Art has been used for centuries as a healing tool for adults and children; however, the use of art therapy in schools is a recent development. Art therapy, encompassing art, psychology, and therapy, is by nature interdisciplinary. Art experiences provided to students at risk of failing or dropping out of school may offer non-verbal communication that can be used effectively to satisfy a variety of developmental, social, or emotional needs. The purpose of this qualitative study was to develop a curriculum-based art experiences model, combining the skills of art teachers and school counselors. Data were collected through a focus group consisting of seven art teachers and five school counselors representing the eight elementary schools in Johnson City, Tennessee. These elementary school specialists agreed that at-risk students could benefit from the use of art experiences that were suggested in the study. Four major issues were discussed regarding the mechanics of the proposed alliances of art teachers and school counselors: (a) identification of at-risk students, (b) the opportunity for collaborative time, (c) pulling at-risk students out of self-contained classrooms for art experiences, and (d) the additional space needed for consistency of the art experiences. Some suggested strategies for specific issues in the focus group were as follows: (a) to establish a clear method for identifying at-risk students, (b) to manage time schedules to allow opportunities for collaboration, (c) to organize in-service opportunities for the self-contained classroom teachers, and (d) to seek out in each participating school an appropriate area for use by the art teacher and school counselor. The results of this study suggested that collaboration of two elementary school specialists, an art teacher, and a school counselor in each school, could provide therapeutic art experiences for children identified as being at risk. Consequently, I have concluded that my proposed curriculum-based model could be adopted by almost any elementary school that has an art teacher and a school counselor without requiring any additional personnel.

The passage of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (2004) increased educators' awareness of Response to Intervention (RTI) as a means of providing high-quality instruction and interventions matched to student needs. The challenges that came with RTI were meeting every student's need, implementing scientific research-based interventions, and expecting mastery of grade-level standards. The purpose of this study was to create a foundation of knowledge through exploratory case study interviews in 4 rural school districts in East Tennessee. All participants were certified teachers of kindergarten, 1st grade, or 2nd grade students. The guided interview approach was used to identify teachers' perceptions of implementing RTI in the classroom. The research questions addressed quality of RTI professional development activities, meeting RTI criteria of at-risk students, supporting role of administration, RTI impacting or benefiting students' academic growth, and effectiveness of RTI in the classroom. The findings of this study revealed all participants perceived RTI was necessary in meeting all students' needs. Teachers did not perceive RTI useful only for at-risk students but for every academic level of student in the classroom. However, to implement RTI effectively, teachers' perceived it beneficial to have a literacy coach or reading specialist in the building and to have administration's support. Recommendations for implementing RTI successfully were based on the data analysis.

The purpose of this study was to examine the difference in student success by retained students who participate in the Hamblen County (Tennessee) Credit Recovery Program [HCCRP] in the year prior and following their participation. HCCRP is an alternative intervention for students who have been retained in the middle grades of Hamblen County School System. Student success was defined and assessed in the areas of academic proficiency, discipline, and student absenteeism. Student information regarding each area was obtained from the Hamblen County School System, coded, and analyzed through quantitative testing. This study was guided by 8 research questions and 8 corresponding null hypotheses. Five of the null hypotheses were tested for significance using a paired sample t tests, 2 were tested using a chi square testing, and 1 was tested using a single sample t test. The population of this study was 94 students who had participated in the HCCRP in the 2010- 2012 school years. The analysis of data showed no significant difference in student science scores, number of discipline referrals, or absenteeism in comparing the year prior and the year following the students’ participation in HCCRP. The paired sample t test did reveal significant increases in both student math and reading/language arts scores. A chi squared test showed a significant number of low socioeconomic students within the population. Additionally, a single sample t test showed a significantly higher number of days students missed prior to attending HCCRP and the acceptable level of absenteeism. The result of this study indicates that students who have attended HCCRP as an alternative to grade level retention benefited academically in math and reading/language arts.

This action research study examined the influence mathematical strategies had on middle school students' mathematical ability. The purpose of this action research study was to observe students mathematical abilities and to investigate whether teaching students problem-solving strategies in mathematics will enhance student's mathematical thinking and their ability to comprehend and solve word problems. The study took place in an urban school in Orlando, Florida in the fall of 2004. The subjects will be 12 eighth grade students assigned to my intensive math class. Quantitative data was collected. Students' took a pre and post test designed to measure and give students practice on mathematical skills. Students worked individually on practice problems, answered questions daily in their problem solving notebook and mathematics journals. Results showed the effectiveness of the use of direct instruction and problem-solving strategies on at-risk students.

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With over 6 million children receiving some form of special education in the United States, and federal legislation mandating that all disabled students be provided with a free and appropriate education (FAPE) in the least restrictive environment (LRE), school districts are facing the daunting task of providing individualized services for a growing percentage of special education students. Unfortunately, it is well established in the research literature that special needs students who "belong" to racial and ethnic minority groups and/or are from low Socioeconomic Status classes have traditionally been over-represented in special education. Disturbingly, not only are minorities over-represented in special education classification, they are also under-funded. While research contends that the actual level and quality of service received by members of the above groups tend to be sub-standard to those of their white and/or higher income counterparts, parent perceptions regarding this may or may not align with this fact. This leaves the potential for a gap to exist between what objective measurements and observations uncover and what the parent holds to be true. This also raises the question of ethics in equity of information access for those with limited cultural or social capital. This qualitative study examines the perceptions parents from various demographic groups have regarding the special education services their children receive. Interviews with parents of special needs children who are from the Philadelphia and surrounding areas serve as the primary data source. Additionally, information gathered while assuming the role of observer participant in a local support group serve as a support source of data for my study. A variety of sources were used to gather data on parent perceptions for this study. The parents of twelve special needs children were interviewed for this study. Each parent was asked a series of questions regarding their experiences with their child(ren)'s special education including, but not limited to, identification of the disability; ease/difficulty of obtaining services; design of education program offering; initiation of services; IEP implementation; and goal attainment. Several characteristics of the participants were focused on to identify commonalities among participants that determine likenesses in perceptions of various aspects of interest relating to special education services. Participation/observation in a support group for parents of special needs children, in addition to the literature distributed at that session also served as data sources for this study and that led to the study findings. Survey quantitative data, and information from limited IEP review, were also contributors to the pool of data that ultimately led to the study findings and recommendations. The conduction of a focus group was planned and attempted on more than one occasion during the study period, however, the recruitment of an acceptable number of willing participants proved to be an insurmountable challenge. One major area of interest in the study included determining if the participants believed there were differences in the special education services received by different students and if so, why. Interestingly, all of the respondents answered yes and identified eleven "major contributors" to the differences. The four considered most significant by a majority of the participants include Parental Persistence, Time Availability of the parents, the Connectedness/Access to Information maintained by the parents, and belonging to a high SES. After studying the content of all of the interviews, noticeable likenesses in the characterizations of the mindset of the participants regarding special education emerged. This commonality was so strong that it led me to give this phenomenon or theoretical concept a name - Framing Mindset. Each participant, as a result of her experiences over an extended period of time with the "universe of special education" develops a certain "casting point" where the parent's attitude becomes "set" and future decisions regarding special education programming for that child follow similar thought patterns. Thus, the parent has adopted one of three "mindsets" that serve as the "framework" from which all of their educational choices are built. Finally the study looked at the question: "How does a special needs parent's current stage of grief (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance) relating to having a son or daughter with a long term, often lifelong disability, influence the perception of the variables (quality, appropriateness, timeliness, comprehensiveness) comprising his or her child's educational programming?" According to the responses given by the study participants, the majority of the respondents had a connection between the stage on the Kubler-Ross' Grief Cycle and their satisfaction level with special education services; a small number of respondents did not have a connection between the stage on the Kubler-Ross' Grief Cycle and their satisfaction level with special education services; and for less than one quarter of the respondents it was not possible to determine if there was a connection between the stage on the Kubler-Ross' Grief Cycle and their satisfaction level with special education services. The results of this study have implications for advocacy/parent education, professional support group/facilitator training, and education policy. First, the results of this study, tell us that a large majority of the participants believe that access to information is key to determining the composition of the special education program received by their child. Knowing this, the role of the advocate can become much more critical to both newly diagnosed parents and parents who are not well connected. Second, the literature, interview participants, and support group participants affirm that seeking out and attending support groups is often one of the first things the parent of a newly diagnosed disabled child does to both obtain information and relieve stress. Unfortunately, the participants also indicated their frustrations with the formats and content of the groups - enough so that most did not return. Therefore, it is recommended to be the most helpful to parents of special needs children through the support group venue, training for the potential facilitator and a quick survey to potential attendees to assess their interest, preferred format, and needs should occur first. Finally, the implications of information from the study for education policy relate to the both the implementation of special education law and the oversight of the implementation of special education law. All of the interviewees asserted that there are differences in special education services among special needs. As a result of this remarkable finding, I recommend that changes to education policy include a provision for local oversight or "watchdogging" of the process of special education service provision; tougher sanctions be developed for districts and private schools who fail to provide appropriate services to a disabled child or are found guilty of providing inequitable services; and that parent surveys about their home district be distributed annually with the district and private school's scorecard partially based on the survey scores. / Educational Administration

The choice to drop out of high school often follows a progression of disengagement from school (Bridgeland, Dilulio, and Morison, 2006). Students often begin this process as a result of attendance challenges, disciplinary consequences, and persistent failure in traditional learning environments (Bridgeland et al., 2006; Fenning et al., 2012; Foley and Pang, 2006). School divisions face federal and state mandates to improve graduation rates and are under pressure to reform educational practices in an effort to lower the dropout rate (Picciano, Seaman, Shea, and Swan, 2012). School districts around the country have sought to diminish dropout rates through a variety of strategies. The collective goal in all of the initiatives is to redefine the high school experience for students who do not fit the traditional model, connecting them with alternative learning opportunities so as to best meet individual needs (Ferdig, 2010; Carver, Lewis, and Tice, 2010). Online credit recovery programs have the potential to re-connect students at risk of dropping out of high school through technological interactivity, personalization, and immediate feedback (Ferdig, 2010; Watson and Gemin, 2008). This study identified 97 Virginia school divisions offering online credit recovery programs to students identified as at-risk. This dissertation examined the relationship between the use of online credit recovery programs and on-time graduation rates in the Virginia and found an increase in the on-time graduation rates in the school divisions that implemented this strategy. The researcher also examined the various models used throughout the Commonwealth and found a variety of implementation strategies used by school divisions. However data indicated no significant difference in the Virginia on-time graduation rates when comparing the different program implementation measures. / Ed. D.

As an exploration of some of the major provisions of NCLB, this dissertation applies the resource substitution perspective (Mirowsky & Ross, 2003) to the early years of elementary school and examines various forms of teacher human capital (e.g., educational background, certification, experience) to capture the pool of potential compensatory resources for segments of the child population deemed at-risk for academic problems because of their race/ethnicity and/or economic status. The research literature concerning teacher effects on academic performance and disparities in the elementary grades (vs. later levels of schooling) is limited, and the prevailing research on teacher effects in general either focuses on factors that are less relevant to early childhood education or provide mixed results. Applying multilevel modeling and other statistical techniques to data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort, I found that poor and non-poor Black children are consistently the most at-risk groups in math between kindergarten and third grade and in reading by the end of third grade. Poor Black and poor Hispanic children appear to benefit more from teachers who have regular and/or elementary certification than their non-poor White peers. In general, Hispanic children tend to be more responsive to resources in the early grades than other at risk groups. / text

The problem of this study was to determine if the mathematics achievement of at-risk students using computer-assisted instruction (CAI) differed significantly from other groups of students.

Teachers need interventions to improve at-risk students' self-efficacy, which may improve their academic performance in school. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore the perceptions of elementary school teachers at a Texas public middle school as to what research-based interventions they felt would improve the self-efficacy of these students. Bandura's social cognitive theory, which framed the study, indicates that self-efficacy beliefs affect the courses of action that people seek and the choices people make. Many at-risk students who experience a lack of academic success have low self-efficacy, which may affect their school performance. The research questions that guided the study focused on teachers' perceptions of whether a school-based mentoring program, counseling services, or an afterschool program would best help at-risk students improve their self-efficacy. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to collect data from 6 teacher participants who were purposely selected from different grade levels at the school. The data were transcribed and analyzed using hand-coding procedures to determine categories and themes from the transcripts. The findings revealed that teachers thought that a school-based mentoring program would have the most positive impact in improving the self-efficacy of at-risk students. The results prompted the development of a training program for mentors. Positive social change may result when at-risk students benefit from mentors who are properly trained on ways to meaningfully impact them.