Clerical Turnover in the K–12 Campus Office

Clerical staff in the campus office (secretaries and registrars) perform critical functions essential to the operation of schools, yet do not receive research attention regarding their contributions. This study describes turnover rates of K–12 campus clerical employees in order to establish base information in the field. Eight years of employment data within a large suburban school district in Texas are examined to determine the number of clerks moving to different positions and/or leaving campus clerical employment. Findings reveal that the average clerical employee in this district is female, 50 years old, White or Hispanic, has 11 years of experience, changed positions at least once, and earns $15.61 an hour. The demographics of clerical staff more closely resembles student demographics that of than the teachers within the district. Turnover averaged 22% per year, with 16% representing leavers and under 7% representing movers; 25% of clerks left in their first year. Although teacher turnover is more frequent in high-poverty schools and varies based on level of campus, clerical staff turnover is significantly based on the level of position and pay. Results confirm findings from research on paraprofessionals (who have similar levels of pay) that level of pay and perceived lack of support are reasons for leaving. By providing induction activities and additional training, districts can reduce turnover costs of clerical staff despite the added cost of training.

Defining Computational Thinking for a District: Inclusive Computing Pathways in Indian Prairie School District

This district overview highlights the work Indian Prairie School District (IPSD) did over the course of three years to plan, build, and implement computing pathways. IPSD is a suburban school district serving 28,000 students in the Naperville, Aurora, Bolingbrook, and Plainfield communities outside of Chicago. As a member of Digital Promise’s League of Innovative Schools, IPSD applied to participate in the National Science Foundation-funded Developing Inclusive K-12 Computing Pathways for the League of Innovative Schools (CT Pathways) project to focus on developing an Inclusive K-12 Computing Pathway aligning the computing courses available within the district. Specifically, IPSD set an equity goal of focusing on a cluster of 5 Title I elementary schools within the district; IPSD sought to increase computing opportunities within these schools to ensure that computing was not only occurring in specific schools or parts of the district but rather reaching all students in the district.

Leveraging a Handbook for Principal Mentoring: Pathways in a District Context

Mentoring is one important construct to support novice principals in this time of change. This study investigates the impact of a district-developed handbook to support co-constructed mentoring practices and cultivate a learning culture within a suburban school district. The handbook offered a framework of interactive systems and tools for communication and relationship building including guiding questions for deep discussion and analysis of practices and culture, data collection, and webinars. Use of the handbook was perceived to deepen instructional leadership capacity and to foster the colearning of the leaders through shared experiences. An emerging emphasis on professional learning among the participants in the mentoring program was unanticipated. Implications of these findings are offered within a specific district context for cultural shifts and improved student outcomes.

Equalizing Resources vs. Retaining Black Political Power: Paradoxes of an Urban-Suburban School District Merger in Durham, North Carolina, 1958–1996

Two separate school districts—a city one and a county one—operated independently in Durham, North Carolina, until the early 1990s. The two districts merged relatively late compared to other North Carolina cities, such as Raleigh and Charlotte. In Durham, residents in both the county and city systems vehemently opposed the merger until the county commissioners ultimately bypassed a popular vote. African American advocates in the city school district, in particular, faced an impossible trade-off: city schools increasingly struggled financially because of an inequitable funding structure, but a merger would significantly threaten fair racial representation on the consolidated school board. This article explores this core tension in historical context by looking at several failed merger attempts from 1958 to 1988, as well as the 1991 merger implementation, against the backdrop of desegregation, economic transition, profound metropolitan changes, and protracted political battles in Durham.

Ben

This chapter features the Koh family, who lived in a modest home located within an affluent suburban school district. The parents had worked various jobs in the service sector (primarily as owners or workers at a dry cleaner, with the father driving school buses to supplement income) and moved from Chicago city proper to an affluent suburb for better educational opportunity for their two teen boys. The Koh family is notable for the parents’ (especially the mother’s) concern about their older son’s masculinity and racial identity, in light of what the parents felt they experienced as targets of racism in their work lives. She worried that her Asian American son was seen as a “doormat” by his affluent White peers and encouraged his athletic pursuits as a countermeasure. The chapter follows the family’s immigration experience and parenting strategies, which were colored by various racial indignities and injustices, taking note of the fact that this family’s central concerns were not about fostering high academic achievement but about fortifying their sons with social capital to navigate the racialized landscape of their adopted home.

Asserting the Capacity to be Free

In this article, I explore how the social contract of schooling and the three functions of schooling (Noguera 2003)—to sort, to socialize, and to control— impact and constrain the freedom and agency of a group of young Black and Latinx men in one suburban school district that was experiencing sociodemographic shifts in the Northeastern United States. I use qualitative data to frame how the young men experience schooling, and I show how the local community context facilitates the institutionalization of discriminatory sorting processes and racially prejudiced norms. I also show how the young men are excessively controlled and monitored via zero tolerance disciplinary practices, which effectively constrains their humanity and capacity to freely exist in their school and which inadvertently strengthens the connective tissue between schools and prisons.