Public School District Research Articles

Barriers and Facilitators to the Online Delivery of a School-Based Intervention to Reduce Racial Trauma.

Students of color face disproportionate rates of adverse childhood experiences, including racial discrimination in school settings. Effective interventions strategies are needed to address school-based racial trauma. Link for Equity was designed to be a culturally-responsive trauma-informed intervention that includes universal cultural humility training for teachers. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the in-person trauma-informed cultural humility training was adapted for online delivery. The purpose of this study was to assess barriers and facilitators that impacted online delivery of the training. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 25 high school teachers from three public school districts in the Midwestern United States who participated in the online training. Interview transcripts were coded by two team members, and thematic analysis was utilized. Barriers and facilitators to online delivery were identified across five domains: receptivity, logistics, engagement, comfort, and application. The implications of these barriers and facilitators are discussed and tailored recommendations for the virtual delivery of culturally-responsive trauma-informed interventions to reduce racial discrimination in schools are provided.

Disparities Among Cochlear Implant Users

This descriptive study aims to delineate the characteristics of select students with cochlear implants in Midwest public school districts and the professionals who received consultation services. Researchers analyzed nine years of archival grant data focused on communication modality, school district locales, and types of service providers. Findings yielded that the largest group of students communicated primarily using gestures and vocalizations followed by students using spoken English. Of the service providers, almost all Deaf educators and interpreters had a communication match with their students. Results also revealed a disproportionate number of students directly served by a deaf educator in city/suburb locales compared to rural/town. These findings suggest some students with cochlear implants may be underserved by deaf educators, especially in rural areas.

Collective Bargaining Agreement Restrictiveness in Unionized Charter Schools

Although charter schools are frequently afforded flexibility from many state laws that govern traditional public schools, a growing number of charter school teachers have now unionized and introduced collective bargaining to the charter sector. Using data from a detailed content analysis of teacher CBAs from California, we compare the restrictiveness of CBAs in 75 unionized charter bargaining units to the restrictiveness of CBAs in 31 nearest neighbor traditional public school district bargaining units. We find that independent charter CBAs are much more flexible than the CBAs of traditional public school districts, but charter school CBAs of bargaining units combined with traditional public school districts are comparably restrictive.

Schools at the center of a public health emergency: leveraging schools for pediatric COVID-19 vaccination.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's expansion of COVID-19 vaccine eligibility in 2021 to include children presented opportunities and challenges to ensure widespread access. Children, and especially adolescents, were a crucial target population to reduce community positivity rates and support a resumption of in-person academics. Though existing school-based vaccination programs have demonstrated success in improving vaccination rates on an individual school level, best practice strategies for employing mass vaccination programs quickly in response to public health emergencies have yet to be identified. Through established partnerships, School Health Services at Nationwide Children's Hospital led a collaborative effort to employ a rapid, onsite school vaccination strategy across Franklin County for all eligible students. This collaboration resulted in a significant increase in vaccine access carried out through on-site vaccination clinics established in 20 local public and private school districts. Key strategies identified through the process included collaboration with school districts, local hospitals, and the public health department; calibrating program size to each site and number of vaccines needed; and coordination of team member roles. At the same time, experience with the effort also underscored key challenges and opportunities that future programs should consider, especially when operating in public health emergencies. School-based community health approaches targeting adolescents can increase vaccination rates, and can be successfully led by children's health systems in concert with public health departments and schools. At the same time, entities undertaking such efforts must plan in advance to ensure that partnerships can be effectively established with clear protocols for efficient and open communication, which is essential for overcoming barriers in access to healthcare services.

Urban schools and the growth machine: When public education and development policy conflict

ABSTRACT The following case study explores the durability of conflict between urban growth machine policies, public-school finance, and educational equity in Columbus, OH. The City of Columbus is one of the fastest growing cities in the Midwest, but it’s largest urban public school district (Columbus City Schools) has grown smaller, more segregated, and poorer. Historical development policies enabled the city’s growth but undermined the school district. Contemporary conflict has emerged related to the impact of tax abatement programs on public school funding. Our Franklin county analysis suggests previous statewide estimates of public schools revenues lost to abatements were underestimated. Analysis of the relationship between abatements and school finances for all public-school districts in Franklin County finds a weak relationship with per pupil spending, but a strong relationship with district demographics and classroom expenditures. Our case analysis suggests planners should focus greater attention on the intersection of economic development policy and public schools.

Evaluation of "Test to Return" after COVID-19 Diagnosis in a Massachusetts Public School District.

Per Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance, students with COVID-19 may end isolation after 5 days if symptoms are improving; some individuals may still be contagious. Rapid antigen testing identifies possibly infectious virus. We report on a test-to-return (TTR) program in a Massachusetts school district to inform policy decisions about return to school after COVID-19. During the 2021-2022 Omicron BA.1 surge, students with COVID-19 could return on day 6-10 if they met symptom criteria and had a negative rapid test; students with positive rapid tests and those who declined TTR remained isolated until day11. TTR positivity rates were compared by grade level, vaccination status, symptom status, and day of infection. 31.4% of students had a positive TTR rapid test; there were no differences by grade or vaccination status. Ever-symptomatic students were more likely to have a positive rapid test (75/174 [43.1%] vs 18/104 [17.3%]). For ever-symptomatic students, TTR positivity decreased by day of infection. A substantial proportion of students may still be contagious 6 days after onset of COVID-19 infection. TTR programs may increase or reduce missed school days, depending on when return is otherwise allowed (day 6 or 11). The impact of TTR programs on school-associated transmission remains unknown.

The Dynamics and Measurement of High School Homelessness and Achievement

How school districts measure homelessness among their students has implications for accountability and funding, as well as for supporting student success. Yet, measuring homelessness among high school students is challenging because students move in and out of experiencing it. Using administrative student-level data from a mid-sized public school district in the southern United States, we show that different commonly used procedures to measure which students are considered homeless can yield markedly different estimates of high school graduation rates for these students. This is largely because of differences in how districts classify students who experience homelessness but later become housed. To address the potentially negative effects of housing insecurity on academic achievement, it is important to first identify a common way to diagnose the problem.

Revisiting Acker’s gendered organizational theory: what women overcome to stay in the superintendency

Despite key improvements to social, political, and economic status, women remain underrepresented in key leadership positions across the United States, including the superintendency. Feminist research underscores that androcentric systems maintain, valorize, and reproduce the experiences and knowledge claims of upper middle-class, heterosexual, white men. Documented in related fields, gender inequity within public school systems is thus in part, the result of bias, discrimination, and highly gendered organizational practices. Part of a larger qualitative descriptive study conducted in spring 2021 of the COVID-19 pandemic, the purpose of this research was to examine normative culture within the New York State (NYS) Boards of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) superintendency, and how professional and personal supports affect women superintendents and ultimately their decision “to stay” in their position. The guiding research question for this part of the study asked how and why the NYS BOCES superintendency was gendered? Guided by and building upon Joan Acker’s gendered organizational theory, 32 semi-structured, in-depth interviews were completed with NYS BOCES women superintendents. The BOCES organization was purposefully selected, in contrast to one of the 731 NYS public school districts, because of the level of political and economic power that BOCES superintendents have at the state level – and to that end, the role of women leadership in a highly influential state educational organization. Overall, study results are consistent with Acker’s research, finding that the NYS BOCES is a highly gendered organization, and also in specific ways tied to contemporary context. Chief among these included that women superintendents face countless gender inequities and barriers associated with staying in their leadership role, but professional legacy, the extent to which the work benefited families, and appropriate work-life balance were motivating factors. Concluding with implications for research and practice, study findings are significant because this study is the first to empirically examine the NYS BOCES and the career trajectories of its women superintendents – and to do so from a feminist epistemological perspective and gendered theoretical framework focused creating transformative change within research and practice.

Influence of Mask Wearing during COVID-19 Surge and Non-Surge Time Periods in Two K-12 Public School Districts in Georgia, USA.

Into the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic and the second year of in-person learning for many K-12 schools in the United States, the benefits of mitigation strategies in this setting are still unclear. We compare COVID-19 cases in school-aged children and adolescents between a school district with a mandatory mask-wearing policy to one with an optional mask-wearing policy, during and after the peak period of the Delta variant wave of infection. COVID-19 cases during the Delta variant wave (August 2021) and post the wave (October 2021) were obtained from public health records. Cases of K-12 students, stratified by grade level (elementary, middle, and high school) and school districts across two counties, were included in the statistical and spatial analyses. COVID-19 case rates were determined and spatially mapped. Regression was performed adjusting for specific covariates. Mask-wearing was associated with lower COVID-19 cases during the peak Delta variant period; overall, regardless of the Delta variant period, higher COVID-19 rates were seen in older aged students. This study highlights the need for more layered prevention strategies and policies that take into consideration local community transmission levels, age of students, and vaccination coverage to ensure that students remain safe at school while optimizing their learning environment.

Reading, Writing, and Harassment: White–Latinx Test Score Disparities on the U.S.–Mexico Border

The U.S.–Mexico Border region is typified by enhanced immigration enforcement and legal violence, which are known to reduce the educational achievement of Latinx children and youth. Using data from the Stanford Education Data Archive, I compare math and reading test score disparities between White and Latinx students in public school districts in the four states along the U.S.–Mexico Border—California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas—with districts outside of the Border region. I find that reading and math test score disparities widen with proximity to the Border. Results indicate that educational and family-income differences between White and Latinx adults explain the disparity in math test scores. However, the reading test score disparity on the Border remains net of school and community factors, suggesting legal violence and immigration enforcement may be impacting Latinx youth and, therefore, increasing the size of the test score disparity. Finally, I find the test score disparities between the Border region and interior districts do not vary significantly in size across the four Border states.

A Tracer Study of the Doctor of Education Graduates in a State University in the Philippines

This descriptive study examined the relevance and effectiveness of the Doctor of Education program of Laguna State Polytechnic University, Los Banos, Laguna, Philippines; demographic profiles of respondents such as age, gender, civil status, position, school type and details of promotion; achievement in current job, evaluation of achievement of program goals, and achievement of program outcomes. Based on the results, the program has successfully achieved its goal of developing a workforce of leaders capable of playing a key role at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels. This is reflected in the promotion of graduates to higher management positions such as superintendents, principals, and other supervisory positions in public school districts. Graduates feel that their degree has given them the confidence to establish themselves as educational leaders, work well with stakeholders, improve their communication and leadership skills, are satisfied and constantly strive to advance professionally and advance to the next rank. Successful practices in the areas of educational administration, school administration and resource management, incentives and employer’s feedback should be documented.

Toward Market Orchestration of Distributive Justice: Rearticulation of the Integrative Justice Model for Social Programs

This article takes a structural approach to understand how complex organizations, in this case public school districts in the United States, implement programs to promote greater justice for consumers. Drawing on the integrative justice model as a guide, this study uses deductive grounded theory and axial coding to understand how social programs, such as the National School Lunch Program, both orchestrate and obstruct distributive justice (DJ). Leaning on public policy and macromarketing literature and using ethnographic data as a guide, the study proposes a market orchestration model of DJ to offer guidance on how social programs can promote greater DJ.

Association of In-person vs Virtual Education With Community COVID-19 Case Incidence Following School Reopenings in the First Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic

The variability in timing of middle and secondary school reopenings during the 2020 to 2021 school year in the US presents an opportunity to examine the associations of different approaches to in-person education with changes in community COVID-19 incidence. Early studies on this topic have reached mixed conclusions and may be biased by unmeasured confounders. To estimate the association of in-person vs virtual instruction for students at the sixth grade level or above with county-level COVID-19 incidence in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. This cohort study included matched pairs of counties resuming school programs with in-person vs virtual instruction, drawn from 229 US counties that contained a single public school district and with county populations exceeding 100 000 residents. Counties that contained 1 single public school district and reopened in-person schooling for students at the sixth grade level or above during the fall of 2020 were matched 1-to-1 with counties whose school district reopened with only virtual instruction, based on geographic proximity, population-level demographic factors, the resumption of school district-level fall sports activity, and baseline county COVID-19 incidence rates. Data were analyzed from November 2021 to November 2022. In-person instruction for students at the sixth grade level or above resuming between August 1 and October 31, 2020. County-level daily COVID-19 incidence per 100 000 residents. The inclusion criteria and subsequent matching algorithm led to the identification of 51 pairs of matched counties among 79 total unique counties. Exposed counties had a median (IQR) of 141 840 (81 441-241 910) residents each, and unexposed counties had a median (IQR) of 131 412 (89 011-278 666) residents each. County schools with in-person vs virtual instruction had similar daily COVID-19 case incidence within the first 4 weeks after in-person reopening, but counties with in-person instruction had higher daily incidence beyond 4 weeks. Daily case incidence per 100 000 residents among counties with in-person instruction, compared with counties with virtual instruction, was higher at 6 weeks (adjusted incidence rate ratio, 1.24 [95% CI, 1.00-1.55]) and at 8 weeks after (adjusted incidence rate ratio, 1.31 [95% CI, 1.06-1.62]). This outcome was also concentrated in counties where schools provided full rather than hybrid instructional models. In a cohort study of matched pairs of counties that reopened with in-person vs virtual instruction at the secondary school level in the 2020 to 2021 academic year, counties with in-person school instructional models early in the COVID-19 pandemic experienced increases in county-level COVID-19 incidence at 6 and 8 weeks after in-person reopening, compared with counties with virtual instructional models.

Ventilation Improvements Among K–12 Public School Districts — United States, August–December 2022

Improving ventilation has been one of several COVID-19 prevention strategies implemented by kindergarten through grade 12 (K-12) schools to stay open for safe in-person learning. Because transmission of SARS-CoV-2 occurs through inhalation of infectious viral particles, it is important to reduce the concentration of and exposure time to infectious aerosols (1-3). CDC examined reported ventilation improvement strategies among U.S. K-12 public school districts using telephone survey data collected during August-December 2022. Maintaining continuous airflow through school buildings during active hours was the most frequently reported strategy by school districts (50.7%); 33.9% of school districts reported replacement or upgrade of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems; 28.0% reported installation or use of in-room air cleaners with high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters; and 8.2% reported installation of ultraviolet (UV) germicidal irradiation (UVGI) devices, which use UV light to kill airborne pathogens, including bacteria and viruses. School districts in National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) city locales, the West U.S. Census Bureau region, and those designated by U.S. Census Bureau Small Area Income Poverty Estimates (SAIPE) as high-poverty districts reported the highest percentages of HVAC system upgrades and HEPA-filtered in-room air cleaner use, although 28%-60% of all responses were unknown or missing. Federal funding remains available to school districts to support ventilation improvements. Public health departments can encourage K-12 school officials to use available funding to improve ventilation and help reduce transmission of respiratory diseases in K-12 settings.

Boil water alerts and their impact on the unexcused absence rate in public schools in Jackson, Mississippi

The water crisis in Jackson, Mississippi, has recently made national and international headlines as a major environmental catastrophe, impacting the public health and wellbeing of residents. Here we focus on Jackson’s most prevalent and vulnerable population, its children, by assessing how boil water alerts (BWAs) disrupt student learning. Using data on BWAs collected from the City of Jackson’s Water/Sewer Business Administration Office between 2015 and 2021, daily school attendance data from Jackson’s Public School District and community-level vulnerabilities from the American Community Survey, we add an important layer to the current conversation by analysing how BWAs disrupt student learning. After adjusting for community-level vulnerabilities, we show that each time a BWA is issued, unexcused absence rates statistically significantly increase by 1–10%. We also show statistically significant decreases in unexcused absences in schools where much of the student body receives free and reduced lunches. In a city that releases hundreds of BWAs each year, our findings highlight the urgency for addressing the root causes of the poor water quality in Jackson.

School-Day Physical Activity and Academic Achievement: Mediators Among US Elementary Students

ABSTRACT Introduction/Purpose It is recommended that children get 60 min of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) daily. Previous research on MVPA’s effect on academic achievement (AA) is inconclusive, and few studies have investigated the relationship’s mediators. This study assessed whether cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) and body mass index (BMI) mediate the school-based MVPA–AA relationship. Methods Grade 4 students (n = 4936) were recruited in 40 elementary schools from a large, diverse US public school district. Students wore accelerometers measuring school-day MVPA for 15 d across three semesters. Academic performance data were collected from grades 3 to 5, and CRF and BMI were measured in grades 4 and 5. Multilevel modeling assessed whether BMI and CRF were mediators in the cross-sectional and longitudinal MVPA–AA relationship. Stratified analyses assessed differences in mediation by sex. Results Cross-sectional analyses found that school-day MVPA had a significant positive indirect effect through higher CRF for various teacher-assigned course grades and English language arts standardized test scores (all P < 0.001). Cross-sectional analyses found no significant mediation through BMI. Longitudinal analyses found that a 10-min increase in daily grade 4 school-day MVPA was associated with higher CRF with 0.16-, 0.09-, and 0.14-point increases in grade 5 math, reading, and writing grades, respectively (all P < 0.001). Decreased grade 4 BMI mediated a 0.06-point increase and 0.05-point increase for grade 5 math and writing grades, respectively (both P < 0.001). The total effect of school-day MVPA on AA was negative but negligible in practical terms. Stratified analyses found more evidence for positive indirect effects through CRF among females. Conclusions School-day MVPA can positively impact AA through increased CRF and (to a lesser extent) lowered BMI, but the effect is negligible. The negative total effects and positive indirect effects suggest that there are other unmeasured mediators. It remains important for schools to protect school-based physical activity given its health benefits.

More Is Required of Us: Complicating an Ontology of Experience at the Heart of Community-Based Research

More Is Required of Us: Complicating an Ontology of Experience at the Heart of Community-Based Research

Pay for elite private schools or pay for higher housing prices? Evidence from an exogenous policy shock

This study provides the first direct empirical evidence on whether private school lottery enrollment program affects school district house prices and residential sorting behaviors. Although the new lottery enrollment policy for private schools in China aims to promote equal and affordable education, it also introduces uncertainty. We assessed the policy impact using the panel data of residential housing transactions from the largest real estate agent in Chengdu during 2018–2020 and controlling for grid-level demographic and economic variables from mobile Internet data. We found that the lottery-based private school enrollment uncertainty leads to a substantial rise in the value of the key and elite school district house (SDH) prices. The house price premiums of the key SDH and elite SDH increased by 2.8% and 7.8% in the post-policy period, respectively. We also observed a significant intensification of residential sorting behavior within the elite public school districts afterwards. These results suggest that parents pay higher house prices when access to quality private schools becomes uncertain.

A Web of Punishment: Examining Black Student Interactions With School Police in Los Angeles

The presence of armed police officers in schools has sparked considerable policy debate and demands for reform. Thus far, much of the debate has centered on an empirical analysis of school resource officers rather than school police officers and their impact on particular student populations, especially those burdened by their greater vulnerability to punitive interactions such as detention and arrest. In this article the authors show that an examination of the data reveals that interactions between students and police follow distinct patterns with respect to race and geographic space. The authors use the “sociospatial dialectic” method to explain why certain student populations are most vulnerable to negative interactions with school police within particular spatial settings. Oral history interviews with 120 Black students in a large urban public school district reveal two self-reinforcing pathways: (1) soft coercion, when care and courtesy meet preemptive criminalization to produce punitive policing, and (2) shielding, when referrals to school police officers by school personnel shift blame onto students and invite the use of punitive policing without care. These findings underscore the racialized and contextually specific nature of school policing’s social and spatial processes for Black students in low-income communities.

The distribution of in‐person public K‐12 education in the time ofCOVID: An empirical perspective

AbstractIn response to the COVID‐19 pandemic, most schools across the United States abruptly transitioned to remote, virtual learning in the spring of 2020. For the 2020–2021 school year, however, public school districts' instructional mode decisions (in‐person, hybrid, and remote) varied across districts and throughout the school year. This study focuses on factors that informed school districts' instructional mode decisions and how student access to in‐person instruction, in turn, distributed across districts and students (and their families). Levering the leading nationwide data set gathered by the COVID‐19 School Data Hub (“CSDH”), supplemented by district per‐pupil spending information as well as various state‐level data, this study analyzes the percentage of in‐person instruction for the 2020–2021 school year offered by 11,063 regular public school districts from 42 states. Core findings underscore that school districts with Republican governors and in rural areas provided comparably more in‐person schooling. Conversely, school districts with higher enrollments and higher percentages of underrepresented minority students provided less. Furthermore, COVID‐19‐related death rates and the likelihood of in‐person schooling were positively related. These findings, while mixed, nonetheless raise troubling equal educational opportunity doctrine questions.