Intermediate School District 287 (ISD 287) provides intensive educational supports to its students. ISD 287 staff use a variety of practices to manage the school atmosphere, foster social connection, manage interpersonal conflict, and maintain school safety. Restorative practices comprise some of the tools that ISD 287 students, teachers, and…

The purpose of this study is to analyze what impact the school-within-a-school alternative education program has on the at-risk students who participated in them. Although previous research has shown the positive impact of alternative education programs on at-risk students, it has not shown how specifically the school-within-a-school alternative…

In any K-12 classroom in America, chances are that at least one student is dealing directly with bullying, harassment, or another type of emotional or physical violence. What can teachers, principals, and school district leaders do to improve safety at their schools? There is some evidence that improving the social and emotional skills of both…

Teachers and administrators across the United States struggle to maintain safe, civil, community- and achievement-oriented schools. Disciplinary actions (such as school suspensions) and security measures (such as school resource officers/security guards and security cameras) are some approaches commonly used in schools to try to improve school…

The authors introduce the Preparation in STEM Leadership Program at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. This NSF-Funded program and research study creates a centralized training program for peer leaders that includes a battery of assessments to evaluate peer leaders' content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, communication skills, and…

Evidence from formal evaluation of real-world practice can address gaps in the public health knowledge base and provide information about feasible, relevant strategies for varied settings. Interest in evaluability assessment (EA) as an approach for generating practice-based evidence has grown. EA has been central to several structured assessment…

The authors describe social validity assessment of mindfulness education and practices among high school students (N = 84) participating in a 10-week instructional program. The participants rated their satisfaction with and acceptance of several program components, content areas, and outcomes, as well as their engagement in specific mindfulness…

Funded grant projects all involve some form of evaluation, and Advanced Technological Education (ATE) grants are no exception. Program evaluation serves as a critical component not only for evaluating if a project has met its intended and desired outcomes, but the evaluation process is also a central feature of the grant application itself.…

The aim of the present study is to monitor the effectiveness of a new conception of early literacy curriculum (in force since September 2016) which provides -- unlike the previous one -- a wide range of purposeful literacy practices and literacy events. The study compares graduates of previous early childhood literacy curriculum (tested in June…

Youth-led participatory action research (YPAR) is a theoretical-methodological approach that has been designed to promote positive development (e.g., well-being and health, social-emotional and cognitive development, academic or career advancement) and civic engagement among young people. Although YPAR holds particular promise, there has been…

We examined the effect on attendance of a truancy court-diversion program for elementary students. Truancy court-diversion programs represent a shift from a law-and-order approach toward a public health model to address school absenteeism. Instead of directly referring parents of truant elementary students to child protection services or juvenile…

This paper returns to a long-standing theme in education research, the ways in which 'contextual factors impact on what schools do, as well as directly on what pupils achieve' (Lupton, 2004, 4). Drawing on a project designed to explore the early effects of reforms to national examinations, the curriculum for 14-16 year olds and school…

The Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center used a rigorous 2-year collaborative process to develop, test, and revise a conceptual framework for high-quality state early intervention (EI) and early childhood special education (ECSE) systems. The framework identifies six critical components of a state system and what constitutes quality in each…

Process evaluation of public health interventions is important for understanding intervention results and can help explain why interventions succeed or fail. This study evaluated implementation of a school-based intervention combining educational and environmental strategies to prevent stress among Danish high school students. We investigated dose…

This post-professional development evaluation study (based on in-depth interviews) assessed the experience of ten educators who had participated one year earlier in workshops about the use of museum digital resources through the Smithsonian Learning Lab (SLL) for curricula development. The project focused on creating SLL collections to integrate…