Thesis advisor: Martin Scanlan / Culturally responsive practice (CRP) by educators is an essential tool to serve increasingly diverse public-school populations. This study examines the sensemaking and sensegiving that district central office administrators undertake regarding what it means for educators to be culturally responsive practitioners. This dissertation used a case study of a mid-sized urban district which has not yet undertaken systematic effort on CRP to explore three research questions: (1) How do district administrators understand what it means for educators to be culturally responsive practitioners? (2) How do district administrators seek to influence the cultural responsiveness of educators? (3) What does evidence suggest about the efficacy of these efforts to influence the cultural responsiveness of educators? Data included interviews with seven district administrators and nineteen teachers, a survey of 33 educators in the district, and a review of internal district documents. Findings included that administrators had limited understanding of CRP, though they believe it to be important. They connected CRP to methodologies and practices in which they were more fluent. Sensegiving by district administrators was more effective at conveying the importance of CRP than its meaning or how to implement it. Absent a shared definition of CRP, but with heavy signaling of its importance, educators developed varying conceptions through their sensemaking. This case study suggests several implications for research, policy, and practice, including for the study of sensemaking in multi-layered organizations grappling with multiple changes and for implementation by school districts of CRP, as well as barriers to such implementation. / Thesis (EdD) — Boston College, 2020. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

It is the purpose of this study to determine what effect a two week pre-school, inservice workshop in arithmetic for Mt. Diablo elementary school teachers have arithmetic achievement scores in the middle grades of that district.

The purpose of this study was to identify the career and psychosocial functions that mentor teachers and their protégé teachers believed occurred during the 2008-2009 mentoring relationship. This comparative survey study was conducted in a suburban middle-sized Florida school district. The target population for this study involved one group of matched mentor teachers and protégé teachers. Two survey instruments were used during this study, Mentoring Functions Scale for the Mentor and the Mentoring Functions Scale for the Protégé modified by Wilson (2006). This instrument was selected because it measures the career and psychosocial functions of the mentoring process. The survey was available to the mentors and protégés participating in this study via paper and pencil. There were 645 mentor teachers and protégé teachers surveyed. There was a 33.4% response rate of the total population surveyed and a 67.0% usable response rate of the 322 mentor teachers and protégé teachers who responded. The findings were that both mentor and protégé teachers value the mentoring process. All of the participants agreed that the career and psychosocial functions were provided. Mentor and protégé teachers both agreed that the career and psychosocial functions were present during the mentoring relationship. These findings indicated that there were specific career and psychosocial functions provided by the mentor to the protégé that were found to be beneficial to the mentoring process.

In spite of the large overlap in the goals of CTE and STEM education, there is little evidence of the role(s) CTE delivery systems, programs, curricula, or pedagogical strategies can play in advancing STEM education. Because of their responsibilities, especially for organizational and instructional leadership, school district CTE directors could illuminate our understanding of linkages between CTE and STEM education. The purpose of this study was to analyze the experiences of school district CTE directors to better understand these linkages. The researcher used a qualitative research design to gain understanding of the local CTE directors' experiences. Data were collected using face-to-face semi-structured interviews with 13 participants. The data were analyzed using a continuous process of coding, recoding, memo-writing and making comparisons across the transcripts. Among the results of the study were that definitions of STEM education were varied, but all had aspects of an integrated approach and using real world applications. The data revealed a number of contributions made by CTE to assist in STEM education implementation. They include context for learning, multiple pathways; platform for program delivery, and administrative leadership and framework. It was also found that strategies for increasing the visibility of CTE's contributions in the advancement of STEM education could include marketing CTE, demonstrating the value of CTE, enhancing curriculum and instruction, and rebranding CTE. Conclusions made in the study include, but not limited to, the fact that there are tremendous reciprocal benefits that CTE and STEM education can provide for one another, given there are strong, mutual, and intended linkage of the two; and that establishing a state-level STEM education coordinator position would result in providing much needed leadership at the local and state levels. Recommendations for practice that were made in the study include, but are not limited to, continuing to establish Virginia Governor's Academies throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia by aligning STEM education with CTE and continuing to support, at the highest level, intentional and mutual collaborative initiatives between STEM education and CTE. A recommendation for future research includes conducting a longitudinal study on the impact that Virginia Governor's Academies are having on student morale, growth, learning, and future endeavor. / Ph. D.

Present day trends indicate a definite movement toward building school plants more adequately and more adaptable for community use and for wider community utilization. It is the belief of many educators that the school should be designed to provide the facilities required for housing the school and its many community programs. It is not primarily a monument to the architect and the school authorities. Schools should be a learning laboratory for all members of the community. Weber County school administrators have consistently supported building utilization point of view as expressed- by Pittenger:

The transportation of pupils to and from our schools has grown by leaps and bounds during the past few years until now it has developed into an educational activity of major importance. The Utah school bus which collided with a freight train in Novemeber 1938 and carried 23 of its passengers to their death was but one of over 86,000 such motor vehicles in operation in the United States during the school year of 1938-1939. Approximately 4,000,000 school children rode these buses daily over school-bus routes that extended in exess of 1,000,000,000 mildes. the annual expense for this transportation was in the neighborhood of sixty-five million dollars. To those of us who are close to the problem, and who see these adolescent people alight from their buses each morning, and board them again in the evening, there comes the questions of th effect of this daily transportation in the lives of the boyds and girls concerned. How does it affect their success in school? Does transportation lessen their efficiency in scholastic attainment? Is there a higher failure rate among transported pupils? Are these students preculted from participation in the extracurricular activities on an even basis with the non-transported students because of bus schedules, or fatigue, or boredom due to the prologned school day? Does the remoteness of the pupil's home from the school react upo his school attendance record, or cause a higher percentage of these transported pupils to discontinue school before graduation? Is there somehting about the transference from the warm rooms of the home and school to a ride on a crowded or cold school bus that lessens resistance to disease, or otherwise affects health in such a way as to keep pupils out of school due to illness? These are the questions with which this study is concerned. They are questions which, to the mide of the writer, are important, and so far as his information goes, they have never been answered by anyone possessing reliable data upon which to base his statements. Yet, authentic data with respect to these points are extremely vital in the administration of our schools. For example, accurate and reliable data in regard to the questions indicated would be valuable in reaching a decision concerning further consolidation of schools. The data should serve as one of the criteria to be considered in dtermining the length of the school day for the transported pupils, and it should throw some light on the problem of speical consideration, or treatment, of transported pupils in our schools. This study consists of a comparison of transported with non-transported pupils. The comparisons are made in 8 field. These are: (1) Number of school subjects taken (2) Number of shcool subjects failed (3) Scholastic attainment (4) School attendance (5) Discontinuance of school (6) Illness during school time (7) Causes of pupil absence from school (8) Participation in extra-curricular activities.

This investigation had the dual purpose of exploring, in historical perspectives, the academic discipline known as Early Childhood Education and the use of Early Childhood Education as a vehicle for compensatory education in the Portland Public Schools from 1965-1984.

No description available.

No description available.

It is the purpose of this study to survey the schools of Yolo County and to propose a plan for the reorganization of the school districts of that county.