Educators recognize that parental participation is a critical factor in the success of children within a school setting. This is particularly true for parents who have children with disabilities or who are from a culturally or linguistically diverse background. However, reaching out to these families can be a difficult task even for the most…

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is the federal law that secures special education services for children with disabilities from the time they are born until they graduate from high school. The law was reauthorized by Congress in 2004, prompting a series of changes in the way special education services are implemented. These…

Check-in/check-out (CICO) is a well-established Tier 2 intervention to address at-risk student behavior problems. Despite its widespread empirical support and applied use, CICO can be taxing for teachers to implement when there is insufficient time available and teacher self-efficacy in addressing behavior problems is low. Evaluation of CICO is…

Mathematical games are widely used in the primary classroom; however, not all games are equally valuable. How might teachers decide which specific games to introduce? The authors present five principles of educationally-rich games to help teachers address this issue. In so doing, they provide teachers with a usable framework to stimulate…

During the COVID pandemic, schools have found new ways of working with children and, crucially, their families. This has far-reaching implications for how schools and policy-makers consider homeschool communication as a means of developing parental and community engagement in the future. The Institute of Education's project, "Learning Through…

Using data from the School Survey on Crime and Safety (SSOCS), this report presents findings both on crime and violence in U.S. public schools and on the practices and programs schools have used to promote school safety. SSOCS collects data from public school principals about violent and nonviolent crimes in their schools. The survey also collects…

Calvin is a student who will not stay in his seat. He calls out constantly. Calvin does not complete his class work, and his homework is rarely returned. Do you have a student like Calvin? Does he fail to turn in homework, or act disrespectfully toward teachers and peers? Easy to implement, the Daily Behavior Report Card is an empirically based…

Parent educational involvement is an important avenue for enhancing student outcomes. Schools seek myriad ways to include families; however, the parent involvement practices used by schools lack coordination and are disconnected from existing school approaches. School wide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) is a systematic and…

Family learning means any learning that includes children and adult members of their family, and where there are outcomes for both child and adult. Learning activities may be formal or informal, and can take place in a range of contexts and venues. Good family learning experiences are characterised by well-planned programmes, with good or…

Children with ADHD comprise one of the most common groups requiring supports from school mental health providers, yet current school structures and special education policies are not optimally situated to support and adapt to the inconsistent behaviors that are the hallmark of children with ADHD. The present paper reviews and synthesizes…

The administration of college admissions examinations by SEAs [state education agencies] and LEAs [local education agencies] raises potential legal issues under FERPA [Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974], IDEA [Individuals with Disabilities Education Act], PPRA [Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment], and state privacy laws, and…

As a psychologist of 35 years, Wendy Mogel discusses what she has discovered to be the new trend behind anxiety in young boys. Through hours of probing and pondering, neither hyperparenting nor early trauma (what one might think were logical causes of a young boy's anxiety) is the key to understanding this new trend. She explains that many…

This article describes the character education program in Donald Stewart School No. 51, in Elizabeth, NJ, a dual-language preschool serving 300 students that first opened its doors in 2004. Over the years this school has been committed to laying the foundation of character development with its preschoolers. Their pillar "Friends Care, Friends…

Challenging behavior is often a source of frustration for parents. Challenging behavior is defined as any behavior that interferes with children's learning and development, is harmful to children and to others, and puts a child at risk for later social problems or school failure (Bailey & Wolery, 1992; Kaiser & Rasminsky, 2003). Children's…

Check-in/check-out (CICO) is a resource-efficient, mentor-based, Tier 2 intervention. Various problem behaviors of students with and without disabilities across traditional and alternative school settings have been impacted positively by CICO. Not all students respond to the traditional, five-step approach, however. This article provides an…