The intent of this research is to determine the impact of a peer mentoring/tutoring program on parent perceptions of school climate and connectedness and standardized test scores, report card grades and attendance of at risk elementary students. Peer mentoring has been found to be effective in addressing some of the concerns regarding at risk student performance in the school environment and eventual school outcomes. This study uses quantitative methods to determine the effect of this intervention on this population. A school climate/connectedness survey completed by parents of the students participants in a Cross Age Peer Mentoring Program (CAPM Program) and standardized test scores, report card grades and attendance patterns were examined prior to and following student participation in the program. Subjects included 32 elementary students with n=10 for first grade, n=6 for second, n=8 for fourth and n=8 for fifth. The students were cross age paired, primary with intermediate to participate in a mentoring program. Parents of participating students were asked to complete the Comprehensive School Climate Inventory prior to and following their child's participation in the program to determine if perceptions of school climate and connectedness changed as a result of their child's participation in the program. Analysis of the survey result, pre and post participation was accomplished using dependent sample t-tests to discern differences in the mean scores for the survey factors, including Safety, Teaching and Learning, Relationships and Institutional Environment and the Unified Scale. Teaching and Learning items were combined to obtain a Climate score and Interpersonal Relationships and Institutional Environment provided a Connectedness measure Climate and Connectedness. The null hypothesis was rejected, with results of the dependent t-tests showing significant differences in all but the Safety and Institutional Environment factors. <br>Attendance variables were found to be significant for all participants, mentees and a group identified as at risk for attendance. Academic variable for mentors included standardized test results and grade percentages, pre and post for both. Analysis of these scores and grade outcomes provided mixed results, with significant differences noted in standardized test scores, but no difference in the means of grade percentages. / School of Education / Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program for Education Leaders (IDPEL) / EdD / Dissertation

School social workers are currently in a unique position to support and lead schools through the change process initiated by districts' adoption of a Response to Intervention model. This dissertation describes an exploratory study to develop and pilot-test a self-administered survey for use by school social workers for the purpose of assessing the effectiveness of school social work practice. The survey was developed using DeVellis' 8-step process for survey design. The survey consisted of four subscales theorized to measure school social worker effectiveness as determined by a review of current literature in the field: Response to Intervention, Evidence-Based Practice, School Climate, and Roles and Leadership. The survey was pilot tested with 105 school social workers in Hillsborough County, Florida. Reliability and validity of the instrument was assessed through SPSS using Cronbach's alpha and exploratory factor analysis. Once adjusted for negatively-worded items and dropping items that failed to load, four factors emerged explaining almost 44% of total variance. Cronbach's alpha analysis of the final scale length of 27 items resulted in values of .815 for the Evidence-Based Practice subscale, .792 for the Response to Intervention subscale, .676 for the School Climate subscale, and .726 for the Roles and Leadership subscale. These values indicate that the final instrument has good internal consistency reliability. An additional item was rewritten for clarity and included in the 28-item version of the survey suggested for use in future research. Analysis of the collected data indicated that the survey demonstrates both validity and reliability, making it a useful tool for school-based social workers; suggestions for further development of the survey and future directions for research are discussed. The Professional School Social Work Survey can serve as a means of both self-assessment and planning for professional development.

Research on the development of management strategies for the establishment of an effective organizational culture in schools was conducted in the following phases. In the first place, an. attempt is made to determine the nature of organizational culture, the context in which organizational culture functions, and the transformation and establishment of an effective organizational culture. as well as to describe the characteristics and advantages of an effective organizational culture. Secondly the aspects of organizational culture are discussed on the basis of a theoretical model that has been developed from literature. In so doing, every aspect of organizational culture is spell out, the role and place of each aspect of the culture is explained, as is the contribution of every aspect of organizational culture to the efficacy of such a culture. In the third place, the degree to which aspects of the organizational culture are emphasized in schools has been empirically determined by means of quantitative and qualitative research methods. Fourthly, research results have indicated that the intangible fundamentals and the concrete manifestations of organizational culture are emphasized at good schools while this happens to a lesser degree at average and poor schools. It becomes clear that certain basic aspects are present in the intangible fundamentals and the concrete manifestations of the organizational culture of schools. The successful functioning of these aspects Is essential for the establishment of an efficient organizational culture In schools. Finally these primary aspects of organizational culture form the basis for the development of management strategies which can be used to establish an effective culture of organization in schools. Special mention is made of general points of departure and guidelines for developing action plans and putting them to effect. The actual plans of action are not addressed, as schools should develop their own plans according to their unique composition, requirements and environment. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Education))--Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education, 2003

Research on the development of management strategies for the establishment of an effective organizational culture in schools was conducted in the following phases. In the first place, an. attempt is made to determine the nature of organizational culture, the context in which organizational culture functions, and the transformation and establishment of an effective organizational culture. as well as to describe the characteristics and advantages of an effective organizational culture. Secondly the aspects of organizational culture are discussed on the basis of a theoretical model that has been developed from literature. In so doing, every aspect of organizational culture is spell out, the role and place of each aspect of the culture is explained, as is the contribution of every aspect of organizational culture to the efficacy of such a culture. In the third place, the degree to which aspects of the organizational culture are emphasized in schools has been empirically determined by means of quantitative and qualitative research methods. Fourthly, research results have indicated that the intangible fundamentals and the concrete manifestations of organizational culture are emphasized at good schools while this happens to a lesser degree at average and poor schools. It becomes clear that certain basic aspects are present in the intangible fundamentals and the concrete manifestations of the organizational culture of schools. The successful functioning of these aspects Is essential for the establishment of an efficient organizational culture In schools. Finally these primary aspects of organizational culture form the basis for the development of management strategies which can be used to establish an effective culture of organization in schools. Special mention is made of general points of departure and guidelines for developing action plans and putting them to effect. The actual plans of action are not addressed, as schools should develop their own plans according to their unique composition, requirements and environment. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Education))--Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education, 2003

Parental involvement is considered important to a child’s education, whether it is working closely with the teacher to aid student learning or volunteering for participation in after school activities. This grounded theory study focuses on stakeholders’ perceptions of requisite parental involvement in a magnet middle school. The three tenets of grounded theory include: the emergent theory from the categories of data; the premise that participants’ behavior has an underlying pattern that will emerge; and assurance that the participants, not the researcher, are the focus of the study. Data was collected from document analysis, interviews with administrators, teachers, a staff member, a community volunteer, and parents; as well as data collected from surveys of parents and teachers from the school. The survey data is both quantitative and qualitative. The data set for this research was comprehensive: 301 pages of correspondence, 48 pages of transcribed interviews, and 18 surveys. The surveys were submitted by both parents and teachers. The 6 teacher surveys submitted represent a return rate of 33.3%; the 12 parent surveys yielded a return rate of 5%. The five concepts that emerged from the data are: Regard, Team, Volunteer Opportunities, Propinquity, and Needs. The results indicate that social and economic capital informs requisite parental involvement in a magnet middle school, and its perceived impact upon student achievement and school climate.

abstract: Student behavior problems continue to be a nationwide concern, despite decades of practice with a myriad of disciplinary systems. Students who frequently engage in problematic behaviors are at-risk for a variety of negative life outcomes. School-wide positive behavior interventions and supports (PBIS) is an evidence-based system of school-wide reinforcement and disciplinary procedures that relies on a problem-solving model from a systems perspective. Research based on the implementation of PBIS in schools has found positive effects pertaining to decreases in problem behaviors, increases in academics and attendance, and improved school safety and staff satisfaction. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of PBIS systems change at varying years of implementation in three middle schools using a cross-sectional design on student outcome variables including office discipline referrals, major disciplinary actions, attendance rates, and academic achievement, along with school climate factors related to teacher burnout. Analysis of variance, non-parametric analysis of variance, and visual analyses were used to evaluate the effects of PBIS at varying years of PBIS implementation. The number of ODRs and major disciplinary decisions issued were greatly decreased with each year of PBIS implementation. Analyses of student academic performance and attendance varied by school and level of PBIS implementation and appeared to be influenced by additional variables, such as socioeconomic status. The length of PBIS implementation was associated with lower teacher ratings of emotional exhaustion and higher school climate ratings. Implications for research and educational practice are addressed. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Educational Psychology 2014

Racial disparities in educational achievement have been a persistent phenomenon in the United States. This inequity has been described as educational "opportunity gaps", "education debts", and "achievement gaps". Education debt refers to the year after year amassed racial and ethnic achievement gaps that result in a debt for most minoritized groups in comparison to White and Asian students. Despite the repeated significance of focusing on education inequalities concerning race and ethnicity, there is a paucity of research that examines the interrelatedness of school climate and academic achievement specifically with respect to racial and ethnic differences. The ecology of human development framework provides a complex lens to better understand the students' experiences in the environment of the school. For this quantitative, correlational, cross-sectional study descriptive statistics and structural equation modeling (SEM) were applied to answer the research questions about the extent that high school students' perceptions of school climate predicted their self-reported grades, whether they differed as a function of students' race and ethnicity, and whether the magnitude between race/ethnicity groups was substantial. Overall, evidence was found for the unceasing and persisting education debt for minoritized groups regarding their grades, but also in connection to the influence of school aspects on their academic achievement. For Black and American Indian/Alaska Native students the results indicated an intensification of the education debt through the considerably lower impact of school climate characteristics on grades than for White and Asian. For Mixed, Latin@, and Other the debt appeared to be unchanging due to similarly small impacts as for White and Asian, yet, not lessening due to their lower grades.

In the current atmosphere of intense concern over school violence, steps are often hastily taken to “fortify” schools without forethought for how such actions may adversely impact the school environment and students’ psychological wellbeing. Given the paucity of evidence that unequivocally demonstrates the effectiveness of metal detectors, security cameras, and other security features (NASP, 2013; Addington, 2009), this study investigates a potentially more sound approach toward enhancing school safety initiatives. Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED) is one philosophy that is commonly used in the design of safe schools, and—consistent with this philosophy—the present study investigates whether schools designed around CPTED principles are perceived as being safer and/or more psychologically comfortable when they are compared to schools that do not adhere to CPTED design elements. In the current study, the researcher visited three middle schools and four high schools across southern Arizona where students used their school laptops or computer labs to complete an online survey via Qualtrics survey software. Nine hundred students in grades 7 through 12 completed the survey, which included preexisting measures of risk behavior, previous exposure to violence, and school climate, as well as a novel instrument entitled the Preferable School Design Measure (PSDM). The PSDM presented pairs of photographs featuring a CPTED school design and a non-CPTED school design, then asked respondents in which school they would feel safer and more psychologically comfortable, respectively. Results indicate that students had a significantly greater preference for CPTED versus non-CPTED school designs (p <.001), both in terms of perceived psychological comfort (d = .70) and physical safety (d = .84). No significant differences were found in preferences for CPTED schools based on age, race/ethnicity, self-reported academic achievement, levels of previous exposure to violence, or socio-economic status, which suggests that identified preferences are generally robust to many common between-group demographic differences. Overall, study results suggest that implementing CPTED designs may be an effective approach to engender feelings of both safety and comfort among students. Moreover, it is conceivable that by changing the current landscape of mediocre school facilities, the academic and psychosocial outcomes of students inhabiting these facilities might be greatly enhanced.

This study focused on the perceptions of 16 Latina students regarding their cultural school climate as well as the thoughts of two administrators and six teachers at an all-female Catholic high school. Students revealed that, while they felt very supported by the school’s faculty and administration, they revealed that their culture was not fully embraced and/or represented in their educational curriculum and school’s practices. Students also alluded to deliberately choosing and valuing to spend their free time with their family over their classmates. Further, they felt disconnected from their school’s mission, which emphasized sisterhood among students. Furthermore, bicultural students provided a unique perspective often not fitting the Latina and/or dominant culture at the school.

There is a growing body of research that indicates that effective management of school resources influences learning and teaching (Chiu & Khoo, 2005; Murtin, 2013). Arguably, schools with better management tend to have better performance on a wide range of dimensions; they are more productive, grow faster and achieve better academic achievement result (Williams, Kirst & Haertel, 2005). It is, therefore, crucial to have effective leaders who will manage the education system towards national goals. According to the Department of Basic Education (2016), all learners have the right to have access to relevant and meaningful learning experiences and opportunities. Further to this, the school community has the right to a safe and secure learning environment, otherwise known as good school climate (Kelley, Thornton & Daugherty, 2005). This brings about the importance of the principals of the school who have the responsibility for resource management and the effectiveness of learning in the school. The study on the impact of the principals’ management practices on school climate of public secondary schools in Pretoria is important to understand how to improve the standard of education in South Africa. Relatively little previous research has investigated the mechanisms by which a principal’s management practices pose an effect on the school climate. The current study examined the impact of the principal’s management practices on the school climate by sampling teachers and non-teaching staffs from three schools in Pretoria, Gauteng province. The school climate was measured with the three sub-scale of organisational climate index (collegial leadership, professional and principal’s leadership). Survey data was obtained from school teachers to measure the staff’s perception of their principal’s management practices. This study reveals the effect of the management practices of principals in motivating teachers to perform, remain loyal to their schools and support the principals even when it seems there are several challenges. On the other hand, the management practices of principals create context and some positive school climates for teachers working in these schools. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2020. / Education Management and Policy Studies / MEd / Unrestricted