This study explored rural school counselors' experiences regarding their preparation and response to natural disasters. Using descriptive phenomenology, we examined the perspectives of 10 school counselors and identified four themes that captured their experiences: (a) the need for disaster mental health training, (b) the value of rural community…

In March 2020, Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, an economic stimulus package designed to address the nationwide economic crisis created by the global COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to providing payments to individuals, business loans, and support to state and local governments, the CARES Act…

Urbanization decreased natural habitats and technological developments cause children to become more and more disconnected from nature (Kahyaoglu & Yetisir, 2015). This disconnection has increased interest in ecology-based nature education in many countries. Ecology-based nature education is an out-of-school education program that enables to…

What does it mean for students to be in a gifted program? While about 7% of students nationally participate in gifted programs, relatively little is known about the experiences of students in these programs or how they vary across districts. Combining administrative and survey data, we describe the structure of gifted programs across nearly 300…

Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) collaborated with Wilder Research to conduct interviews with schools to understand how schools use their existing funding in order to sustain Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) implementation. The findings are presented in this report. Information on MDE's MTSS is included at the end of this report. MDE…

"Building Your SPP/APR Stakeholder Engagement Plan: 10 Essential Questions" can help states develop and report on authentic and broad stakeholder engagement as required in the FFY 2020-2025 SPP/APR. This interactive resource guides states through 10 key questions they should be asking themselves as they build their stakeholder engagement…

This statistical analysis report presents key findings and other data highlights from School-Level Finance Survey (SLFS) in school years 2015-16 and 2016-17. The report focuses on (1) the completeness and comparability of SLFS data and (2) how the SLFS can be utilized to evaluate differences in resource allocation (as measured by school-level…

Scholarship tax credit programs provide a tax credit to businesses and individual taxpayers for donating funds to scholarship granting organizations. Nonprofit organizations manage and distribute donated funds in the form of private school tuition scholarships to eligible students. There are currently 24 scholarship tax credit programs in 19…

Though faith-based organizations provide a unique opportunity for rural public schools to share responsibility for student success among community stakeholders, partnerships between public schools and churches in the twenty-first century are complex. In part due to this complexity, limited qualitative research has been conducted in this area. As a…

This quantitative study examined school district leaders' engagement in a community of practice and reported the relationship between inter-district collaboration and school district leaders' learning and changes in professional learning efficacy. The theoretical framework involved Wenger's (1998) Community of Practice theory and the Standards for…

The purpose of this mixed-method study was to determine what factors contribute to the sustained success of schools after they have undergone the turnaround process and moved into the longer process of school transformation by identifying the relationship between principal leadership style and organizational structures that were implemented in…

The purpose of the qualitative exploratory case study was to examine California community college administrators' perceptions of preparation for achieving full compliance in implementing California Assembly Bill (AB) No. 705. The study involved analyzing documents, a physical artifact, and archived data from 14 community colleges in southern…

Research about the sign language interpreting field has noted that burnout and attrition of interpreters is a serious issue of the profession. There is also a lack of research about interpreters who work in medical, legal, and educational fields. One gap is the unique work of higher education interpreters. The varied contexts, the complexity of…

Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the U.S. and affect 40 million adults, or 18.1% of the population each year. Anxiety plays an essential role in encouraging productive learning outcomes; however, uncontrolled anxiety could result in heightened emotions that create barriers to learning. Employees who have anxiety disorders…

The nature of future employment is rooted in the sciences, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Educating the current and future workers will require the inclusion of STEM education, especially in the K-12 classrooms. African Americans run the risk of being left behind in future STEM jobs due to their poor STEM representation throughout…