In 2021, California launched the Universal Prekindergarten (UPK) program (AB 130), requiring public schools with kindergarten to provide free, high-quality, inclusive pre-kindergarten to all four-year-olds regardless of birth date. Starting in 2022, it increased the original age-eligibility for Transitional Kindergarten (TK)--students turning five…

Effective transitions to kindergarten engage families and ease children into new environments. Countdown to Kindergarten (CTK), a program in a southeastern U.S. state that serves more than 1,000 children each year and is grounded in Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory, partners kindergarten teachers and families to facilitate effective…

California's 2020 Master Plan for Early Learning and Care gives the state's families choice among programs and providers--private or public, subsidized or unsubsidized (if eligible), offered in schools, child care centers, and family child care homes. This landscape changed significantly with the introduction and subsequent expansion of Universal…

This guidebook aspires to build a community where learning for sustainable development takes place everywhere for everyone as an ongoing practice. It introduces you to "Reflect-Share-Act," a process to discover and define sustainable development in your own contexts together with others in your community. The guide compiles resources…

Background and aims: Evidence suggests that autistic children and young people (CAYP) can benefit from age-appropriate psychoeducation. Co-design is a methodology that iteratively involves end users and stakeholders in producing an intervention which may increase engagement and impact. Few age-appropriate co-designed psychoeducation resources for…

Background: Since the COVID-19 pandemic, American students have demonstrated substantial losses in achievement (Amplify, 2021; Domingue et al., 2021; Dorn et al., 2020; Storey & Zhang, 2023), while chronic absenteeism doubled after the pandemic, with the largest increase among low-income students (Chang et al., 2022; Dorn et al., 2021). Among…

Although phonics knowledge and decoding skill are important for academic and life success, there is little research that examines the effects of home-based, family-implemented instruction on the development of these early literacy skills. The purpose of this multiple baseline across participants single case experimental design study was to…

Although many studies make important contributions to understanding the process and outcomes of school-based parent involvement initiatives, more work needs to be done to measure parent perceptions of parent involvement practices, policies, and barriers in low SES schools serving minority students. This qualitative case study looked to identify…

School participation and connectedness have significant implications for student outcomes while at school and in later life. The need to develop evidence-based interventions to proactively support students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is imperative. A two-round Delphi technique was used to gain expert consensus to inform the development of…

The purpose of this Action Research study was to investigate professional development, specifically related to technology, which has not provided teachers with adequate 21st century learning opportunities. This study sought to investigate a possible solution to ineffective professional development. Participants and data collected in Cycle 1…

Background: The goal of the study was to develop and verify a pathway model (or theory of change) for STEM Scouts, an out-of-school time (OST), positive youth development program for elementary through high school-aged youth. Pathway models include connections between hypothesized activities to short-, mid-, and long-term outcomes. STEM Scouts is…

Although research provides ample evidence of teaching methods that facilitate students' learning of specific word meanings, the potential of instruction to impact students' general vocabulary knowledge has remained an unanswered question. This article reports on a three-year formative experiment that developed, implemented, and tested a long-term,…

School communities are looking for new and innovative ways to educate children. One effective reform strategy that schools are using to better prepare teachers to meet these needs is the development of professional learning communities. Much of the literature presented in this area focuses on teachers and their growth as collaborative working…

The purpose of this article is to explore staff physical activity programs in the school setting, describe a viable option for a staff walking program in an elementary school, and determine elementary school staff members' participation and perceptions in one such program. Previous research has shown that placing a focus on staff involvement and…

Shared experiences through school-hosted events, such as family literacy events, can afford opportunities to support and extend academic learning while fostering positive home-school relationships. This article describes the importance of developing primary-grade students' literacy skills through a talent development lens and explains several ways…