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A snapshot of the student population in the school district in our study reveals that in 2016 there were approximately 3,300 refugee students across all grades (K-12). Thus, refugee students made up roughly 3 percent of the total student population in the district. On average, there were about 250 refugee students per grade, with significant variation across grades. For example, while only 2 percent of first-graders were refugees, this proportion climbs to 5 percent among ninth-graders. Refugee students in the district come from a variety of countries and enter with varying language skills. In 2016, over 18 countries were represented among the refugee population. The top country of birth for refugee students in the district was Burma (Myanmar), followed by Ethiopia, The Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, and Bhutan. Approximately 26 percent of refugee students did not receive English as a Second Language (ESL) services.

Of the various school-based determinants of student achievement, teachers are the most important (Rivkin, Hanushek, and Kain, 2005; Aaronson, Barrow, and Sander 2007; Kane, Rockoff, and Staiger, 2008). Further, teachers who boost student test scores the most are also able to improve adult outcomes of their students (Chetty et al., 2011; Chetty, Friedman, and Rockoff, 2014). There are a number of potential mechanisms for increasing teacher quality, such as improving current teachers skills, enhancing teachers incentives to maximize their performance, and differentially retaining superior teachers. This brief focuses on another promising avenue for enhancing teacher qualityimproving the teacher hiring process. The Metro Atlanta Policy Lab for Education investigated the characteristics principals emphasize and undervalue during the teacher hiring process and found some characteristics were better than others at predicting teacher performance.

The rising price of fossil fuels, government incentives and growing public aware-ness for the need to implement sustainable energy supplies has resulted in a large in-crease in solar panel installations across the country. For many sites the most eco-nomical solar panel installation uses existing, southerly facing rooftops. Adding solar panels to an existing roof typically means increased loads that must be borne by the building-s structural elements. The structural design professional is responsible for ensuring a new solar panel installation is properly supported by an existing structure and configured to maximize energy generation., {"references":["National Renewable Energy Laboratory 1617 Cole Boulevard, Golden\nColorado 80401-3305t. 303-275-3000 www.nrel.gov., \"Technical\nReport NREL/TP-6A0-44073 Supply Curves for Rooftop Solar PVGenerated\nElectricity for the United States\" by Paul Denholm and\nRobert Margolis, November 2008, www.nrel.gov.","\"Performance of Solar Power Plants in India\", submitted to Central\nElectricity Regu-latory Commission New Delhi by Dr. BD Sharma,\nFebruary 2011, www.cercind.gov.in.","The University of New South Wales, Sydney, Canberra, Australia,\nwww.pveducation.org/pvcdrom - an online calculator for estimating\nsolar panel effi-ciency, Christiana Honsberg and Stuart Bowden."]}