School-wide Policies Research Articles

Behavioral Problems Amidst Initial Face-to-Face Classes: Intervention of Teachers

This study unfolded the feedback of teachers of Talomo District, Davao City on behavioral problems in learning environments. There were ten (10) teachers who participated in the study. This study made use of a phenomenological approach to extract the ideas of the participants. The participants were purposely selected as representatives from the group of teachers in the same division. The virtual in-depth-interview was employed to gather some information as regards to their respective experiences on behavioral issues in learning environments. Using the thematic analysis, the following themes emerged as pertains to the experiences of the participants: cheating, Inappropriate distracting behavior in class and school attendance issues. The coping mechanisms to address the struggles of kindergarten play-based learning were: developing relationship with students, using praise and reward and graduated discipline system. The educational management insights gained from the experiences of the teachers were primarily focused on implementing schoolwide policies and expectations on student behavior. The principals may be more receptive on the current problems and issues of the teachers. The school heads may implement rules and policies that will set the disciplinary tone of the school. The teachers may continuously adapt coping mechanisms to address issues and be vigilant in finding classroom solutions to their problems.

“A Wound That Was Already Festering”: The Burdens of a Racial Justice Program on Teachers of Color

Background: Research that documents the influence of anti-racism programs on teacher practice shows some desired outcomes, including developing critical consciousness to support students of color and educate others about stereotyping; understanding how racial bias affects one’s teaching and relationships with students; and implementing anti-racist approaches in schoolwide policies and practice. At the same time, research on anti-racist professional development (PD) also highlights the challenges of engaging in this work when white teachers, in particular, respond defensively or dismissively. Studies have shown how these responses can reinforce stereotyping behavior among white participants and reinscribe unequal social relationships. Research Questions: This article aims to answer the following questions: (1) How do white educators, if they do at all, display resistance to racial justice work? (2) How does resistance among white educators, if it does so at all, shape the experiences of educators of color? (3) How can schools reduce the potential burden of racial justice work on educators of color? Research Design: This article draws on data from a case study of a New York City elementary school that participated in a yearlong racial justice program. Data sources include semi-structured interviews with school and program leaders; focus groups with members of the racial equity committee and other teachers; observations of professional development sessions, racial equity committee meetings, and other program activities; and artifacts related to the implementation of the program to deepen our understanding of the program’s implementation and responses from multiple stakeholders. Recommendations: Grounded in critical race theory (CRT), the findings from this study paint a complex picture of the behaviors that white teachers may employ that derail racial justice work, the emotional and professional burden of that resistance on educators of color, and promising approaches for confronting resistance in order to advance racial equity. Beyond identifying the potential costs of engaging in racial justice work, our findings also offer schools and educators promising approaches for challenging white resistance while not perpetuating racial harm. We propose an implementation model that intentionally shields educators of color from the remonstrations of white resistors and the additional toll they can take on their time and well-being. Moreover, given what we know about the outsized role school leaders play in shaping school environments and professional cultures, it is essential that school leaders show commitment to organizational transformation, while developing the skills required to confront varying degrees of white resistance.

Schools as promoters of active lifestyles: A review

Living an active lifestyle is one way to living a healthier life. The purpose of this review was to analyse empirical studies that show how schools can effectively promote active lifestyles for their students. Using online databases, a total of 15 empirical studies were found, all published from 2012 to 2022. The findings of this review highlight effective practices for active lifestyle promotion such as school-wide policies, interventions, encouraging participation in extracurricular sports, and increasing physical education time. This review also provides insight into some current issues that are present and how promoting active lifestyles in New Zealand schools can help address these.

The effect of teacher influence relative to principal influence in school decision-making on teacher job attitudes

ABSTRACT Although research has highlighted the importance of teachers’ influence on school-wide policies, less attention has been given to the role of the influence of teachers relative to the principal within a school. This study thus examined the extent to which the influence of teachers relative to the principal in school decision-making predicts teachers’ job attitudes, i.e. job satisfaction and professional commitment. By using the National Teacher and Principal Survey 2015–2016, nationally representative data from 19,450 teachers and 2,860 principals of public schools in the United States were analysed. The findings revealed the greater the relative influence of teachers, the more positive the association with teacher job satisfaction and professional commitment as job attitudes. The current study showed that the extent of teacher influence relative to that of the principal plays a critical role in social conditions within a school and can improve individual teachers’ job attitudes regarding school decision-making.

“Free License to Communicate”: Licensing Black Language against White Supremacist Language Assessments in a PreK Classroom

The policing of Black Language is inextricably tied to the policing of Black people and is entrenched in a long history of white Western European colonization. The legacies of white supremacy pervade schooling in its earliest years, yet Black teachers have consistently mounted a counterforce in battling white hegemony. In this article, I feature one such teacher, Raniya, who licensed Black Language in her preK classroom. Based on three months of classroom observations and interviews, this ethnographic case study explores the institutional architecture that affords white supremacist language assessments, particularly through an epistemology of language as an abstracted entity and through its process of curricularization. A raciolinguistic perspective illuminated how the white teachers at Raniya’s school insisted on broadly dehumanizing students of color through a schoolwide policy based on white monolingual standards. Drawing on notion of “vernacular insurrections,” I juxtapose white teachers’ raciolinguistic ideologies with Raniya’s practices. She claimed her classroom as a critical vernacular site through her approach of student language as a practice, and by subverting the normalcy of white hegemony within the schoolwide assessment process. This article calls for a shift in thinking about skills-based, decontextualized approaches as inherently white supremacist, and excavates how such a language approach supports white supremacy to thrive. I discuss the significance of centering the fight against white supremacy in our analysis of literary practices, which elucidates the potency of even small amounts of white dominance in institutional mechanisms as detrimental for Black students. As a field, the stagnation of Black student equity and commitment to white hegemony by white educators and administrators across preK through higher education persists. Though some white educators diverge from hegemonic practices, we must consider who benefits and what is sustained when exceptions are used to overlook and not interrogate the norm. This work contributes to the mounting rationales for racial diversification in the teacher workforce.

A glocalized bilingual policy implementation in a junior high school in Taiwan

ABSTRACT Bilingual education is burgeoning in Asia, and most bilingual practices are impacted by national language policies. However, top-down policy implementation and bottom-up practices may spark mismatches, constraints, or possibilities. Taiwan was selected as a research context to investigate the perceptions of administrators and teachers (including subject teachers and both native and non-native teachers of English) at a junior high school. Building on Ricento and Hornberger’s language policy and planning framework proposed in 1996, this paper examines to what extent the school implemented these policies and discusses the interplay between the administrators’ and teachers’ policy implementation and the underlying forces that fuel policy implementation. The data revealed a three-dimensional model of schoolwide policy implementation (i.e. the individual, team, and organisation levels) that impacted and synergised one another. The synergy and pedagogical innovation of the professional learning community are crucial to a school’s reform. The authors conclude with implications for policy and practice.

Examining the protective effects of social capital and social support on the perpetration of violence among a national sample of adolescents

IntroductionMillions of children witness violence and are victims of violence each year. Previous research suggests that this is a risk factor for perpetrating violence. There is a paucity of studies...

A Literature Review on the State of High School Sex Education Implemented by School Nurses

Objective: In recent years, increases in sexually transmitted infections, cervical cancer caused by HPV, and abortions due to unwanted pregnancy among those in their 20s have become serious issues that threaten fertility. This study aims to identify issues in need of attention and the difficulties experienced by school nurses in teaching sex education in high schools preemptively before these students become sexually active in order to promote responsible sexual behaviors for the prevention of STIs. Method: ICHUSHI Web Ver. 5 and CiNii were queried for literature published between 2000 and May 2022. Search terms were “yōgokyōyu” [school nurses], “seikyōiku” [sex education], “seikansenshō” [sexually transmitted infections/diseases], and “kōkōsei” [high school students]. In addition, we limited the search to Japanese literature only, due to differences in cultural background and the roles of school nurses. Results & Observations: Sex education is taught by multiple faculty members and implemented into multiple subjects such as health & physical education and home economics. There are differences in the content taught by school nurses and other faculty. As specialists in health and hygienics, school nurses demonstrate high awareness and positive attitudes toward sex education. Additionally, while they play a central role in sex education, they face difficulties due to having no position in school health plans, differences in awareness among faculty, busy schedules, difficulty securing time, and failure to coordinate with other faculty. It is necessary to consider school-wide policies that systematize sex education as a continuous subject. Furthermore, while they have many opportunities to undertake consulting duties on sexuality, there is uncertainty among school nurses on their ability to meet student needs. Therefore, the development of teaching materials and opportunities for school nurses to improve their teaching skills is absolutely essential.

Hallways to Health: School Health Beyond School-Based Health Center Walls

Objective: In this paper, we describe the implementation and outcomes of an initiative that engaged school-based health centers (SBHCs) in a learning community to create programmatic and policy school health changes beyond the health center walls. Methods: Sixty respondents completed impact surveys and 13 coalitions completed progress reports to document schoolwide wellness efforts and outcomes in stakeholder engagement, student healthy eating and active living, student social and emotional wellness, and school staff wellness. Results: Respondents reported pre- to post-intervention improvements in stakeholder engagement, including school administration promotion of school health policies (from 64% to 95%), and teacher participation in SBHC sponsored activities (from 63% to 98%). They reported schoolwide policy and programmatic achievements including increased opportunities for physical activity for students during school hours (from 55% to 85%), access to behavioral health counseling and support services to all students, either on-site or through referrals (from 62% to 89%), and offering healthy food or nutrition education to staff (from 10% to 73%). Conclusions: SBHC staff, school employees, and community members can work collaboratively to assess student physical and mental health needs, and develop and implement school policies and programs beyond the clinic walls.

“Raw Intelligence Does Not Help You”: Exploring Teachers’ Conceptualizations of Success at One “No-Excuses” Charter School

This paper explores the ways in which success in school is constructed by a majority White teaching staff during day-to-day classroom practices and schoolwide policies, such as the disciplinary systems at a “no-excuses” charter school in one of the largest urban districts in the U.S. Stakeholders were assessed by interviews and observations during a year-long situated ethnography with an analysis of teachers’ dispositions and actions. As “no-excuses” public charters are proliferated across the country due to purported students’ success, it is important to understand how success in school is conceptualized and measured by teachers.

Solving School's Survey Request Overload.

Limited information is available on strategies for managing the large number of survey requests that reach an individual nursing school. This article addresses problems identified in managing survey requests and describes the implementation and evaluation of a solution. Identified problems included the appearance of endorsing studies of varying quality and rigor, overlap and competition between external study requests and internal studies, respondent burden, and level of anonymity and confidentiality. The solution included a school-wide policy for tracking and vetting study requests before they were distributed. Evaluation data show the number of requests received (total, by month and source, by target population), their disposition (withdrawn, approved, not approved for distribution), and quality improvement data on meeting a 30-day target turnaround time. Additional considerations are also discussed.

Characteristics of a secondary school with improved NAPLAN results

According to international studies of achievement in mathematics amongst Australian secondary school students, results have declined over time when compared with other countries. The National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) is an Australian government initiative to measure whether students have the knowledge, understanding, skills and values required for a productive and rewarding life. This paper presents a case study of a school with improved NAPLAN numeracy results to provide insights into factors that influenced student performance. The findings are structured according to themes evident in the data. The discussion explores these themes in relation to Hattie’s areas of influence on success in students’ learning: the school, the student, the home, the curriculum, the teacher, and the approaches to teaching. Through the analysis of data collected from a variety of stakeholders in the school, this case study highlights the importance of school-wide policies towards learning mathematics and adopting effective approaches to teaching it. These insights have implications for teachers, school leaders and systems who are working towards improving numeracy results.

Influence of Physical Activity on Elementary School Children: Challenges and Practice

Influence of Physical Activity on Elementary School Children: Challenges and Practice

Meeting the discipline challenge: Capacity-building youth-adult leadership

Because misbehavior in schools is often instigated by a confluence of organizational features, the purpose of this research was to understand what Youth Court reveals about the causes of in-school conflicts and to what extent its processes help to address them. This multi-site qualitative case study collected data in the form of observations, documents, semi-structured and focus group interviews in order to explore Youth Court processes and outcomes. Double-loop learning was used to describe the extent and quality of dialogue and interventions. The research questions were: Does Youth Court facilitate double-loop learning? What contributing variables influencing student misbehavior does this discourse reveal? What is the impact of this discourse on school policies and practices? Youth Court surfaces vital information about students, teachers, classrooms, and school-wide policy necessary to inform the development or adaptation of discipline policies and practices; in some cases, that information became a catalyst for changes in classroom and school-wide policies and practices. Youth Court helped to address individual instances of misbehavior with interventions that were restorative rather than punitive. And yet, the greater benefits of Youth Court, namely improvements to a school’s culture and climate, were not necessarily fully realized because Youth Court activity and other school processes and structures are not formally linked. Further research using linkage theory would help to unpack why successes in Youth Court did and did not spread to other areas of school.

Guidance for Return to Learn After a Concussion.

Returning to school following a diagnosed concussion presents challenges to the school nurse, especially when the student's health care provider does not provide guidance. While the student may appear "normal," their brain has been injured and needs time to heal. This article presents specific suggestions that may be helpful as the school nurse promotes schoolwide policy changes and develops an individualized plan for the student's "return to learn." Successful return to the role of student with a significant decrease in symptoms must precede any plans for a return to sports activity.

Teaching the arts as a second language: A school-wide policy approach to arts integration

ABSTRACTThe arts can be used to teach, not just as activities that enhance learning, but also as the primary medium through which students process, acquire, and represent knowledge. This means the arts can function as a language. If we accept this metaphor, and we truly want students to be fluent in the artistic languages, then the arts can be taught in the same constructive, sequential way language is taught, where the rules of the system are explicitly learned and fluency is acquired through regular application within a meaningful context. This article provides a framework for the implementation of effective arts integration in line with second language learning: Arts as a Second Language. In doing so, it addresses two common problems in arts education: when arts integration is disconnected from artistic development, and when discipline-based arts education is disconnected from other learning. Nine principles for teaching with an Arts as a Second Language policy are proposed. Ultimately, it is a call for pedagogical reform that enables equitable access for all students to learn in, about, and through the arts with school-wide policy that scaffolds artistic learning across the grades, embedded in meaningful contexts.

School leadership along the trajectory from monolingual to multilingual

ABSTRACTThis article explores the critical role of school leaders in language policy change, and specifically in shifting their language education policies and practices from monolingual to multilingual. We examine the process of language policy change in three schools that were involved in a project aimed at increasing the knowledge base of school leaders about bilingualism and language learning, and which required that participating schools use bilingualism as a resource in instruction and cultivate a school-wide ecology of multilingualism. The project encouraged translanguaging pedagogical strategies that engage the entire linguistic repertoire of emergent bilinguals flexibly. Our findings demonstrate that the school leaders made significant language policy changes that included structural changes in programming and pedagogy as well as ideological changes in adopting more favorable approaches towards emergent bilinguals and their languages. A significant finding to emerge is that shifts within schools were associated with changes in school leadership structures from hierarchical to collaborative, wherein principals widened school leadership to be shared among multiple official and unofficial leaders. This paper contributes to the field of language policy by providing a portrait of how school-wide policies favoring multilingualism influence leadership ideology and structures.

A prevention program for multiple health-compromising behaviors in adolescence: Baseline results from a cluster randomized controlled trial

ObjectiveTo describe the design and present the baseline findings of the evaluation study of ‘Paesaggi di Prevenzione’, a school-based prevention program tackling smoking, alcohol misuse, dietary risks, and physical inactivity in 12- to 14-year-olds. MethodsThe program was implemented from January 2011 to April 2012 in Emilia-Romagna, Italy, and comprised classroom activities and school-wide policies. A two-arm cluster randomized controlled trial was designed. Schools were the units of randomization and were matched by socioeconomic status, size, and type. ResultsData from 4700 middle school students and 2952 high school students were collected anonymously from October to December 2010. Past-30-day smoking prevalence was 1.9% among middle school students and 20.8% among high school students. Past-30-day prevalence of alcohol intoxication was 2.2% among middle school students and 11.4% among high school students. A total of 39.7% of middle school students and 48.0% of high school students drank sugar-sweetened beverages four or more times per week; 7.5% of middle school students and 7.1% of high school students had intense physical activity every day. ConclusionsThis study seems adequately powered and baseline variables appear evenly distributed between study groups. Findings are in line with those of the WHO Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children study.

Teachers' and Education Support Professionals' Perspectives on Bullying and Prevention: Findings From a National Education Association Study

.Given growing concerns regarding the prevalence and seriousness of bullying, the National Education Association recently drew upon its membership to launch a national study of teachers' and education support professionals' perceptions of bullying, and need for additional training on bullying prevention efforts and school-wide policies. The data were collected from a representative sample of 5,064 National Education Association members (2,163 teachers and 2,901 education support professionals). Analyses indicated that compared to education support professionals, teachers were more likely to witness students being bullied, more likely to view bullying as a significant problem at their school, and were more likely to have students report bullying to them. Teachers were more likely to be involved in bullying policies at their school, yet both groups reported wanting more training related to cyberbullying and bullying related to students' sexual orientation, gender issues, and racial issues. Implications for school psychologists and the development of school-wide bullying prevention efforts are discussed.

The importance of classroom management in early language immersion

This study examined the challenges and successes related to classroom management in a new French Immersion Elementary School (FIES). Framed by language immersion research and theories of culturally responsive classroom management (Weinstein, Curran, & Tomlinson-Clark, 2003), the study focuses on teachers’ decision-making processes in a one-way immersion setting. Using a case-study approach on one kindergarten classroom, qualitative data over one year included field notes from participant observation; transcripts of interviews and focus groups with teachers and administrators; classroom artifacts; and videotapes of classroom sessions. Results showed that classroom management was strongly shaped by several factors: the political context, lack of school-wide curricula and policies, built environment, and teachers’ prior experiences. The discussion examines how language educators and researchers must look beyond teachers’ beliefs and students’ cultures when devising solutions to social and behavioral challenges. Recommendations for new language immersion schools that deal with behavior management challenges are made.