Using paraprofessionals to meet the social, self-care, and instructional needs of special education students began in the 1960s. The roles, duties, and expectations for these paraprofessionals evolved over the subsequent fifty years. Special education paraprofessionals play an important role in the education of students with disabilities. Since the inclusion of students with disabilities in nationally mandated assessments, their utilization has increased (Brenton, 2010). The research literature has shown that these paraprofessionals have not received adequate training for, or supervision while, performing their responsibilities and duties. Findings from the literature also highlight that these individuals provide a disproportionate amount of instruction to students with disabilities when compared to certified educators. This study focused on the responsibilities, duties, and professional needs of special education paraprofessionals in kindergarten through sixth grades. Using a concurrent mixed methods design, it utilized a three-part survey and one-time interviews to inform recommendations for expanding data collection and creating a sustainable learning community for the specific sample analyzed during this study. The current study found that many of the responsibilities and duties of this sample of special education paraprofessionals are different from those revealed in previous research. According to their responses, they do not operate independently, and they spend a significant amount of time following the teachers’ lessons plans and working under the teachers’ direct supervision. This sample of professional development needs focused on duties and responsibilities that they would like to learn more about or perform better, including training in behavior management and one-on-one tutoring.
This study focuses on understanding the impact of voice on a student conduct administrator’s role and retention in that role at community colleges. By understanding the development of student services from the Colonial era to present day and providing background information about the different types of approaches utilized to address student conduct violations, this study builds the framework to understand the impact of voice on a student conduct administrator’s role and retention in that role at community colleges. The theoretical frameworks-exit, voice, loyalty, (Hirschman, 1970), use of the ProSocial Voice (Dyne, Ang, & Botero, 2003), and principles of effective retention (Tinto, 1987) provide the foundation for the use of a qualitative narrative approach to answer the research questions (1) what impact does the ability to use voice as a student conduct administrator have on the professional’s remaining in the position? (1a) what, if any, impact does the ability to facilitate change in the institution’s student conduct process influence the professional’s remaining in the position? (1b) what, if any, impact does a student conduct administrator’s ability to advocate for the use of an approach of their choosing to address conduct violations influence his or her remaining in the position? 12 60-90 minute interviews were conducted with current student conduct administrators that work at the community college institution. Chapter 1 informs the reader about the problem, chapter two provides a detailed literature review, chapter 3 outlines the methodology and sample while chapter four provides themes of the study and data analysis. The final chapter, chapter five, discusses the findings, and recommendations for policy, practice and future studies.
The demands of high-stakes testing, tenure reform, and teacher accountability have dominated the landscape of education for almost two decades. The expectations placed on public schools require leadership that supports and motivates teachers to perform at extremely high levels. Public schools therefore must fill their institutions with principals who possess a leadership style that can inspire and empower teachers to tackle these demands and set a clear vision for the future of their schools. Transformational leadership is a model of leadership that has been shown to elevate and motivate followers to perform beyond organizational expectations. The purpose of this study is to examine the common transformational leadership behaviors and methods of application utilized by public school principals. This study uses quantitative and qualitative methods of research separated into two stages. In the first stage, the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire-Self (MLQ) was used to survey 66 public school principals in Monmouth County, New Jersey. The results of the survey were analyzed and used to develop a cohort of 10 principals to participate in the qualitative stage of the study. In this second stage, the cohort of 10 principals participated in face-to-face semi-structured interviews in order for the researcher to further examine their behaviors and methods of application. The data from the MLQ and the interviews revealed that transformational leadership exists in public schools in Monmouth County, New Jersey. The results from this study identified specific behaviors and methods of application that align with the four domains of transformational leadership. This study contributes to the existing research on transformational leadership and also provides current public school principals with information regarding behaviors that can be implemented to enhance their practices. Further research that builds upon the application of transformational leadership and its effect on variables such as school climate, teacher turnover, and student achievement would reveal the influence that transformational leadership has on other aspects of school leadership.
According to the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), 1.6% of Americans identify as gay or lesbian and 0.7% identify as bisexual (Somashekhar, 2014). Applying these statistics to the number of public school teachers in New Jersey indicates that of the more than 114,000 teachers, over 1,800 teachers would identify as gay or lesbian and almost 800 teachers would identify as bisexual (New Jersey Department of Education [NJDOE], 2016). The findings of this study provide insight to the school climate of LGBT teachers and offer guidance to boards of education, administration, and pre-service teacher training programs.
This study used qualitative research methods and was divided into two phases. The first phase of the study consisted of participants completing an online survey. Potential participants were notified of the survey through emails, social media, advertisements, flyers/posters, letters, and in-person requests. The survey was accessible to all current public school teachers in New Jersey. Participants were asked to answer questions pertaining to their school environment based
on homophobic remarks, harassment, school characteristics, and personal characteristics. The results of this survey were used to create a cohort faction of four teachers. Of the four teachers chosen to continue with the study, two scored the lowest on the survey, indicating a high prevalence of homophobic issues in their schools, and two scored the highest on the survey, indicating a low prevalence of homophobic issues in their schools. The second phase of the
study included face-to-face interviews in a semi-structured format. Participants answered open-ended questions. The purpose of the face-to-face interviews was to examine the indicators of school climate as well as the overall school climate for LGBT teachers.
The purpose of this study was to examine the sustained impact of participation in the Tools of the Mind preschool program on language arts, mathematics, reading and writing achievement in middle school, the specific impact of participation on racial subgroups and socioeconomically disadvantaged students, and the effects of student mobility on academic achievement. Using a nonexperimental, quantitative, longitudinal design, the achievement of the original cohort of students who participated in the program was examined over 2 consecutive years. The results of the study suggest that participation in the Tools of the Mind program increases the overall achievement of socioeconomically disadvantaged students and the writing performance of African American students. Analysis of student mobility data revealed that a high rate of student mobility has a negative impact on student achievement. These study results are consistent with decades of research into the impact of participation in a high-quality preschool program. Caution should be taken in interpreting the results because promotion of the development of self-regulation and executive function, aspects that set the Tools of the Mind program apart from other preschool programs, is not measured by the NJASK, and thus the impact of the program may have been underestimated.