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In August 2017, the Houston area was ravaged by one of the costliest natural disasters in history--Hurricane Harvey. In this brief, the first in a two-part series, the authors examine the effects of Harvey on student homelessness in the Houston Independent School District (Houston ISD). The authors find that student homelessness in Houston ISD quadrupled due to Harvey, and most students experiencing homelessness lived, at least temporarily, in unsheltered contexts, such as sleeping in a car or on the street. Unlike other high-profile storms such as Hurricane Katrina, students who became homeless due to Harvey tended to be broadly representative of the district in terms of their demographic characteristics. However, they differed systematically from students who experienced homelessness for conventional, economic reasons such as job loss and medical debt, who were particularly likely to be Black. The authors conclude with implications of these findings for educational stakeholders in preparation for both generational and "everyday" homelessness crises.

Tempe PRE was designed as a high-quality preschool program to create more opportunity for children in Tempe. In the 2021-2022 school year, NORC at the University of Chicago conducted an evaluation of Tempe PRE to understand how the program was being implemented and its effects on children and families. They also collected students' outcome data the following year once they entered kindergarten to measure impacts on achievement compared to a control group. This evaluation documented the successful early installation of a high-quality preschool program that was designed to provide novel access to children from low-income households who would not otherwise have had such an opportunity in their community. Through close collaboration among multiple local government and philanthropic partners, and with a strong, common commitment to quality, the Tempe PRE program was structured and implemented with key components hypothesized to produce positive child outcomes.

This chartbook is the 14th version to be produced for the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) by the Population Reference Bureau (PRB). The Chartbook describes the diversity of the Appalachian Region on a host of demographic and economic measures and provides an important annual view of the area and its people. The data contained in the 2018-2022 Chartbook describe how residents in the Appalachian Region were faring before and during the COVID-19 pandemic that began in March 2020. Nearly half of the years during this time period were pre-pandemic and half were during the pandemic era. Thus, this Chartbook is a blend of these two eras. As future data releases reflect the post-pandemic era, data users will have additional insights on the long-term changes that the pandemic brought to Appalachia's social and economic dynamics. Most of the data shown here come from the 2018-2022 American Community Survey (ACS), a nationwide study collected continuously every year in every county in the United States by the U.S. Census Bureau. The ACS is designed to provide communities with reliable and timely demographic, social, economic, and housing data each year. To provide as much county-level data as possible, we use ACS 5-year data files which provide reliable estimates for geographic areas with fewer than 20,000 people. Since many counties in the Appalachian Region have fewer than 20,000 residents, these data permit comparable statistics for all 423 counties in the Region. The primary purpose of the ACS is to measure the changing characteristics of the U.S. population in a way that is continually updated. The estimates in this Chartbook, therefore, are data collected over the five-year (or 60-month) period from January 2018 through December 2022. These ACS estimates are not averages of monthly or annual values, but rather an aggregation of data collected continuously over that time period.

Many college students experience basic needs insecurity, which includes a lack of--or fear of the lack of--access to healthy food, stable housing, reliable transportation, affordable child care, physical and mental health care services, the internet and technology, and other necessities students need to survive and thrive in a postsecondary academic setting. This evaluation report focuses on measuring the extent to which students used basic needs services at select institutions supported by Basic Needs Initiative (BNI) grantees in the 2020-21 and 2021-22 academic years and the impact of using services on students' short-term academic outcomes, including enrollment intensity (credits attempted), credits earned, grade point average, and fall to winter/spring retention. Education Northwest partnered with four BNI grantees on this report--Arkansas Community Colleges, Auburn University's Hunger Solutions Institute, John Burton Advocates for Youth, and United Way of King County--to access student-level data on the use of basic needs services, student demographics, and academic outcomes from 20 postsecondary institutions in Arkansas, Alabama, California, and Washington. This report has three key findings with implications for practice: (1) Collecting data on students' use of basic needs services and linking it to student demographic and outcome data was a new activity for many of the institutions included in this report, and the basic needs services data had several limitations; (2) Very few students in our sample used basic needs services, suggesting a large gap between students' reported needs and their access to services; and (3) Access to basic needs services had a positive impact on the number of credits students attempted and earned was positively related with retention.

School district boundaries define more than just the area where a certain group of children attends a given set of schools. They also determine the taxing jurisdiction that supports those schools with local property taxes. Big differences in property value can lead to large funding gaps, even between neighboring districts. These disparities in property values are the legacy of discriminatory housing policies explicitly intended to segregate neighborhoods by race and class. The school district lines drawn onto this divided landscape then replicate segregation and inequity in schools. But our current district borders need not be permanent. They can be redrawn to produce better outcomes for students and their schools. In a new research report, New America's Education Funding Equity Initiative analyzes nearly 25,000 pairs of adjacent school districts to measure how district borders create deep economic and racial divisions, producing radically different educational resources and experiences for students in different districts--even districts that are right next door to each other. It also features stories about these disparities told by local educators and families. An accompanying multimedia story shows what these divides mean for American school districts and communities, and an interactive national map and data tool allows users to explore American school districts and the borders that surround them.

This is the executive summary for the full report, "Crossing the Line: Segregation and Resource Inequality between America's School Districts." School funding debates in the United States tend to center on how much money school districts should receive, and through what policies and formulas. But they almost never focus on the district map, even though district borders do a great deal to determine the funding of each school system. School district boundaries don't just define the area where a certain group of children attends a given set of schools. They also determine the taxing jurisdiction that supports those schools with local property taxes. Big differences in property value can lead to large funding gaps, even between neighboring districts. This report looks at neighboring school systems and the borders that separate them. It examined 24,658 pairs of adjacent districts and measured the divides between them in two ways. First, to measure economic segregation between neighboring districts, it compared their poverty rates among school-aged children, and identified the 100 borders that mark the greatest differences in poverty rates. Second, it looked at the differences in racial composition between adjacent districts by comparing their percentages of enrolled students of color, and identified the 100 borders that create the greatest differences by this measure.

In the largest U.S. metropolitan areas, suburban school districts enroll 14.4 million students, far more than the 6 million students enrolled in the same metros' urban districts. In fact, students enrolled in the suburban school districts surrounding the 25 largest metropolitan areas represent roughly 30% of the nation's entire public school enrollment. Suburban growth has occurred alongside the creation of a segregated, metropolitan society through policy, law and practice. Discriminatory loan practices, federal highway construction, site selection for subsidized housing and exclusionary zoning are examples of how racial discrimination permeated to origins suburban society. State and federal governments are dominated politically by those representing suburban constituents too often eager to maintain an exclusionary status quo. As shifting populations change suburban school enrollment, education policy trends formerly confined to urban districts have spread to suburban ones. Many suburban school districts have experienced growth in the charter school sector, as well as a rash of school closures. Suburban schools and districts reflect broader societal problems, paradigms, and possibilities. This paper draws on federal enrollment data from the nation's largest 25 metros from 2011-2020 to descriptively analyze suburban school enrollment and segregation at the school district-level, seeking to understand different district contexts and their relationship to student segregation.

Housing, land use, and zoning policies are often siloed in such a way that they are considered and addressed separately from school segregation and students' opportunities to learn. But these policy areas can interact in powerful ways. This policy brief attempts to break down those siloes. Drawing on multiple bodies of literature, it explores what we know about the potential of housing and land use policy reform to address school segregation--and why doing so matters. The research reviewed here illuminates the close historical and legal relationship between school and housing segregation and the clear links between land use policy and school and housing segregation. Studies also show that where land use or housing reforms have enabled greater access to less segregated schools, historically marginalized students' outcomes have improved. The brief concludes with recommendations for policymakers to offer pathways to diverse, well-resourced schools for historically marginalized families, along with oversight and enforcement that considers school-housing interrelationships.

The 35th edition of the Annie E. Casey Foundation's "KIDS COUNT"® Data Book examines the unprecedented declines in student math and reading proficiency brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic's effect on education. The latest data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress reveals that between 2019 and 2022, fourth-grade reading and eighth-grade math scores plummeted, representing decades of lost progress. This alarming trend underscores the urgent need for action to address the growing academic disparities among U.S. students. Today's students, who will comprise America's future workforce, are ill-prepared for the high-level reading, math and problem-solving skills required in a competitive global economy. The failure to adequately prepare our children will have dire consequences for their futures and for the economic vitality of our nation. [For "KIDS COUNT Data Book, 2023: State Trends in Child Well-Being," see ED629264.]

The "Annual Disability Statistics Compendium," is a summary of statistics about people with disabilities and about the government programs which serve them. The Compendium, presents key overall statistics on topics including the prevalence of disability, employment among persons with disabilities, rates of participation in disability income and social insurance programs, and other statistics. It is a compilation of data from multiple sources, such as the Social Security Administration, Veterans Benefits Administration, and frequently, the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey, among others. A companion "Annual Report" is available, providing graphic representations of key findings.

Discussions about college affordability often revolve around helping students pay their tuition and fees. But nontuition expenses, including food, housing, and other living expenses, make up a large portion of student budgets and contribute to increased student debt. These expenses can be a barrier to student enrollment and completion. Lack of information about the true full cost of attendance, stringent requirements to qualify for income support benefits, and limited grant aid make it hard for many students to access enough resources to cover their basic needs. In this report, we summarize our findings emerging from research and a convening we hosted on nontuition expenses. Currently, there is no standardized way to measure cost of attendance at institutions, making it difficult for students to compare nontuition costs across schools. Providing students personalized information about what their food, housing, and other living expenses may look like allows them to plan for the school year but is distinct from practical solutions for measuring student need for financial aid purposes. Doubling the Pell grant is a common suggestion when discussing the cost of education, and incorporating some level of basic living expenses, in addition to the costs of books and supplies, into estimates of adequate grant aid would be constructive. But increasing the Pell grant is insufficient, as using it explicitly to cover living expenses could lack political support and may lead to unintended consequences, such as tuition increases. Based on these findings, state and federal policymakers can do more to support students who cannot afford nontuition expenses through changes to federal, state, and institution-level policies. Both enabling students to have access to income support benefits and more generous grant aid are central to policy efforts for addressing financial barriers to student access and success. Increases in need-based financial aid from federal and state governments, as well as institutions, are important. But we should not view low-income students as entirely distinct from other low-income adults, and education policy alone cannot be responsible for meeting students' basic needs.

Basic needs insecurity -- including housing and food insecurity, as well as lack of access to healthcare, childcare, transportation, and other basic needs -- is a critical barrier that can undermine persistence and completion rates for postsecondary students. The gaps in covering critical costs such as housing and food are pervasive among students in both two-year and four-year institutions, and they disproportionately impact certain groups of students. The Supporting Students Experiencing Homelessness (SSEH) pilot program was launched in fiscal year 2019-20 to address basic needs insecurity among postsecondary students experiencing homelessness and those who were former foster youth. This first legislative report for the program was developed collaboratively. It provides state-level, cross-sector information about the students supported by SSEH, strategies employed by the institutions to serve them, institutional infrastructure changes made to strengthen access to the program, and participating institutions' collective reflections and recommendations. The aim is to provide important state-level insights across all institutions while highlighting some distinctions that may be unique between community and technical colleges and public baccalaureate institutions.

Magnet schools employ a variety of methods in order to enroll a diverse student body, such as targeted outreach, free and accessible transportation, encouraging choice across school districts, intentional school siting, and employing equitable lottery-based admissions policies. Many magnets also offer innovative programs around an attractive and relevant theme, like experiential learning, STEM, or fine arts. The U.S. Department of Education's 2024 Notice Inviting Applications for the Magnet Schools Assistance Program (MSAP) includes a new Competitive Preference Priority 5 (CPP5) that relates to Promoting Equity in Student Access to Educational Resources and Opportunities. CPP5 encourages applicants to "examin[e]…sources of inequity and inadequacy and implement responses" that help address these inequities. Importantly, CPP5 acknowledges the relationship between community segregation and school segregation, and encourages applicants to propose projects designed to tackle this longstanding challenge. Applicants are encouraged to propose projects designed to "increas[e] student racial or socioeconomic diversity, through developing or implementing evidencebased policies or strategies," specifically focused on: (1) interdistrict coordination; (2) cross-agency collaboration, such as with housing or transportation authorities; and/or (3) improvements to school assignment or admissions policies. This fact sheet provides ideas and related resources for applicants seeking to respond to CPP5's call for "cross-agency collaboration, such as with housing or transportation authorities."

In the 2021-22 school year, public schools identified roughly 1.2 million students experiencing homelessness, according to recent U.S. Department of Education data (NCHE, 2023). The high mobility that may occur because of homelessness creates challenges that impact students academically. Addressing these challenges requires cross-sector collaboration with the homelessness response system to provide stable housing for students and their families. This brief provides State Coordinators for Homeless Education, local homeless education liaisons, and staff of homeless assistance programs, as well as members of Continuums of Care, an overview of the statutory requirements that establish a framework for collaboration between the education and homelessness response systems to support the academic and non-academic needs of students experiencing homelessness. The brief also provides best practices on collaboration between schools and homeless service providers, including an example in practice spotlighting cross-sector collaboration in Central Florida.

In spring 2023, The Research and Planning Group for California Community Colleges (The RP Group) partnered with the CEO Affordability, Food & Housing Access Taskforce of the Community College League of California (CCLC) to assist in survey data collection efforts and provide updated data trends regarding California Community College (CCC) students' food and housing security. Over 66,000 students from 88 California Community Colleges responded to the survey, revealing that two out of every three CCC students grapple with at least one basic needs insecurity. Nearly half of CCC students are food insecure, almost 3 out of 5 are housing insecure, and about 1 in 4 are homeless. The first section of the report describes the overall rates of basic needs insecurity across all survey respondents, as well as variations in these rates across colleges and regions. The report's second section further describes rates of basic needs insecurity by specific groups of students. The third section details associations between students' work and academic experiences and their basic needs insecurity. Finally, the fourth section reports the utilization of public assistance by students who need support. [Katie Brohawn, Tammeil Gilkerson, and Alyssa Nguyen contributed to this report.]

The Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) is a federal advisory committee that advises the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) on issues related to autism spectrum disorder (ASD). It was established by the "Children's Health Act of 2000" (Public Law 106-310), reconstituted under the Combating Autism Act of 2006 (CAA; Public Law 109-416), and was most recently renewed under the "Autism Collaboration, Accountability, Research, Education, and Support (CARES) Act of 2019" (Public Law 116-60). One of the statutory responsibilities of the IACC under the CAA and subsequent authorizations is the development of a strategic plan for autism, to be updated annually. The "Autism CARES Act of 2019" requires that the strategic plan address the "conduct of, and support for, autism spectrum disorder research, including as practicable for services and supports." With each update of its "Strategic Plan," the IACC re-evaluates the needs of the autism community and the best ways to achieve progress. The "2021-2023 IACC Strategic Plan for Autism Research, Services, and Policy" summarizes current understanding of autism-relevant topics and addresses current gaps and opportunities in autism research, services and supports, and policy. As in previous years, the "IACC Strategic Plan" is organized around seven general topic areas that are represented in the Plan as community-focused Questions. Each question is assigned a chapter in the "Strategic Plan" that provides an Aspirational Goal, or long-term vision for the question; a description of the state of the field; the needs and opportunities in research, services, and policy; and three broad Objectives. In this edition of the "IACC Strategic Plan," the Objectives from the "2016-2017 IACC Strategic Plan" have been updated and renamed as "Recommendations." The 24 total updated Recommendations in this "Strategic Plan," including the new equity Recommendation and the Budget Recommendation, address critical gaps and potential opportunities for advancement that were identified by the IACC. The IACC's goal during the development of this "Plan" is to present a collective voice detailing the current status and future goals of autism research, services, and policy. [For the "Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee Strategic Plan for Autism Spectrum Disorder, 2018-2019 Update," see ED608308.]

In 2022, the Center for the Study of Social Policy and Project SPARC conducted research to better understand the barriers experienced by parenting students participating in CalWORKs, California's cash assistance program for families with children. This brief highlights findings from the research on parenting students' experiences with housing.

Earning a college degree has long been critical to unlocking many high-paying jobs -- and, as a result, to economic mobility and security. Increasingly, however, the traditional "norm" of a college student--one who enrolls straight out of high school, receives some support from their parents, lives on campus, and does not have substantial work or family responsibilities outside of school--does not fit the reality of much of the student population. Today, students who are themselves parents make up a significant percentage of those enrolled in college. While promoting student-parent success has mainly been left to institutions of higher education, several states have considered or adopted a range of policy initiatives to support student parents in postsecondary education. This paper provides state policy stakeholders, including governors, state agencies, and advocates, with a snapshot of the multitude of issues faced by student parents and with options to utilize state policy to address these issues.

School desegregation and equitable access to educational opportunity takes alignment in the housing and education sectors. Racist housing policies and practices have systematically limited access to opportunity for generations of people of color, profoundly affecting their wealth, and perpetuating racial disparities in opportunity and well-being for children. Contemporary school enrollment patterns of students of different races reflect the legacy of state-sanctioned segregation and decades of exclusionary practices in housing and education. This report lays out a through line between housing policies and practices, inequitable school resources, and inequitable educational outcomes. It discusses racist policies that drive residential racial segregation and how limited residential opportunities have manifested for students through school segregation and education inequity. Next, it shares solutions from communities across the country to address segregation across both sectors, including housing mobility for students in segregated communities and schools, housing supports for students who want to stay in gentrifying neighborhoods, and inclusionary zoning policies that encourage affordable housing construction near higher-performing schools. Finally, it presents guidance and resources that practitioners can use to improve equity in their own communities. These include steps communities can take to assess current conditions, identify partners, establish shared outcomes, implement solutions, and influence policies in both sectors. [This report was written with Alexa Kort and James Carter.]

"The Appalachian Region: A Data Overview from the 2017-2021 American Community Survey," also known as "The Chartbook," draws from the most recent American Community Survey and comparable Census Population Estimates. The report contains over 300,000 data points about Appalachia's economy, income, employment, education, and other important indicators--all presented at regional, subregional, state, and county levels. Though that data was collected before, and during the initial ten months of, the COVID-19 pandemic, they provide a critical benchmark for comparison when more pandemic and post-pandemic information becomes available. [For the 2016-2020 Chartbook, see ED625962.]

In 2019, more than 5 million providers cared for one or more children either in their own home or in a child's home. Home-based child care (HBCC) providers are a varied group that includes listed providers and unlisted providers who do and do not receive payment. HBCC is especially prevalent in communities of color, communities with high concentrations of people from immigrant backgrounds, areas of concentrated poverty, and rural communities. Yet, research on HBCC lags behind research on center-based child care and early education (CCEE), and the least is known about unlisted providers who do not appear on state or national provider lists and work outside the formal systems supporting CCEE programs. This brief focuses on describing the characteristics of the communities in which unlisted HBCC providers live and, for many, where they typically care for children. It uses the 2019 National Survey of Early Care and Education (NSECE), the American Community Survey (ACS), and the Child Opportunity Index (COI) 2.0.

Trellis' Student Financial Wellness Survey (SFWS) seeks to document the financial well-being of post-secondary students and provide institutions with a detailed profile of the financial issues their students face, some of which could potentially impact their success in college. This report details aggregated findings for the 89 colleges and universities across the country that participated in the fall 2022 implementation of the survey. [For "Student Financial Wellness Survey: Fall 2021 Semester Results. National Aggregate Report," see ED625724.]

Using a longitudinal dataset created through the linkage of the 2006 Indigenous Peoples Survey (IPS; formerly called the Aboriginal Peoples Survey) and the 2016 long-form Census, this study examines childhood factors that are associated with the completion of a high school diploma or equivalency certificate or higher among off-reserve First Nations, Métis and Inuit children. The report presents childhood characteristics correlated with high school completion or higher by Indigenous group. Further, using a pooled sample, it examines the association between childhood factors and the outcome using multivariate analysis to account for confounding factors. Indigenous children living in some regions were more likely to complete high school or higher than those in other regions. First Nations (55.0%) and Métis children (66.3%) living in the Prairies region, were less likely to have completed high school or higher by 2016 compared with those in Ontario (68.9% and 77.5%, respectively). Inuit children who were living in Inuit Nunangat (38.1%) were less likely to complete high school or higher education than those living outside Inuit Nunangat (66.5%). Among First Nations and Métis boys and girls, those who were older were almost twice as likely to have completed high school or greater education compared with younger ones. Among Inuit, older boys (56.5%) were more likely to complete high school or higher than younger ones (29.7%E), but this relationship was not seen among girls. In all three groups, children living in suitable housing (i.e., not in crowded housing), were more likely to complete high school or higher education than those in unsuitable housing. This was evident among both Métis and Inuit boys and girls, but only among First Nations boys. The suitability of the housing did not play a significant role in First Nations girls completing high school or higher education. First Nations and Métis children who lived in two-parent households were more likely to complete high school or greater education than those in lone-parent households, but this relationship was not seen among Inuit children. Results of the logistic regression model show that age, household crowding, household income, and academic performance as children are associated with having completed high school or higher education. Older children had nearly three times higher odds (Odds ratio1 or OR=2.75) than those who were younger to have completed high school or higher education. Indigenous boys who lived in unsuitable housing during childhood had nearly half the odds (OR=0.52) of completing high school or higher education than those who lived in suitable housing. While a trend towards increasing odds of high school completion or higher was seen with increasing household income, it was only among Indigenous girls that a significant result was observed. Those living in the third (OR=2.67) and fourth (OR=4.23) quartile of household income had about three and four times, respectively, higher odds of completing high school or higher education compared with those in first quartile of household income. Finally, perceived academic performance in childhood was predictive of high school completion or greater education. In fact, odds of completion increased with increasing academic performance. Boys whose performance was very good during childhood had twice the odds (OR=2.17) of completing high school or higher education than those whose performance was average. In contrast, girls whose performance was very poor or poor had 73% lower odds of completing this level of education than girls whose performance was average. After adjusting for other childhood factors, region of residence, household type, familial residential school experience, prior attendance in an early childhood development program and ability to speak and/or understand an Indigenous language were not significantly associated with completion of high school or greater education. The findings of the study are in line with previous research and offer potential policy levers for developing programs and policies to increase the rates of high school completion or higher education among First Nations children living off reserve, Métis and Inuit children. [Funding for this study was provided by Indigenous Services Canada.]

Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR) conducted original research on an often-overlooked group of students--parents with children--as they struggle to make ends meet while pursuing academic degrees and certificates. Student parents often face enormous financial barriers to academic success. They report high financial insecurity including issues with food, housing and other basic needs. For students with children, borrowing for postsecondary education may mean accumulating debt without improved labor market outcomes or the financial ability to pay off loans. This is because the financial barriers and logistical challenges, such as inadequate access to reliable child care, student parents face may result in leaving college early without a credential, which has implications for future earnings.

Weakening federal assistance programs that provide children with affordable health care, nutritious food, stable housing, and early childhood education by imposing funding cuts, work requirements, unreasonable time limits, and other unnecessary bureaucratic barriers undermines access to services for low income families and undercuts opportunities for their children. These actions often hurt children with the greatest need, creating categories of deservedness of children that negatively impact their well-being and harm their short-term and long-term success. Holding children back in this way has adverse consequences for the economy and doesn't reflect the values of the nation. This document is an update to the 2018 brief, "The Harmful Consequences of Work Requirements and Other Obstacles on Families with Children" [ED603487], and explains how work requirements would weaken the effectiveness of assistance programs by increasing disparities for children in marginalized communities and undermining child health, nutrition, housing stability, economic security, and early childhood development.

To measure the outcomes of youth transitioning out of foster care, states are required to administer the National Youth in Transition Database (NYTD) survey to cohorts of youth at ages 17, 19, and 21. With this third cohort of young people having completed all three waves of data collection, researchers better understand the experiences of current and former foster care youth as they age. This brief presents findings from NYTD surveys completed by Cohort 3 youth at ages 17, 19, and 21 in Federal Fiscal Years 2017, 2019, and 2021. The baseline and follow-up survey information from Cohort 3 reveals that, generally, some young adults are faring well in many outcome areas but some youth are struggling. By age 21, young people reported positive gains in many protective factors, yet, in some cases there is evidence that current and former youth in foster care continue to face challenges that can be barriers to independence.

Systems navigators help local educational agencies (LEAs) meet the needs of students experiencing homelessness and decrease barriers to their education by connecting them--and often their families--to resources and community organizations that can provide wraparound services. This National Center for Homeless Education brief: (1) provides information on what systems navigators are and the role they play in supporting children and youth experiencing homelessness; (2) explores how LEAs leverage the systems navigator role as a helpful resource for meeting the needs of children and youth experiencing homelessness; and (3) provides examples from communities and LEAs that have expanded their services and coordination by hiring systems navigators.

An ongoing struggle for affordable housing in Southern California has led many predominately White, middle, and upper middle- class families to seek home ownership in divested urban communities. This phenomenon, known as gentrification, can benefit a community by increasing property values, but often comes at a cost to longstanding, Black and Brown residents of the neighborhood. Prior research has identified areas of harm including residential displacement, declining enrollment, and segregation of neighborhood schools. This qualitative case study addressed two questions: the impact of gentrification on the Black and Brown students attending the neighborhood school; and the strategies needed to balance competing interests between gentrifiers and longstanding families. The study's findings made it abundantly clear that inequitable district and site- based policies combined with White families' self- serving interests adversely affect the minority student experience. Operating as a counterweight to the harm, interview and observation data suggested that mindful school leadership and uniting parent interests played an integral role in establishing equitable practices, policies, and access. Moreover, the data showed that the probability of leader reflectiveness and mindfulness was intensified when school leadership and active parents were themselves people of color. The implications of the study may help shape district and school policies in communities experiencing gentrification.

Using a survey of international students from three different IHEs across the United States and follow-up focus groups, we gathered feedback directly from current international students studying in the United States on the practices and policies they have found most and least helpful in terms of supporting them in their studies and their suggestions for additional ways IHEs might better support their international students. Our findings suggest that international students are generally satisfied with the support provided by their international student offices at their institutes of higher education, although they also identified several areas for improvement. In both the surveys and the focus groups, participants emphasized the need for practical assistance with finding housing in the United States and navigating the complexities of attaining a social security number so they can open bank accounts, buy cell phones, and apply for leases on apartments. They also discussed the need to foster the development of meaningful friendships with other international students as well as students from the United States and for ensuring that the mental/emotional health of students, as well as their academic progress, are looked after. Suggestions for ways IHEs might address these identified needs are discussed.