The Morrison County School District: Issues Involving Employee Misconduct

A school principal has been placed on administrative leave for allegedly having sexual relations on school property after hours with a member of the county sheriff’s department. The principal denies the allegations but, in an effort to get his job back, the deputy confesses to the affair. The school district says that the case is under investigation. The case has also been referred to the State Department of Education for review.

States’ Description of Common Core State Standards to Support Students with Severe Disabilities

A review of State Department of Education and school district websites was conducted to determine how policy related to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) was communicated to teachers of students with severe disabilities. Four states were selected: California, New York, Illinois, and Pennsylvania. State Department of Education websites and three local school districts within each state were chosen for review using locale codes to ensure representation of city, suburban, and rural districts. A total of 16 websites were analyzed using an original instrument designed to capture information about CCSS implementation efforts. Results indicate that there is little information about students with severe disabilities or instructional/pedagogical guidance for teachers in regard to the CCSS on these sites. Thus, it may be difficult for teachers, based on this sample of websites, to translate standards into educational programming for students.

A Case Study of Strategic Leadership and Research in Practice

This chapter was developed to review the strategies of leadership preparation programs from two different institutions, one a Historically Black College/University (HBCU), and the other a Predominately White University (PWI) to explore the experiences of relationship building among the State Department of Education, the state legislature, local education agencies, school principals, graduate candidates, university faculty, two schools of education, and the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) for the purpose of drawing implications for strengthening the training of school leaders. The focus is on a State Department of Education requirement that all seventeen Principal Preparation Programs re-designed their policies and procedures to meet new state standards of best practices adopted from consultation with the SREB. The final project was a designated SREB award (commendation) winning re-designed principal preparation internship program at the HBCU. The four key themes as descriptors of relationships between the two participating institutions: collaboration (subthemes include role definitions and interdependence), communication (subthemes include mentors' dispositions and power imbalance), creativity (subthemes include systems barriers and candidate placement), and critical thinking (subthemes include faculty qualifications and financial burdens). One critical factor that prevails throughout the literature and practical application is that designing and implementing excellent principal preparation/educational administrator programs is an international priority.

Best Practice? Advice Provided to Teachers about the Use of Brain Gym® in Australian Schools

Perceptual motor programs continue to be used in Australian schools despite evidence showing they do not influence academic learning. Brain Gym® is one perceptual motor program that is used in schools in Australia and overseas. There is little evidence to support the claims made about the benefits of Brain Gym® its theoretical underpinning has been subject to criticism by neuroscientists. A search was made of Internet sites, including state department of education sites to locate information provided to teachers about Brain Gym®. Although education departments and others responsible for providing advice and professional development to teachers espouse research-based practice, they continue to endorse and support the use of Brain Gym®.