The Individualized Education Program (IEP) is the heart of providing special education services to students with disabilities. It is a complex document that is supposed to include several required components. IEP teams are required to be composed of certain individuals, including "a representative of the district who is qualified to provide…

As education systems face a post-COVID-19 world, we must not lose sight of the importance of teachers' well-being. Already, prior to the pandemic, teachers were struggling to cope with workload and stress, as shown by the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS), one of the first international efforts to capture the well-being of the…

This article shows how City-As-School, a progressive public school in New York City, used descriptive inquiry to deepen shared decision making, which is a central value of the school and part of a democratic way of life. Descriptive inquiry is a democratic knowledge-making process that was developed at the Prospect School in North Bennington,…

The purpose of this article is to describe the development of a theory-based, culturally and gender-relevant Community Health Worker (CWH)-led tobacco cessation intervention for low-income Brazilian women who augments the tobacco cessation program offered through the public health system using Intervention Mapping (IM). We began with the…

Buy-in is an important component in the successful adoption, full implementation, and sustainability of any school-based initiative(e.g., Fixsen, Naoom, Blase, Friedman, & Wallace, 2005). In high schools, one key way to increase buy-in is to incorporate student voice. Since adolescents have a developmental need to play an active role in their…

The purpose of this paper is to provide leadership studies educators with a resource to examine the work of a leader who displays characteristics of servant leadership. The lesson allows students to study a modern servant leader by examining their work on a specific issue and how their efforts resulted in significant change in an area of human…

Across the U.S., educators face a common challenge: How can we help all students become strong readers and writers? In the author's state of Tennessee, many educators believe they have a reading crisis. Two-thirds of 3rd graders do not read and write on grade level as measured by the statewide assessment (Tennessee Department of Education, 2019a).…

Youth engagement is the meaningful and sustained involvement of young people in efforts to create positive social change. This approach requires youth-serving organizations to rebalance traditional power dynamics between adults and young people, allowing youths to take on decision-making responsibilities. Collective impact initiatives such as…

At the 2016 annual Strategic Enrollment Management Conference, Mark Hommerding presented a workshop entitled "Are You Happy?" Author Michael Hawkins concludes in this commentary that happiness not only creates a "better you" (as Hommerding convincingly argued) but that it also undergirds and sustains effective leadership. More…

School autonomy is popular but also complex and sometimes contentious. Many education systems have increased schools' autonomy in the hope of achieving greater efficiency and closer adaptation to local needs. In some countries, however, increased autonomy has led to greater pressure on schools and local stakeholders. To be successful, school…

University education partners have great potential to facilitate schools' moving from a school led traditional approach for family involvement to an asset based, empowerment approach to partnerships. On this journey, educators grapple with the cognitive dissonance of change as they engage their emerging multilingual families in the lives of their…

As a principal, Sarah E. Fiarman learned that developing teacher leadership requires more than merely soliciting teacher input. "School leaders," she writes, "need to create a culture in which each professional feels an urgent responsibility to influence the achievement of all students." To promote such a schoolwide leadership…

With the expansion of school choice systems, policymakers and researchers are increasingly focused on making the school choice process accessible and clear for families. Essentially, school district offices of enrollment and outreach are acting as "choice architects" for parents and students: those who design the environment or organize…

The school reopening debate has reached an inflection point as districts weigh both the safety and learning implications of returning to in-person education this fall. Challenges with transitioning to distance learning during the spring made it clear that teachers, parents and students needed more and different resources to make supportive,…

Teachers are spending more of their time and making more decisions within teams. Effective teacher-based teams provide academic and behavioral support for students as well as professional development for teachers. Learn how the best teams function.