Cultural identity ties individuals to their community's shared values, practices, traditions, norms, and language, fostering belonging and purpose. For Native Hawaiians, this identity is a foundation for cultural resilience--the ability of a cultural system to persevere despite adversity through sociocultural support. Despite historical trauma and…

The Capital Commitment Strategic Plan, first launched in 2012 and refined in 2017, declared DC Public Schools' (DCPS) earnest efforts to become a school system centered around educational equity and student achievement. In August 2022, DCPS started a year-long journey of reflection and refinement to produce the next iteration of the strategic…

Public schools located within urban environments are a critical component of a larger social network in their communities, with important reciprocal interactions occurring across settings. This is especially important for students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD), as integration and alignment of home, community, and school…

This document is designed to help school district teams engage in meaningful and productive conversations about how federal American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act funds can be used to address students' academic and social-emotional needs in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. This document offers considerations, examples of evidence-based strategies, and…

The newly created Office of Indian Education (OIE) at the Oregon Department of Education is pleased to share the new strategic American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) Student Success Plan. This five-year state plan will guide agency decision-making through 2020-2025. This plan provides Oregon communities with a refreshed mission that centers shared…

This project brief maps out how the Oregon Department of Education, with support from Region 16, conceived, developed, and implemented the six Student Success Plans, co-developed in collaboration with the communities surrounding six student focal groups: (1) Black/African American students; (2) American Indian/Alaska Native students; (3)…

"Educating for Purposeful Life" documents positive change within the Anaheim Union High School District, whose overarching mission is to prepare high school graduates who possess a clear sense of purpose and the capacity to achieve their goals. Superintendent Michael Matsuda and education consultant David Brazer lay out the district's…

This practitioner brief is one of a series highlighting concrete strategies that education leaders can use to increase equity in education by building learning environments that meet all students' social and emotional needs. This brief discusses how school districts can use partnerships with outside organizations and agencies to help provide…

Rhode Island is home to 23,931 current and former Multilingual Learner (MLL) students who speak over 100 languages and comprise 16% of the total student population. To guide the shifts in educational practice necessary for MLLs to thrive, the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) Planning Team recruited individuals from local education…

The health emergency has stress-tested the education systems. What has been learned from the experience? And how can that be applied to lessons while seeking to ensure that 'building back better' is an evidence-informed undertaking? In this report, the authors identify ten lessons from the crisis of 2020-2021 that should be used to inform planning…

Community school strategies have emerged as a promising approach to mitigate the social and learning impacts of COVID-19. This brief draws on how the crisis-motivated responses of educators and school leaders might serve as integral investments in successful and sustainable community schools. Schools and districts interested in such an approach…

As of June 2020, it is still too early to know how state early childhood systems will be permanently changed by the COVID-19 crisis. But the need for early childhood data is not new to the pandemic and recovery. States can benefit from data to better understand the landscape of local early childhood services--and about resources needed to help…

Community schools are an evidence-based strategy to advance a "whole child" approach to education by offering integrated student supports (e.g., health care or housing assistance), expanded and enriched learning time, family and community engagement, and collaborative leadership and practices. This brief examines how local government and…

Rhode Island's "Blueprint for Multilingual Learner (MLL) Success" articulates a vision and research-based principles that lay out what must be in place at all levels of the educational system for MLLs to thrive. Together, the vision and the principles set the foundational structure for systemic improvement of MLL instruction in Rhode…

As an instructional framework, Universal Design for Learning (UDL) can guide science teachers to purposefully apply evidence-based instructional practices to increase engagement and learning of students with disabilities (Israel, Ribuffo, and Smith 2014; Marino et al. 2014; Ok et al. 2016). This article describes how to use the Universal Design…