relational trust in a dissimilar manner. Principals are encouraged to understand that 10 out of 11 high school teacher groups, while also recognizing that past experiences have a profound influence on the trust building process, ranked reliability as the most important facet in the trust building process.</p><p>

<p> This exploratory study examined the knowledge, experience, attitude, and perceptions of drugs reported by international students from mainland China (N = 97) studying on the West Coast of the U.S. and Canada. Chinese students currently constitute the largest group of international students at universities on the West Coast, which is also the epicenter of a major shift in the legal and cultural status of cannabis. Participants&rsquo; knowledge, exposure, use, attitudes, and norms of peers&rsquo; use of five drugs (cannabis, heroin, ketamine, methamphetamine, and Adderall) were elicited through an online survey. Data were analyzed quantitatively (descriptive statistics, means of paired samples, correlations). Many correlations existed between participants&rsquo; attitudes, comments they heard others make, and their beliefs about their peers&rsquo; drug use. Participants were most familiar with cannabis; their exposure to others&rsquo; comments about and use of cannabis in North America were starkly different than what they had experienced in China. About 10% of the sample had tried cannabis in North America. Students were familiar with heroin and methamphetamine from their experiences in China, and those drugs were viewed extremely negatively. Use of and exposure to ketamine and Adderall were rare, and all drugs were viewed much more negatively when asked in the context of living in China than in North America. Given the current and recent changes in drug laws around the world and students&rsquo; reported experience with cannabis, this study underlines the urgency of educating international students regarding drug use as well as informing educational policy at the university level.</p><p>

<p> Schools and agencies that serve individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) typically focus on traditional teaching targets including academics, adaptive behavior, workplace competencies, as well as social and life skills. An emerging area of focus is the importance of happiness and achieving an overall quality of life (QoL) as the ultimate outcome of education and support services. Although not defined operationally, there is a belief among parents and service providers that happiness and an overall QoL is important and should be actively pursued along with the other essential traditional teaching targets. This study examined parent perspectives on indicators of QoL and happiness for individuals with ASD including whose responsibility it is to address them. The purpose of this study was to further the extant research to include information from parents regarding factors they believe are important to obtaining a QoL for their child and to determine whether parents include the happiness of their child as an important factor in an overall QoL. The research instrument consisted of a parent questionnaire that was delivered to the parent participants through an online survey. Several educational institutions and service providers in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and State of New Jersey assisted in recruiting parent participants for the study by identifying interested parents of individuals (with ASD) they serve. Results from this study are expected to be useful among education professionals and service providers to gain a deeper understanding regarding the perceptions and priorities of what parents consider important QoL concerns, and the extent to which they believe these QoL concerns should be operationalized as targets for teaching and ultimately be established as goals for formal training in educational and training contexts. Understanding the importance of QoL concerns for parents should heighten attention of educators and service providers to incorporate QoL indices as targets for teaching and prioritize that teaching according to parental priorities. Understanding the priority of parental QoL concerns for their children should contribute to program design in individualized instructional goals.</p><p>

<p> <b>Purpose:</b> The purpose of this phenomenological research study was to describe the behaviors that exemplary educational services assistant superintendents practice to lead their organizations through conversation as depicted by Groysberg and Slind&rsquo;s (2012b) 4 elements of conversational leadership: intimacy, interactivity, inclusion, and intentionality. </p><p> <b>Methodology:</b> A qualitative, phenomenological approach was used in this study in order to describe the lived experiences and behaviors of exemplary leaders. The target population was educational services assistant superintendents in Southern California. Participants were selected using a purposeful, nonprobability, convenience sampling. Data gathering took the form of semistructured, in-depth interviews, observations, and artifact collection. Interviews were conducted using a protocol designed by the team of collaborative peer researchers in order to gain insight into leaders&rsquo; perceptions of their conversational leadership experiences. Triangulation with observational notes and artifacts served to increase the validity of interview data. All data were entered into NVivo software to assist in analyzing patterns and predicting themes for coding. </p><p> <b>Findings:</b> Close analysis of interview notes and transcripts, observations, and artifacts resulted in total of 25 themes and 447 frequencies among the 4 elements of conversational leadership. Ten key findings were identified across the areas of intimacy, interactivity, inclusion, and intentionality. </p><p> <b>Conclusions:</b> The study supported the 4 elements of conversational leadership proposed by Groysberg and Slind (2012b) and identified specific behaviors that exemplary leaders practice within each. Four conclusions were drawn based on the data and findings. Educational services assistant superintendents who want to become transformational conversational leaders should (a) practice careful listening to create an environment of trust and support intimate communication structures within their organizations, (b)&nbsp;facilitate a variety of collaborative groups using a process for the exchange of ideas to establish dynamically interactive organizations, (c) invite shared leadership opportunities to nurture a climate of inclusivity, and (d) continually focus conversation of the organization&rsquo;s purpose to ensure collective understanding and clarity of direction. </p><p> <b>Recommendations:</b> Further research of private sector leaders and assistant superintendents in regions outside of Southern California should be conducted. In addition, the element of intimacy in the workplace requires more attention in the field of conversational leadership. </p><p>

<p> Job-embedded professional development is fairly new to education. Various forms of job-embedded professional development have become popular in the last ten years. One form of job-embedded professional development is instructional coaching. Instructional coaching is rather new to education, but has become a popular form of professional development in school districts. The current study reviewed various forms of job-embedded professional development, defined job-embedded professional development and instructional coaching, and then concentrated on teacher perspectives of instructional coaching as a form of professional development, the impact of instructional coaching on classroom instruction, and the impact of instructional coaching on implementing district initiatives. In this qualitative study, 12 teachers in their first year of teaching, who completed a yearlong partnership with an instructional coach, were interviewed. The data from the interviews was collected and then analyzed to identify themes and patterns using NVivo 11 Pro, a software program for analyzing qualitative data. The researcher analyzed and coded the data as trends and patterns were revealed in the teachers&rsquo; perspectives on instructional coaching as a form of professional development, on the impact of instructional coaching on their instructional practices, and on the impact of instructional coaching on their implementation of district expectations. The data indicated that the participants considered instructional coaching to be personalized professional development that supported the ability to implement instructional practices in the classroom as well as implement district expectations.</p>

<p> A K-12 education should prepare students for their transition to postsecondary life, regardless of the nature of such a future. This study aims to explore the secondary and postsecondary experiences of alumni from East Menlow School (EMS), a co-educational, K-12, college-prep, independent day school on the east coast of the United States. By surveying and interviewing faculty and alumni, this mixed-methods study seeks to identify which student and teacher characteristics or practices, curricular and pedagogical practices, and school and family supports contribute to the high school completion and persistence through at least the first year of their postsecondary institution of EMS students in general and EMS students with learning differences (LD) in particular. A young adult&rsquo;s persistence to college graduation is multi-dimensional. Learning differences add an extra layer of academic and non-academic difficulty. As a result, it is vital that educators understand the needs of their LD students. </p><p> While the perspectives of EMS alumni in general, both non-LD and LD, are analyzed, this study further seeks to compare and contrast the experiences of EMS alumni with dyslexia, also known as a reading disability or reading disorder, with their non-LD and other LD peers. For many students, the ability to read and to write is the foundation of college success. Since the juried literature is scant in independent schools, this study attempts to provide a foundation for other research on LD students in independent schools. </p><p>

<p> This qualitative case study was designed to explore the culture of an exemplary equitable high school through the students&rsquo; perspective. In this study, a high school was chosen that has transformed learning and systematically integrated a system-wide approach to meeting the needs of the whole child by upholding the academic, social, emotional, and physical needs of children in order to increase student engagement, equity, and achievement, and decrease the achievement gap and student drop-out rate. The case study was built on data gathered from one-on-one interviews with 12 students and observations of 13 teachers and a guidance counselor. Findings emerged from student interviewees, artifacts, teacher observations, and school observations. The research question that guided the study was as follows: What is the culture of a high school that has become exemplary through an Equity through Excellence paradigm from the students&rsquo; perspective? This question was answered through the identification of a culture of equity, which consisted of individualization, peer support, and teacher support (as student themes) and individualization, engagement, and support (as teacher themes). The main implication derived from the study was that there is a close relationship between teacher interest, student engagement, the development of a culture of equity, and academic excellence. Schools that focus more attention on individualizing relationships with students, increasing peer support, building engagement, and identifying and preventing bullying may develop or sustain a culture of equity.</p><p>

<p> Current statistics in education suggest a systemic problem of racist disciplinary practices in schools, as Black males have been demonstrated to be overwhelmingly overrepresented in the practices of school discipline (U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, 2014). While researchers have begun to explore the causes of this phenomenon to find solutions to counteract this trend (Gillborn, 2014; Skiba et al., 2014), little has been done to examine how racism&mdash;in the form of racial colorblindness&mdash;may play a role in manifesting the discipline gap and perpetuate structural racism in schools. Considering that a majority of the teaching force in the Northwest are white, this research examines how racial color-blind ideologies (Bonilla-Silva, 2014; Neville, Awad, Brooks, Flores, &amp; Bluemel, 2013) and deficit thinking (Valencia, 2010) are related to ideologies of school discipline, which perhaps condition discipline in schools. </p><p> This quantitative research combines Neville, Lilly, Duran, Lee, and Browne's (2000) Color-Blind Racial Attitudes Scale, items from Skiba et al.&rsquo;s (2003) Disciplinare Practices Survey, and scales developed for this study, designed to address deficit thinking (Valencia, 2010) and attitudes toward Black males within disciplinary contexts. An online survey was administered to practitioners in contrasting educational communities within the Northwest. Correlation analyses included examining relationships between components of the survey within and in-between organizations. Furthermore, this study introduces new scale items to address attitudes toward Black males within educational discipline settings, further penetrating the literature base on the topic. </p><p> Findings demonstrate significant correlations between color-blind, deficit thinking, and pro-discipline attitudes, suggesting a relationship between educators&rsquo; attitudes toward the justification for discipline and color-blind attitudes are perhaps an interwoven issue which contributes to racial disparities in school discipline. These data suggest a need for developing the racial identities of a predominantly white educational workforce in the effort to eliminate the discipline gap.</p><p>