This study examines the terms and conditions found in the 67 Florida public school collective bargaining agreements. Such collective bargaining agreements are negotiated between two parties, the teacher unions and their employers, under Florida Statute 447. The purpose of this mixed-methods study, conducted using both qualitative and quantitative research methods, is as follows: 1) to determine the extent to which CBA provisions exist within the master contracts of Florida teachers (2016-2017) and; 2) to determine the extent to which, if any, collective bargaining provisions vary among school districts (i.e. district size, district performance, district locale). The study finds that none of the eight desirable provisions were present in all 66 collective bargaining agreements indicating that collective bargaining agreements vary in terms of the inclusion of desirable provisions for teachers. The study also finds that that spatial relationship plays a role in determining bargaining outcomes. The results of this study provide insight into the terms and conditions of collective bargaining agreements in Florida; thereby providing Florida school districts with information to construct the best possible competitive contracts in the future, which would then attract top talent as well as to protect the best interests of their districts.

The purpose of this study was to compare the number of suspensions and referrals to law enforcement from traditional consequences administered to students in a large urban school district in southeastern United States for the school year 2013 to 2014 to the number of suspensions and referrals to law enforcement from consequences rendered after the implementation of restorative justice practices in the 2015 to 2016 school year, as reported to the Civil Rights Office of Data Collection (CRDC, 2016). There was statistical evidence that schools had policies and/or practices in place that had a discriminatory bias towards racial groups when school discipline was administered (USDOE, 2016). Restorative justice processes worked to guide the conduct of individuals issuing the discipline and those needing to be disciplined (Rawls, 1971). Crosstabulations were used to determine if there were differences in students' behaviors in a large urban school district, categorized by race, gender, and socioeconomics for those who received traditional discipline practices in 2013-2014 compared to those who received discipline during the implementation of restorative justice practices in 2015-2016. A decrease in discipline infractions was the standard used to define a successful outcome for this alternative discipline. Restorative justice allowed discipline to be proactive when implemented with fidelity (Adler, 2011). Findings in this large urban school district, suggested that African American students continued to receive discipline infractions at a disproportionate rate after the implementation of restorative justice. Utilization of this alternative discipline proved to be successful in decreasing the number of single and multiple out-of-school suspensions and referrals to law enforcement.

The purpose of this study was to determine the difference in student academic achievement in private and public schools in the Dominican Republic in rural and urban settings. The 2016 8th Grade National Exams school mean scale scores were analyzed to determine if statistically significant differences existed among the different school types and school settings. There was a lack of literature on student academic achievement in the Dominican Republic, in particular on private and public school and rural and urban school students. The extant literature indicated that in the Dominican Republic, private school students historically had higher academic achievement on standardized exams than public school students. The higher student academic achievement of private school students followed the trend of student academic achievement in Latin America and the Caribbean. This study found statistically significant differences between private and public schools, rural private and rural public schools, and between urban private and urban public schools, in favor of private schools. These results provide evidence for school district leaders and school administrators to use in decision making about how to raise student academic achievement in rural and urban areas. The findings also contribute to the gap in literature on private and public school student academic achievement in the Dominican Republic and Latin America and the Caribbean.

Throughout history, higher education has reiterated the importance and significance of collaboration between all institutional divisions and departments (Kezar, 2003). As the responsibilities and operational functions of each division have increasingly become more specialized and complex, effective collaboration remains a barrier in the optimal functioning of institutions throughout the country (Kezar). The purpose of this qualitative research study was to explore the current perceptions and practices of collaboration between the Academic Affairs and Student Affairs divisions at state colleges geographically located in the Southern region of the United States, through the lens of Morten T. Hansen's T-shaped model of disciplined collaboration. The collective voices of the research participants fostered the ability to formulate a new, current model of collaboration between the divisions of Academic Affairs division and Student Affairs at representative state institutions. The final results of this study found that although there is not one consistent model that encapsulates all of the components of effective collaboration, it does entail a deliberate willingness to embrace the human element to build personal relationships. Finally, some of the themes generated by the use of NVivo were cultural ethos, human element and the unification of people. Framed by trust, transparency, unification of common goals, and through the college ethos as developed through leadership, a new model emerged based on the tenets of Grounded Theory.

This mixed method sequential exploratory study was conducted to emphasize and investigate disproportionality in discipline, noting the prevalence of the issue of equity and the salience of FL as context. This study applied the extant model for investigating disproportionality in a setting where such an investigation is highly relevant due to Florida's statistical positioning in the area of student discipline. This study investigated for potential biases that guide differences in the rates that males and Blacks experience exclusionary discipline within the 67 regular school districts. The analysis from this study, which used relative rate ratio and policy analysis, presents results showing that a disproportionality exists at a rate of 2 to 2.3 times for the affected demographic groups. The findings suggest a need for policy language to address this disparity, as well as a change in practice.

Mindfulness practices are increasingly being implemented in schools across the United States. Due to the relatively nascent nature of the research on the impact of mindfulness on youth, it is critical to gain a deeper understanding of how mindfulness interventions work. Further, there is scant research on the implementation and sustainability of school mindfulness programs. This deficit in our knowledge makes it difficult to understand the process of bringing mindfulness programs into schools, preventing researchers and practitioners from ascertaining how implementation affects outcomes. This qualitative study is comprised of two case studies that explore the goals, successes, and challenges of implementing school mindfulness programs. The first case features a non-profit organization that provides mindfulness programming to school districts; the second focuses on the perspectives of administrators, teachers, guidance counselors, and mental health professionals from a school district that has employed mindfulness practices for over a decade. Findings suggest that implementing mindfulness practices in schools is a complex process involving multiple stakeholders, significant planning, staff training, and noteworthy challenges, such as the lack of clarity when defining program goals.

The condition of education for Black and Brown students continues to be grim in Massachusetts, a state that is among the best in the nation for student success and academic achievement. Data from the 2019 and 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) reveal glaring and persisting disparities in academic performance among low-income students of color in the Commonwealth. This chronic disparity in educational outcomes between White students and their Black and Hispanic peers, commonly referred to as the achievement gap, is more acute in predominantly Black schools. Although schools with a high concentration of Black students tend to be failing schools, this is not the case at the Benjamin Banneker Charter Public School (Banneker). Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the Banneker is a predominantly Black Title 1 K-6 STEM school that has closed the Black-White achievement gap for the last five consecutive years on the MCAS in English Language Arts, mathematics, and science. This single case study examined the perspectives of educators at the Banneker, in order to explore the factors driving the high MCAS performance at the school. The researcher analyzed data from surveys, interviews, and document review, through the explanatory frameworks of the Seven Correlates of Effective Schools and racial matching. The data from this qualitative single case study revealed that the school’s success may be attributed to the presence of the Seven Correlates of Effective Schools, that are deeply embedded into the school’s culture. In addition, the school’s success appears to be a result of the matching of students and educators who are demographically similar as well as three interrelated factors that form the Banneker’s Academic Core of Excellence (ACE). These three factors are as follows: teaching quality support, diversity and inclusion, and fulfillment and purpose. The findings of this study have important implications for how to successfully educate not only Black and Brown students, but all students in any school setting. The issue therefore is whether or not we have the will as individuals or as a collective to honor the humanity of all children regardless of their race, ethnicity or socioeconomic status. / 2025-05-12T00:00:00Z

The purpose of this phenomenological qualitative research study was to investigate educators' perceptions of social-emotional and culturally responsive teaching practices. The problem of practice that this research investigated is we do not know the extent to which teachers use SEL and CRP as an integrated approach, nor do we know the extent to which teachers are trained to operate from this perspective, either as part of their formal training or as part of any professional development activities. To maximize students' potential, it is crucial to address every child's social and emotional needs in a culturally sensitive manner. Currently, SEL and CRP are viewed as two separate frameworks because they originated from two separate philosophical camps, and they are often presented to teachers in separate professional development. SEL originated from the mental health field, and CRP originated from social sciences. Although SEL has a different research basis than CRP, it is critical to recognize that the two must be integrated or cross-pollinated (Donahue-Keegan et al., 2019). Some early SEL research and practice focused on teaching or fixing children rather than examining the cultural environments in which they lived. Integrating SEL's focus with CRP helps to broaden this lens because CRP's socio-political awareness aids in cross-pollinating SEL with a more equity-based mindset. When educators engage in SEL and CRP separately, they diminish the power each framework holds. Engaging in an integrated SEL and CRP mindset/pedagogy prepares all students to disrupt oppression and racism (Simmons, 2021; CASEL, 2020). This work can begin with teachers. This study sought to understand how teachers use SEL and CRP in an integrated manner if they do. The specific questions explored were: Research Question 1 (RQ1): How do teachers perceive social-emotional learning? Culturally responsive teaching? Research Question 2 (RQ2): How have teachers experienced social-emotional learning? culturally responsive teaching? Research Question 3 (RQ3): If teachers have experienced implementing integrated SEL and CRP, what are their experiences of implementing integrated SEL and CRP? The participants' voices informed this study; therefore, a qualitative study specifically using a Phenomenological Research design was conducted. Purposive sampling of eight instructional coaches and five classroom teachers from a large urban school district were interviewed for this research. Interviews were transcribed, given to each interviewee for accuracy, then underwent extensive data analysis manually and through NVivo to discover themes. The findings that emerged were: RQ1: Our Common Humanity, CRP/SEL are the same thing, Misconceptions RQ2: Modifying frameworks for instruction, Modeling SEL/CRP practices, Engaging Families RQ3: Cohesive Buy-in, Ad-Hoc professional development, Addressing a Fixed vs. growth mindset, emerged from the data analyzed to respond to the three research questions of this study. Suppose SEL and CRP are to have the transformative impact indicated by the findings of (CASEL, 2021). How can districts and school leaders provide and support educators to understand better how the two practices can be integrated? / 2025-07-21T00:00:00Z

Providing special education services for students with identified special education needs in the least restrictive environment continues to be a challenge for schools. The co-teaching model of special education service delivery provides an opportunity for students to receive individualized instruction, remediation, and practice in the general education classroom by the general education teacher or the special education teacher. Given the uncertainty surrounding the efficacy of co-teaching, there is a need to evaluate the practice based on its effectiveness in the specific setting of a small-town elementary school and based on important criteria of the specific setting. The purpose of this program evaluation study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the co-teaching model in this specific setting and whether this inclusive model of service delivery for special education students, impacts student achievement, student behavior, and what challenges and successes the teacher who work within this model face. Benchmark data and student behavior data were analyzed and the results showed that the co-teaching model had no effect on general education or special education students’ performance on benchmark tests or behavior. Despite co-teaching having no effect on student behavior or benchmark performance, the teachers interviewed spoke very favorably about the practice of co-teaching. Teachers believed that co-teaching was a challenge to implement with fidelity, but that contrary to the evidence, the practice of co-teaching was successful. Recommendations include continued training and professional learning on co-teaching, as well as professional development on high yield instructional strategies.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the short-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the school closures that occurred in the spring of 2020 on student learning. Using reading and mathematics MAP Growth data from four consecutive academic years, this study compared changes in student outcomes to determine if students, especially those who had economic disadvantage, had different academic outcomes than their peers. Research concerning typical student learning trajectories, patterns of summer learning loss, and existing academic achievement gaps was used to develop the hypothesis that fifth-grade students who experienced the pandemic would begin sixth grade significantly behind their expected level of performance. Findings from this analysis revealed that students maintained their levels of reading achievement but showed less than expected growth in mathematics. Socioeconomic status was identified as a statistically significant factor impacting reading and mathematics achievement for all four cohorts of students, whether or not they experienced the pandemic. In addition, students who were lost to attrition began the study with lower performance than their peers. These two factors have important implications for educators and policy makers as schools begin to reopen for traditional, in-building instruction.