This article describes Oakwood City School District's College Connection Study, which is now in its eighth year. The purpose of the study is to help the educators in the district learn how to effectively prepare students for success in the colleges of their choice. Teachers, administrators, and other staff members travel to colleges to conduct…

Some educators think of literacy coaches as teachers who help students refine the strategies they use to comprehend text, but "literacy coach" is more commonly used to describe an educator whose clients are teachers. In this capacity, literacy coaches provide job-embedded professional development that helps teachers build their capacity to make…

The transition from the security of a middle level school to a high school isn't easy. The new independence, challenging workload, and high expectations are often enough to send freshmen into a whirlwind. To help offset these challenges, Louisburg (KS) High School developed a freshmen transition program that includes a preview of what high school…

Many educators consider the final year of high school to be a "vast wasteland," an epidemic of disengagement. Although high schools across the country have struggled with senioritis, their approaches to the problem have largely fallen into one of three types of responses: vertical acceleration; remediation; and structured containment.…

The school visit is an effective tool for stimulating the continued professional growth of middle level educators. In the past, however, a major problem with school visits was that they were conducted with positive expectations, but very little preplanning activities, little or no on-site structure, little or no debriefing for either the visiting…

This article talks about Mission High School located in San Francisco, where majority of its students come from two of the poorest neighborhoods in the city. The entrance of the historic Mission High School is reminiscent of the grand entryways in elite colleges and universities. The irony of Mission's architecturally pleasing edifice is that for…

School counselors need the assistance of principals and other administrators to improve guidance and school counseling services in schools. Principals and other administrators are the leaders in education, and it is important that they know how to create the best school counseling programs possible. This article provides 12 suggestions that can…