Large Urban School District Research Articles

Black Girls and School Discipline: The Complexities of Being Overrepresented and Understudied

Using Critical Race Theory and Critical Race Feminism as guiding conceptual frameworks, this mixed-methods empirical study examines Black girls’ exclusionary discipline outcomes. First, we examined disciplinary data from a large urban school district to assess racial group differences in office referral reasons and disparities for Black girls in out-of-school suspensions, law enforcement referrals, and expulsions. Next, we used a multivariate analysis to determine whether these patterns held after accounting for other identity markers. Finally, we used Critical Discourse Analysis to consider whether office referrals for Black girls were for subjective or objective behaviors and whether they aligned with dominant narratives.

Reluctantly governed: The struggles of early educators in a professional development course that challenged their teaching in a high-stakes neo-liberal early education context

This article documents the pedagogical and practical struggles of a sample of early educators in a large urban school district in the USA who engaged in a professional development course which offered them alternative conceptions of teaching that critically questioned the norms and practices of their high-stakes neo-liberal early education system. Examining the evolution of some of these teachers’ conceptions and practices illuminates the challenges that exist in attempting to address culturally relevant issues with students in a highly scripted and surveilled teaching context. It also reveals three key issues that early educators, teacher educators, and those who advocate for early childhood education should consider when developing and/or enacting alternative conceptions of teaching in similar neo-liberal early education environments.

Healthy-food procurement: using the public plate to reduce food insecurity and diet-related diseases

Healthy-food procurement: using the public plate to reduce food insecurity and diet-related diseases

School District Policies and Adolescents' Soda Consumption

PurposeSugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) are a significant source of calories and added sugars for youth ages 14–18 years in the United States. This study examined the relationship between district-level policies and practices and students' consumption of regular soda, one type of SSB, in 12 large urban school districts. MethodsData from the 2012 School Health Policies and Practices Study and 2013 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System were linked by district. The outcome variable was soda consumption and exposure variables were district policies. We used multivariable logistic regression analyses to calculate adjusted odds ratios (AORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) after controlling for student characteristics and district free/reduced-price meal eligibility. ResultsAbout 18% of students reported consuming regular soda at least once per day. Most districts required high schools to have nutrition education, maintain closed campuses, and required/recommended that schools restrict promotional products and sale of beverages. Fewer districts required/recommended that schools offer healthful alternative beverages. Students in districts that restricted promotional products had lower odds of regular soda consumption (AOR = .84, 95% CI = .71–1.00), as did students in districts that restricted access to SSBs and offered healthful beverages when other beverages were available (AOR = .72, 95% CI = .54–.93, AOR = .76, 95% CI = .63–.91). ConclusionsThis study demonstrates that certain district-level policies are associated with student consumption of regular soda. These findings add to a growing consensus that policies and practices that influence the availability of healthier foods and beverages are needed across multiple settings.

Struggling to Overcome the State’s Prescription for Practice

Issues of standardization, student achievement, and diversity have dramatically altered teaching within early childhood programs across the United States. This has created a situation in which teacher educators need to assist practicing and preservice teachers working in these contexts with formulating instructional responses that address policymakers’ high-stakes demands, take into account the best practices of early childhood, and attend to children’s linguistic, cultural, socioeconomic, and political worlds. This article addresses this issue by examining findings from a qualitative study of a professional development course within a large urban school district for prekindergarten and kindergarten teachers. In the course, the teachers were asked to engage in action research projects that pursued learning experiences with their students reflecting issues central to their lives in and/or outside their classrooms. Analyzing and interpreting their experiences sheds light on how teacher educators can support practicing and preservice teachers in responding to the governmental, institutional, and local demands on their teaching while attempting to formulate learning experiences that reflect their students’ sociocultural worlds.

Instrumental Music Educators’ Experiences in a Professional Development Course

The purpose of this research was to investigate the experiences of instrumental music teachers in Designing Arts Instruction, a 4-day professional development course in a large urban school district. Specifically, I was interested in which activities participants (a) found most relevant and applicable to their current teaching situation, (b) believed would most benefit student learning, and (c) believed would contribute most to their overall music teacher development. Multiple forms of data were collected including participants’ reflections, researcher-facilitator journal and field notes, and structured individual interviews. Curriculum development and rubric writing were relevant to participants’ teaching situations and also engaged teachers’ personal musicianship. Participants recognized creative activities as motivating for students. Collaboration emerged as the course feature that contributed most to participants’ overall development. Those who plan and facilitate professional development might consider including aspects that invite collaboration, deep thinking, engagement, and reflection, particularly within the context of teachers’ musicianship.

SCALE-UP OF SAFE & CIVIL SCHOOLS’ MODEL FOR SCHOOL-WIDE POSITIVE BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTIONS AND SUPPORTS

This study evaluated the scale-up of a Safe & Civil Schools Foundations: Establishing Positive Discipline Policies positive behavioral interventions and supports initiative through 4 years of “real-world” implementation in a large urban school district. The study extends results from a previous randomized controlled trial that established the effectiveness of the Safe & Civil Schools program in 32 elementary schools in the same district. This study emphasizes the application and evaluation of the program in regular district schools. Four-year results indicate that elementary, middle, and high schools experienced moderate but steady improvements in (a) school discipline, (b) student safety policy and training, (c) staff perceptions of student behavior, and (d) student suspension and chronic tardiness rates. With few exceptions, improvements occurred after schools began Safe & Civil Schools Foundations training, and more years of training were associated with larger cumulative improvements in school and student outcomes. Given that similar effects were observed in schools with and without random assignment of training, and only after training began, we concluded that the improvements stem from Safe & Civil School's Foundations training.

HIV-Related Risk Behaviors Among Male High School Students Who Had Sexual Contact with Males - 17 Large Urban School Districts, United States, 2009-2013.

Young persons aged 13-24 years accounted for an estimated 22% of all new diagnoses of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection in the United States in 2014. Most new HIV diagnoses among youths occur among males who have sex with males (MSM). Among all MSM, young black MSM accounted for the largest number of new HIV diagnoses in 2014 (1). To determine whether the prevalence of HIV-related risk behaviors among black male high school students who had sexual contact with males differed from the prevalence among white and Hispanic male students who had sexual contact with males, potentially contributing to the racial/ethnic disparities in new HIV diagnoses, CDC analyzed data from Youth Risk Behavior Surveys conducted by 17 large urban school districts during 2009-2013. Although other studies have examined HIV-related risk behaviors among MSM (2,3), less is known about MSM aged <18 years. Black male students who had sexual contact with males had a lower or similar prevalence of most HIV-related risk behaviors than did white and Hispanic male students who had sexual contact with males. These findings highlight the need to increase access to effective HIV prevention strategies for all young MSM.

Behavior-Focused Alternative Schools: Impact on Student Outcomes

Behavior-focused alternative schools serve students who have been unsuccessful in other school settings due to low academic achievement coupled with significant behavior challenges. In this study, we investigated the effectiveness of secondary behavior-focused alternative schools on four different student outcome variables: (a) school attendance, (b) credits earned, (c) number of office referrals, and (d) number of suspensions. Using longitudinal data from a large urban school district and propensity score matching, we examined the extent to which outcomes of secondary students attending behavior-focused alternative schools differed compared to a matched sample of students attending traditional secondary schools. Findings from Poisson regression analyses indicate that enrollment in a behavior-focused alternative school significantly predicts earning fewer credits in one semester, lower attendance, and a lower number of office referrals. Implications for policy, practice, and further research relative to these findings are discussed.

Teachers, tasks, and tensions: lessons from a research–practice partnership

How teachers make sense of new academic standards significantly shapes the implementation of those standards. Professional development organized around the analysis of mathematical tasks has potential to prepare teachers for standards implementation by helping them develop common understandings of standards and how to help students meet ambitious new learning goals. In practice, however, designers and participants bring different goals to the professional development context, which becomes evident when teachers engage in task analysis. In this article, we use the design tensions framework (Tatar in Human Comput Interact 22(4):413–451, 2007. doi: 10.1080/07370020701638814 ) to analyze these tensions within a research–practice partnership comprised of five university researchers, three district curriculum leaders from a large urban school district, 12 high school Algebra 1 teachers from nine schools in the district, and a small team of Web engineers. Primary data for the study consist of participant observation and field notes of meetings in which project stakeholders negotiated the design of the professional development, as well as interview and survey data. An analysis based on the design tensions framework helped our partnership surface, both in the moment and retrospectively, the need for designers of professional development focused on standards implementation to be adaptive and willing to evolve activities to satisfy multiple stakeholders’ goals for participation.

De-adoption of an evidence-based trauma intervention in schools: A retrospective report from an urban school district.

The de-adoption of evidence-based practices (EBPs) is a largely understudied topic. The present study examined factors related to the de-adoption of an EBP for students exposed to traumatic events in a large urban school district. Qualitative interviews conducted with school clinicians and district administrators two years after the district embarked on a large-scale roll-out of the EBP distinguished between factors that impacted partial de-adoption after one year (phase 1) and complete de-adoption by the district after two years (phase 2). Phase 1 factors included organizational consistency, workforce stability, prior success, positive student outcomes, school- and district- level supports, innovation-setting fit, and innovation-related issues. Phase 2 factors included district-level leadership changes, financial and workforce instability, and shifting priorities. Study results suggest that sustainment-enhancing strategies should be included in the early stages of program implementation to most effectively adapt to school- and system- level changes.

Predictors of New Teacher Satisfaction in Urban Schools

This study addressed the problem of job satisfaction of new teachers in large urban school districts. Understanding what contributes to job satisfaction of new teachers has implications for retention strategies supporting cost-effective human capital management as well as for improving working conditions and performance in the educational accountability era. The study used personal characteristics, general job facets, and specific job facets as predictors. The full set of predictor variables explained 71% of the variance in new teacher job satisfaction. The study found that overall new teacher job satisfaction correlates with (a) preparedness, (b) leadership, (c) independence, (d) time, and (e) benefits. Addressing each correlate could likely increase new teacher job satisfaction and retention in the teaching profession particularly in the high-need, hard-to-staff schools. Implications for practice and research are discussed.

Playing to Teachers’ Strengths: Using Multiple Measures of Teacher Effectiveness to Improve Teacher Assignments

Current uses of value-added modeling largely ignore or assume away the potential for teachers to be more effective with one type of student than another or in one subject than another. This paper explores the stability of value-added measures across different subgroups and subjects using administrative data from a large urban school district. For elementary school teachers, effectiveness measures are highly stable across subgroups, with correlations upward of 0.9. The estimated cross-subject correlation between math and English language arts is around 0.7, suggesting some differential effectiveness by subject. To understand the magnitude of this correlation, I simulate targeted re-sorting of teachers to classrooms based on their comparative advantage. The results suggest that using multiple measures of value added to specialize teachers by subject could produce small average increases in student achievement, and larger increases for some students.

Perceived Implementation Barriers of a One-to-One Computing Initiative in a Large Urban School District: A Qualitative Approach

Perceived Implementation Barriers of a One-to-One Computing Initiative in a Large Urban School District: A Qualitative Approach

Operationalizing Transformative Parent Engagement in Latino School Communities: A Case Study

The article examines a model for transformative parent engagement in predominantly Latino and ethnically diverse school communities. A case study illustrates the initial phases of the five-level process and the challenges of actualizing the parent engagement process. The author's challenge commonly accepted boundaries of bicultural parent involvement. A case study provides a real-life example of a large urban school district that has introduced community school-based reform to create and apply the hopeful vision of what authentic and democratic parent engagement can become, and how parents can be transformative change agents for their children and their schools. The authors outline challenges and provide recommendations to operationalize transformative parent engagement in predominantly Latino communities.

Marketing Vegetables: Leveraging Branded Media to Increase Vegetable Uptake in Elementary Schools

Objectives:Children do not eat enough servings of vegetables underscoring the need for effective interventions encouraging this behavior. The purpose of this research is to measure the impact that daily exposure to branded vegetable characters has on vegetable selection among boys and girls in elementary schools.Methods:In a large urban school district 10 elementary schools agreed to participate in the study and were randomly assigned to one of four treatment conditions: 1) no changes to the cafeteria; 2) vinyl banner displaying vegetable characters which was fastened around the base of the salad bar; 3) short television segments with health education delivered by vegetable characters; 4) combination of vinyl banner and television segments. We collected 22,206 student-day observations over a six week period by tallying the number of boys and girls taking vegetables from the school’s salad bar.Results:Results show that 90.5% (from 12.6% to 24.0%; p=0.04) more students took vegetables from the salad bar when exposed to the vinyl banner only, while 239.2% (from 10.2% to 34.6%; pConclusions:Evidence from this study highlights the positive impact of branded media on children’s food selection. These solutions for both marketers and children can be powerful tools in encouraging healthier choices for children.

Screening for Trauma in Early Adolescence: Findings from a Diverse School District

Abundant evidence demonstrates that traumatized adolescents are at increased risk of a host of negative psychoeducational and functional outcomes, but demographic disparities are often seen in access to and use of mental health services and supports. In light of this, the current study examines the prevalence of trauma experiences and traumatic stress in middle school students from a large urban school district serving a high proportion of diverse immigrant and low-income families. Descriptive statistics document the mean reported number of trauma experiences and posttraumatic stress subscale scores by participants’ sociodemographic variables. Inferential statistics report significant differences associated with race/ethnicity, gender, and type of trauma—including exposure as a victim or a witness. Results show complex and significant racial/ethnic group differences in the experience and symptomatology of trauma among the entire screened sample as well as the subset of youth with elevated distress. Furthermore, findings document the predictive value of particular trauma events related to early adolescents’ severity of self-reported traumatic stress. These in-depth findings underscore the need for routine, school-based screening to identify and bring culturally competent, trauma-informed support and interventions to middle school students experiencing traumatic stress.

Clearing a Path for Inclusion

The study presented here examines the efforts of one principal and the team she relied upon to create a more inclusive and high-performing school in a large urban school district. The goals, actions, and responsibilities of the team are described, as well as the daily challenges associated with school administration and special education. In doing so, this article highlights how a distributed approach to leadership can enable a principal and teachers to build teacher capacity, adapt to challenges, and ultimately serve all students in an effective and inclusive manner. The timeliness of this research is significant given an increasingly complex and accountability driven system that makes school leadership ever more difficult, particularly when attempting to promote inclusion. This study has important implications for how principals call upon school staff to support inclusive reform, and it also highlights the role principals can play when seeking to distribute leadership and enhance school capacity to serve all children.

Barriers and Enablers to Data-Driven Decision Making by High School Counselors and Advisors

This article presents a study that had as its purpose to assist a large urban school district's leadership in systematically supporting school counselors and advisors conducting data-driven decision making. Binder's Six Boxes® model served as the conceptual framework to collect and analyze information pertaining to barriers and enablers across environmental and behavioral factors. Barriers included lack of clear expectations and feedback, an overabundance of technology without time to practice, and clerical duties. Enablers included supportive leadership, knowledgeable counselors willing to participate, and leadership with positive perceptions.

Urban Elementary STEM Initiative

The new standards for K–12 science education suggest that student learning should be more integrated and should focus on crosscutting concepts and core ideas from the areas of physical science, life science, Earth/space science, and engineering/technology. This paper describes large‐scale, urban elementary‐focused science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) collaboration between a large urban school district, various STEM‐focused community stakeholders, and a research‐focused private university. The collaboration includes the development of an integrated STEM curriculum for grade K–5 with accompanying teacher professional development. This mixed‐methodology study describes findings from focus group interviews and a survey of teachers from Title I elementary schools. Findings suggest the importance of the following critical features of professional development: (a) coherence, (b) content focus, (c) active learning, (d) collective participation, and (e) duration to the success of large‐scale STEM urban elementary school reform