The dynamics and complexities of building positive relationships with students are impacted when teachers’ attitudes, values, and biases conflict with school culture. Therefore, schools must learn as much about their students and their experiences as possible to create a culture built on relationships. This essay showcases the values, beliefs, and attitudes necessary to promote a nurturing culturally relevant learning environment which impacts student performance.
This welcome video invites viewers to pause, reflect, and reconnect with their purpose as educators. In a field filled with constant challenges and change, it reminds us of the importance of caring for ourselves so we can continue to inspire and uplift others. Through moments of encouragement and reflection, the video celebrates the resilience, passion, and dedication that define education. As we explore the powerful works featured in this journal, may we find renewed energy, insight, and hope—both in our profession and within ourselves. Together, we honor the work we do and the well-being that sustains it.
Youths from high-risk settings are often labeled based on their behavior, which leads to cycles of negative stigmatization and punitive interventions. Traditional behavioristic approaches used in schools, courts, and therapy have shown limited success in fostering long-term positive change. The SPARK mentoring program offers an innovative approach by following the principles from Martin Buber's “I and Thou” philosophy to view the youths with a humanistic and spiritual model. The SPARK program is a 10-week peer-mentorship program that connects youth on probation with college students who aspire to be educators. The SPARK program aims to ignite the spirit of hope, healing, and discovery. Both SPARK youths and mentors emphasized the importance of forming nonjudgmental perspectives, which transformed their perception of the self, others, and the world. This research strongly encourages school, justice, and therapeutic systems to create a non-judgmental environment for youth.
“UNBOUND" is a poetic declaration of rebellion against the societal mold that has long defined girlhood by its politeness, passivity, and prettiness. Drawing from personal reflection and maternal conviction, the poem offers a raw and resonant portrait of a mother raising a daughter to be bold, unfiltered, and unapologetic. Where previous generations were taught to shrink, this daughter is being taught to expand. The piece challenges inherited norms and celebrates a fiery voice that refuses to be quieted. Often performed as the opening to my #GirlDrama mentorship presentation, this poem disrupts comfort in favor of truth. It is both a personal vow and a public call—to mothers, mentors, and girls everywhere—to break cycles of silence and teach our daughters that their power lies not in being “good,” but in being real, relentless, and free.
This article examines the implementation of a holistic, student-centered framework known as TEAM Student at Lee Roy Myers Middle School. Through intentional relationship-building, mentorship, family engagement, and targeted academic support, the school has increased student success and community involvement. The model’s effectiveness is demonstrated through improved behavioral and academic data, enhanced parent-school communication, and a strengthened school culture rooted in empathy and inclusion. This journal article focuses on the Home and Head Strands of NYAR’s goals.
Bullying is one of the most prevalent forms of victimization in schools, affecting nearly one in five students and contributing to academic decline, absenteeism, and mental health concerns. The Bullying Problem Analysis Triangle (B-PAT) provides a schoolwide framework to proactively address bullying by examining three core components: the aggressor, the target, and the opportunity. When one of these elements is disrupted, the bullying dynamic weakens. B-PAT also emphasizes empowering support staff as place managers, protecting targets through effective school climate and education, and redirecting aggressors toward prosocial leadership. Using data, schools can analyze patterns and adapt policies. Through training, strategic supervision, and skill-building, educators can reduce opportunities for bullying, support targets, and reframe aggressive behaviors. This systems-level approach supports a culture of safety for all students.
Lean In Louder aims to do more than showcase; it seeks to empower, educate, and act as a catalyst for scholars, adults, communities, and co-conspirators to enhance and elevate youth voices. The following pages will include foundational and tangible ways to exemplify equity and elevate scholars' voices. This will consist of links to selected resources and exercises/activities to support best-practice youth development engagement around scholars' voices. You can scan the QR Code for regularly updated activities, practices, supports, examples, journal addendums, and scholar and practitioner resources to develop the mindset and practice of "leaning in louder" to elevate scholars' voices.
Introduction: In 2021, leaders in Birmingham, Alabama established one of the first LGBTQ-affirming charter school in the United States to serve students who have dropped out, are not thriving in traditional schools, or are enrolled in home-school programs. Methods: Using deductive analysis, our research team filtered data through the five pre-defined themes of the Youth Thrive Framework: (a) youth resilience, (b) social connections, (c) knowledge of adolescent development, (d) concrete support in times of need, and (e) cognitive and social-emotional competence. Results: Study findings suggest that MCAA’s innovative and adaptive approaches to curriculum, discipline, and student engagement align with the tenets of the Youth Thrive Framework. Conclusion: While the Youth Thrive Framework was originally designed in the context of the foster care system, we believe the five protective and promotive factors that comprise the framework may be applied to other contexts, such as educational settings, to support health promoting behavior.
Bullying continues to be an omnipresent public health issue in school communities, affecting children’s and adolescent’s academic success, socio-emotional well-being, and overall development. Schools play a fundamental role in addressing bullying, yet parent and community involvement is equally critical. This article explores the significance of parent education in bullying prevention and intervention within school communities. The role of schools and community stakeholders with implications for each group are discussed. Resources are provided to share with parents/caregivers and facilitate their involvement in anti-bullying initiatives within school communities. The authors offer recommendations for school communities to promote anti-bullying awareness, facilitate parent education initiatives, and future directions for research.
COVID-19 has permeated news since December 2019 and has impacted all areas of life. Despite widespread coverage of COVID-related risks, there is limited understanding of adolescent resilience in Global South contexts (e.g., Africa) and against the backdrop of COVID-19. We, therefore, conducted a qualitative secondary analysis of 79 documents (i.e., drawings and written explanations) generated by school-attending adolescents in grades eight to ten in Zamdela, South Africa, during 2020 lockdown. Using a multisystemic resilience approach, we explored what these documents revealed as resilience enabling for adolescents in a township context during COVID-19. The thematic findings highlight the importance of personal resources, complemented by relational resources and very occasionally, resources in young people’s physical ecology. These findings reinforce that resilience is more than a set of personal strengths and reminds us that individual capacity for resilience is pertinent when contextual and temporal dynamics such as resource constraints and lockdown conditions prevail.
We know that many factors contribute to the exacerbation of cancer health disparities. These inequities observed in adulthood may have originated from behaviors occurring in early adolescence. We believe that increasing awareness of cancer prevention in youth may help reduce future disparities. Our community partners identified a need for youth-oriented cancer prevention and helped design the pilot Youth Ambassadors Reaching Out (YARO) program. YARO provided cancer prevention and health disparities education and exposure to health careers to 73 middle school students between 2012-2016. YARO included didactic sessions (health disparities, smoking prevention, physical activity, nutrition), a cancer center tour, and Photovoice project. Students were encouraged to serve as ambassadors by sharing lessons learned with others. Participants demonstrated increases in cancer prevention knowledge during the program. Evaluation data revealed that students served as ambassadors by sharing information with others about healthy behaviors, improving their own health habits, and volunteering in their communities.
The Juvenile Justice System was established on the premise of rehabilitative action for behaviors that have led youth to the criminal justice system. However, the system has increasingly moved away from this original concept toward a punitive model. The authors present how this movement resulted in the devolution of human rights for the youth involved, a decrease in public safety, and a radical departure from fiscal responsibility related to the theoretical origins of rehabilitation. Studies on topics ranging from costs of correctional centers to trauma experienced by youth in these systems, along with many others, are compared to identify specific areas for renovation. Evidence-based pathways are presented to address these concerns along with pragmatic strategies for utilization of a constructed theory focused on the relationship between diversionary policies, attrition, and growth through the reinvestment of existing resources.
Utilizing the lens of the “pandemic as portal” (Roy, 2020; Souto-Manning, 2021) and the need for a “hard re-set” (Ladson-Billings, 2021) of our current education system, this literature synthesis engages with head, health, and home to consider what a new normal could look like as we take a “village check-in” of each area. For head, we consider the systemic barriers to equitable academic achievement that have long been in place for Black and Brown students. When considering health, we look at the impact of the pandemic on teacher well-being and how this may impact their ability to teach effectively and equitably. Lastly, in a pulse check of home, we look back at the unequal past, while orienting forward towards opportunities for re-imagining home-school connections as we negotiate what a new normal can look like “post” pandemic(s).
Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are increasingly required within K-12 educational settings, yet the impact of youth’s access to and use of digital resources outside of the classroom on academic achievement is only beginning to be explored in the literature. This study used data from the Fragile Families & Child Wellbeing Study to assess the relationship between grades in high school science and digital equity across the learner’s ecological environment. Digital inequities experienced by school-aged youth are referred to as the homework gap. The COVID-19 pandemic placed new urgency on resolving the homework gap as millions of students shifted to full-time online or learning at home during the pandemic. Study findings show that ICT access and use across ecological domains is a significant predictor of urban youths’ academic achievement in science.
Education, in its many forms, is an institution that mirrors the society around it, including its patterns of privilege and marginalization (Marx, et al., 2017). The purpose of this article is to provide a reflection of my experiences while working alongside four interns from an alternative school hired to work for an agricultural internship. I highlight my shifting perspectives through an autoethnography. Autoethnographic projects use selfhood, subjectivity, and personal experience (“auto”) to describe, interpret, and represent (“graphy”) beliefs, practices, and identities of a group or culture (“ethno”). (Adams and Herrmann 2020). After working with four interns, I was confronted with various privileges. Most notably, I learned to appreciate more on systemic factors that influenced these individuals. I also became more aware of my language use, which perpetuated a deficit model. Finally, I was challenged with my notion of delinquency behavior and community engagement.
