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Researchers have considered how school choice policies affect student achievement, but less inquiry explores how the organization of schools may change in the presence of choice. This descriptive and exploratory paper analyzes a state representative sample of school mission statements at two time points: before the enactment of choice policies in Indiana, namely the Indiana Choice Scholarship Program, and again six years into the policy. Using structural topic modeling, this paper examines whether and how school mission statements topics have changed over this period. Descriptive findings suggest mission statement topics differ significantly between sectors but show few changes over time. The most striking shift is that Catholic and other private religious schools appear to be clarifying the religious aspects of their mission in the presence of robust choice policies.

Though language education and research have pushed back against traditional, hegemonic ways of teaching, they continue to exclude conversations on spirituality. Moreover, a deficit lens in language education perpetuates a focus on what needs to be improved rather than on our students' assets. In this pedagogical intervention, we begin by weaving the work of feminists of color to discuss what asset-based, desired-based research and feminist pedagogy can contribute to understanding children's spiritual activism. We worked with 31 fourth graders in a private school in Duitama, Colombia. As the study took place during the pandemic and mass mobilizations, the children shared their spirituality to cope with reality. Furthermore, the children's spirituality demonstrated their belief in a higher power, positive emotions to comfort others, hope for a better future, and an understanding of equity based on race and gender. We invite language educators and researchers to create spaces for children to share their spiritual activism through the integration of feminist pedagogy focused on asset and desire-based approaches.

Environmental problems caused by waste and exploitation of natural resources can be exacerbated by a lack of awareness and concern for the environment. One of the contributing factors is the lack of utilization of learning resources and environmental-based media in education. This study aims to develop and validate a teaching module based on the PjBL (Project-based Learning) model to increase students' environmental awareness, especially on the topic of environmental change. By using the 4D Model, this study uses quantitative descriptive analysis involving validation by two experts. The validation values for learning plan, learning media, and students' worksheet were 3.48, 3.52, and 3.45, respectively. The results of the recapitulation of validity data show a total score of 3.48 with a valid category. It was concluded that teaching modules based on project to improve environmental character are worthy of being applied in Biology learning at school.

School counselors are needed now more than ever. Providing Catholic school counselors the specialized formation they need to be effective in the Catholic school context is essential. This study addressed two research questions in this regard: (1) What competencies (e.g., understanding, incorporating) and topics do Catholic school principals and school counselors believe are important for school counselors to fully contribute to the educational and faith-based mission of Catholic schools; and (2) How might the research findings inform pre-service education and/or continuing education and formation of school counselors for the Catholic school context? Online surveys were developed using the "Defining Characteristics of Catholic Schools" from NSBECS and researchbased, mission-centered competencies and topics. The surveys were sent to the 40 principals and 54 school counselors at the schools in one mid-size U.S. diocese that employ school counselors. The survey response rates were 87.5% for principals and 91% for school counselors. Findings confirmed high levels of support from both groups for school counselors understanding mission-related topics and incorporating these competencies into counseling practices and activities, although principals often rated the importance higher than did school counselors. Some between group differences were statistically significant on items such as the importance of incorporating Catholic teaching with current student and school issues. To reduce differences in perceptions, the authors recommend increased collaboration between principals and counselors to achieve unity of vision. Other recommendations to help school counselors contribute to mission include embedding mission-related topics or adding specialized courses to school counseling programs at Catholic universities, designing mission-centered professional development opportunities, and building networks of school counselors to support them in their complex and evolving role in support of Catholic school mission.

Amidst increasing religious disaffiliation, often due to a perceived tension between faith and the STEM disciplines, Catholic schools provide critical opportunities for young people to recognize how these domains can be mutually elevating. The field, however, lacks guidance as to how this integration should occur in practice. This conceptual paper first provides an overarching framework for how aspects of the Catholic tradition, like Scripture and the Catholic social tradition, can shape traditional educational domains of STEM teaching and learning. Secondly, we provide a heuristic of three criteria for deeply engaging students at the interface of the Catholic faith and the STEM disciplines. Finally, we narrow in on K-12 science standards and provide six examples of how the three criteria can be applied to authentically and deeply advance understanding at the intersection of science and the Catholic faith.

Educators are instrumental in nurturing students' sense of purpose, particularly in urban schools. Consequently, these educators must not only have a strong sense of purpose but also possess other key virtues. This mixed-methods study explores these virtues among a group of 30 urban Catholic school teachers. They responded to scales measuring purpose, compassion, faith, moral development and agency, and completed a modified Youth Purpose Interview online. Scores were compared to those of the original samples upon which these scales were validated as they were also emerging adults. Participants scored significantly higher on almost all scales than the original samples. These quantitative results and interview data revealed unique sources of purpose such as altruism and compassion towards high-need students. Overall, the participants are strongly disposed to fostering a sense of purpose among their students and respecting the dignity and worth of all persons.

In the largest survey to date on Catholic school identity in athletics (49 U.S. States, n = 2273), administrators, counselors, and teachers responded to a survey about the perceived value of interscholastic athletics, school support of athletics, the contribution of coaches to school mission, Catholic identity in athletics, and the importance of the school's athletic director and coaches to have a mission orientation. The results of the study indicate that administrators, counselors, and teachers have positive perceptions of Catholic high school athletics. Teacher perceptions differed more than administrators and counselors based on their age, gender, and religion. At least one Catholic high school from each state except Wyoming (which has no Catholic high school) participated in the study, informing a national perspective.

Increasing faith engagement among Catholic school shareholders is a priority for school leaders. Catholic school communities can learn from this year-long project with a parish school. Sacred Heart Parish School serves approximately 300 K3-8th grade students. Like many parish schools, Sacred Heart sees a growing number of parents disengaged with the faith life of the parish and school, despite 98% of them being registered parishioners. The parent population enjoys robust and regular social activities, but report they are uncomfortable or uninterested in faith activities. The mission of Sacred Heart school is to nurture "children's growth in the Catholic faith," so the fact that two-thirds of parents are disengaged with or hostile to the mission is problematic. Sacred Heart's intervention project built on the natural social strengths of parents, catalyzing parent leaders to design a wide variety of faith activities designed to overcome their peers' discomfort and lack of interest. The peer-led interventions increased not only attendance at faith activities, but also financial stewardship to the parish and attendance at weekend liturgies. Parents responded most enthusiastically to invitations targeted to grade-level Mass experiences, so parent leaders focused future efforts on enhancing "Class Mass" initiatives for families.

Purpose: This study investigates middle school students' learning experiences through digital storytelling, applying a multimodal analytical framework to uncover patterns in digital stories. This study explores how participants engage in pedagogical activities, reflect on their learning experiences, and articulate their voices through digital stories. Design/Approach/Methods: Employing qualitative case study methods, we purposefully selected three 12-year-old female students at an urban school in the northern US. Analyses of digital stories and other data sources (interviews, classroom observations, and reflective journals) show that the students were engaged in both teaching and reflection. Findings: The findings describe (1) participants and their learning experiences, (2) students' representational and interpersonal constructs as used in their digital stories, and (3) their participation as teachers as well as learners. Originality/Value: Our multimodal analytical framework illuminates how students express themselves through digital stories. Our discussion focuses on students' learning, their identity development, the effectiveness of the analytical framework, and pedagogical implications.

The article focuses the use and reflection of explanatory videos in pedagogical contexts from an interdisciplinary perspective and with regard to teacher reflection and production processes in a joint primary school pedagogical study (with a focus on mathematical learning processes) and Catholic religion education study (with a focus on secondary school teacher education). With an explorative research question and an interpretative qualitative research design, teachers' reflections of explanatory videos produced by learners as well as teachers are analyzed abductively to gain in-depth insights into potentials and obstacles of the usage of explanatory videos in the context of learning processes. In the primary school pedagogical study, students produce multilingual explanatory videos (n = 18) of the 'Auxiliary task', a mental calculation strategy, which the multilingual teachers reflect (n = 6), and in the Catholic religion education study, teachers produce explanatory videos for making 'encountering' processes possible (n = 17) and both studies are linked with a joint research question. The main insights into potentials and obstacles are that explanatory videos can be used didactically for a) identifying student's subject-and-language-related needs, b) 'decelerated' valuation processes and c) iterative revisions of non-viable video productions as well as biases and beliefs of teachers.

This study examines the correlation between job descriptions and salaries at Immaculate Conception College of Balayan Inc. (ICCBI), a private Catholic institution devoted to faith-based education. Using qualitative research, a single-case study was conducted with ten (10) participants selected through purposive sampling based on specific criteria. Through face-to-face interviews, data was collected and analyzed using a narrative approach. Thus, it was found out that job descriptions at ICCBI are established through methods like job analysis, role and responsibility approaches, qualifications, and the school manual-based method. Salary determination involves factors such as tenure, educational attainment, performance, teaching loads, experience, and collegial care. Key factors influencing job descriptions include salary differentiation, aligned job descriptions, career development opportunities, and increased duties and responsibilities. Variations in the salary structure are affected by teaching loads, department designations, and educational qualifications. The findings indicate that job descriptions impact employee salaries at the institution, and future research is encouraged to explore identified factors for insights into developing more efficient roles and contributing to organizational effectiveness. With this, the study proposed a strategic plan for future use and implementation.

Building on prior research documenting associations between youth purpose and academic, psychological and physical well-being, this study examined the contributions of workplace learning (WPL) to youth purpose and internal motivation among 281 youth of diverse racial and ethnic identities and economic status enrolled in two high school networks offering innovatively designed WPL. Sequential regression analyses revealed that the quality of WPL, defined by mentor support for training, learning opportunities, and youth autonomy, contributed positively to youth purpose and internal motivation, beyond the negative effects of perceived social and economic barriers. Findings are discussed through the perspectives of psychology of working, decent education, self-determination theory and career construction and suggest that WPL is a promising intervention for overcoming inequities in fostering youth talent and purpose, including personal goals, meaning and intentions for social contribution.

This paper reports on an investigation into the potential effects of the Symbol Literacy Approach (SLA) on the metaphorical reasoning of 25 five-year-old children attending a Maltese Catholic School. This was implemented via six pedagogical activities comprising the 'St. Michael Project', which sought to prompt the children's symbolic engagement with the Judeo-Christian myth concerning the triumph of Archangel Michael against Lucifer. In the final activity, the children's observation, role-play and conversation were prompted in relation to a 17th-century Flemish painting depicting St. Michael, after which the children were invited to draw pictures of anything the activity had made them think about. The research data comprised video recordings of conversations held with the children during the drawing process as well as photographs of the finalised pictures. Thematic analysis subsequently revealed that the SLA had supported most of the children to engage in metaphorical reasoning, while illuminating various facets of this pivotal cognitive process.

As access to private religious education expands through vouchers, public discourse has positioned these schools as politically neutral spaces. Teachers who seek to ethically care for students are thus placed in a predicament. In this article, we present the fictive case study of a middle school teacher in a suburban Catholic school that has accepted vouchers and consequently undergone significant demographic and political shifts. When the teacher makes a curricular decision that responds in caring and critical ways to their students, they face a wave of parental opinions that call their instruction and ethical aims into question.

Researchers have studied Catholic schools for decades, often in an attempt to extrapolate from them lessons that may help public schools accomplish similar levels of academic achievement and other desirable goals, such as social mobility, social efficiency, and democratic equality. But research that attempts to understand Catholic education from a secular perspective inevitably misunderstands the purpose of education that Catholic schools themselves claim to pursue, i.e., beatitude. This unique purpose is the source of Catholic school identity. Here, Christopher Hurst argues that by considering Catholic education as the practice of a distinctly Catholic tradition, researchers can authentically assess how well Catholic schools are achieving their own stated goals, and whether their practices can be applied outside of a particular Catholic context.

Joseph of Nazareth has a high profile among Catholics globally. His name adorns a multitude of schools, Catholic agencies, cities and towns and he is the patron of numerous causes in the Catholic tradition. This elevated position contrasts markedly with his profile in the Bible, where he is consistently silent when he appears in the narratives, and conspicuously absent in most New Testament accounts. In recent decades, reflections on Joseph's place in the stories of Christian foundations and traditions about him have relied upon a careful reading of the historical Joseph. Pious traditions that emphasised his supplementary, supportive, and subordinate role in the Christian tradition are giving way to thoughtful examinations of the available evidence. Portraits of Joseph offer resources for contributing to the identity of Catholic schools and other agencies which count Joseph as a patron and mentor. This article traces contemporary scholarship on the biblical, historical, and modern conceptualisations of Joseph of Nazareth and explores implications for Catholic identity and religious education in Catholic schools.

Catholic schools, in order to be Catholic, lay claim to a particular sense of what these schools are and what they are not; that is, they claim Catholic school identity. Organizations such as Catholic schools have a strong identity if these claims are central to their core mission, distinct from the claims of other organizations, and consistent over time. The distinctiveness of Catholic school identity implies that Catholic educational practice must be rooted in a particularly Catholic tradition, and the centrality of Catholic school identity implies that excellent Catholic schools can derive internal goods only available to these schools. But claims to a distinct identity are undercut by the pursuit of external goods such as wealth, power, and prestige, as these external goods are neither central to the mission of any school, nor do they distinguish Catholic schools from other forms of school. In particular, Catholic school principals must balance their schools' need for legitimacy with their desire to claim a strong Catholic identity. This paper provides a framework for understanding the internal goods that comprise Catholic school identity, the external goods these schools need to survive, and the process of judgment principals must use to maintain Catholic school identity.

Self-Regulated Learning (SRL) is widely acknowledged as essential for educational achievement and fostering continuous learning skills (Taranto & Buchanan, 2020). As a result, there has been a marked escalation in embedding SRL criteria within academic curriculums, including primary education (De Smul et al., 2020; Heirweg et al., 2021). However, implementing SRL poses a significant challenge for educators, as it requires them to focus not just on delivering content but also on guiding students through the process of strategic learning. Teachers require specialised knowledge and expertise in effectively teaching SRL (De Smul et al.,2019). Understanding how to offer teachers support for effectively implementing SRL into classroom settings represents a vital area for future research (Dignath, 2021; Greene, 2021; Karlen et al., 2020). To this end, the current study investigated teachers' understanding of acquiring professional expertise in implementing SRL within Grades 5 and 6 classrooms. The research was conducted in a Catholic primary school in Victoria, Australia, employing a comprehensive SRL approach to teaching and learning practices. To gather insights from the participants, unstructured interviews were conducted. The methodology of Classic Grounded Theory (Glaser & Strauss in 1967) was applied to identify, conceptualise, and examine the participating teachers' perspectives. This study demonstrated the preference among teachers towards a multifaceted approach to SRL-focused professional development (PD) for enhancing critical aspects of teacher knowledge they deemed vital for SRL implementation. Furthermore, the findings emphasised the significance of teachers participating in training sessions to enhance their SRL content knowledge, team teaching opportunities centred on SRL pedagogical content knowledge and teacher coaching that emphasised teachers' experiences with practising SRL. The research underscored professional expertise in SRL implementation as an incremental process of cultivating specific areas of professional knowledge that relied on diverse approaches to PD and required a sustained approach.

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted higher education institutions worldwide, particularly Catholic schools offering graduate programs. The pandemic substantially impacted faculty teaching performance at a Catholic graduate school. Many faculty members cited difficulties transitioning to online instruction. Providing continuing support and training for online teaching, nurturing a culture of collaboration and innovation among faculty members, and emphasizing student-centered approaches can all help improve faculty teaching performance in Catholic graduate schools. More research is needed to study the long-term impacts of the epidemic on faculty teaching performance and to discover effective techniques for assisting faculty members in transitioning to online teaching. Future research should look into the impact of other factors, such as curriculum revisions or teaching styles, on faculty teaching performance in the Catholic graduate school. Overall, the study emphasizes the necessity of assisting faculty members in adapting to the obstacles of online teaching and fostering a culture of collaboration and creativity in Catholic graduate schools to improve teaching performance. Further research can expand on these findings to inform higher education policy and practice.

This research article discusses the theme of the infusion of sustainability in school economics. It stems from the researcher's study that explores teaching and learning in secondary school economics in Malta. The underlying conceptual framework for this study is critical realism, which offers an understanding of the world that is real, but which may be differently experienced and interpreted by different observers (Alderson, 2021; Bhaskar, 1979; Fletcher, 2017). This paper draws upon observation sessions and interviews with fourteen economics teachers. The researcher used thematic analysis to analyze data (Braun & Clarke, 2006) with the help of Nvivo software. The participants regarded education for sustainable development as a prominent theme. Furthermore, they educated their students to reflect on how their choices affected not only themselves but also others and cultivated an awareness of social justice in them. The considerations raised by this paper can assist teachers, teacher educators, and researchers in their reflections and efforts relating to enhancing the sustainability dimension in school economics education and other subjects.

Community engagement in higher education has been promoted as critical to fulfilling higher education's responsibility to the public good through teaching, learning, and knowledge generation. Reciprocity and mutual benefit are key principles of community engagement that connote a two-way exchange of knowledge and outcomes. However, it is not clear from existing literature whether community engagement positively impacts communities. This paper presents findings from a dissertation study focused on how campus-community partnership stakeholders define impact and discusses implications for place-based pedagogy. Using grounded theory, the ways community and campus partners defined community impact in a diverse set of campus-community partnerships at two U.S. urban, Jesuit universities that employ a place-based approach to community engagement were explored. Relationships as facilitators of impact and as impacts in and of themselves emerged as central themes that led to the development of the Justice-Centering Relationships Framework. The framework includes two paradigms for understanding community impact in higher education community engagement -- Plug-and-Play and Justice-Centering Relationships -- that are bridged by a reframing process. The framework contributes to and informs the "how" of taking a place-based community engagement approach that leads to positive benefits for community impact, student learning, and institutional change.

As life expectancy in the United States continues to increase, there is a need to enhance interest and competency in working with older adults. There have been efforts to do so in recent years, but research indicates that there are barriers, such as lack of awareness and negative perceptions of aging. This qualitative study examines the experiences of eight students who are pursuing or recently completed an interdisciplinary certificate focused on working with older adults. Personal experience is a strong motivator for professional interest in the older adult population. Students value interdisciplinary education on older adults, citing the opportunity to learn with those in different majors as an asset. Making students aware of course offerings on older adults is cited as a significant need. Suggestions for improving and promoting an interdisciplinary certificate on older adults have implications for strengthening the workforce to care for aging Americans, as well as faculty who want to design and implement certificate programs in higher education generally.

As Catholic schools serve an increasingly racially diverse population of students, they must grapple with the critical requirement to address these students' unique needs while heeding the call from modern Catholic Church leaders to engage in explicit antiracist action. Using the Historically Responsive Literacy Framework (HRL), this article equips Catholic high school English language arts (ELA) teachers with practical and powerful ways to create antiracist curriculum. To do this effectively, we place antiracist Young Adult (YA) literature (both fiction and nonfiction) in conversation with Catholic canonical texts and modern voices from Catholic clergy members. By connecting with students' complex identities and creating authentic antiracist learning experiences, Catholic high school ELA teachers can better prepare their students to use both their knowledge and criticality of Catholic social teachings and their individual identities to combat racism.

This qualitative study used a phenomenological approach and the Marianist characteristics as a conceptual framework to understand the experiences of six lay Marianist educational leaders during COVID-19. Findings indicate that, during the pandemic, leaders were faced with specific challenges: receiving an excess of information, facing inequity in technology, serving students with various learning needs, and attending to the socioemotional health of students and teachers. Despite these difficulties, the leaders were able to uphold the Marianist characteristics of educating for adaptation and change, in family spirit, and for formation in faith. This study is signif­i­cant because it provides unique perspectives on how leaders of a Marianist urban high school were able to advance their mission during a global health pandemic. The study also adds to the crisis and Marianist leadership bodies of literature.

Accountability pressures in education have risen steadily over the last two decades and public schools and districts now track school- and student-level data in response to state and federal mandates. Catholic schools and dioceses have not faced the same level of regulation over this period, and less is known about data access and use in the Catholic sector. This descriptive and exploratory research draws on survey and interview data from a national sample of Catholic school superintendents to examine data practices in diocesan central offices as well as barriers faced in the use of data. Findings suggest that although considerable variation exists among dioceses, common data efforts include working toward data centralization, developing tools to monitor the operational health of schools, and finding ways to foster the data culture within dioceses. These practices were present in close to half of all dioceses, but several common challenges related to governance, resources, and data systems hindered progress in and toward these efforts.

As a ministry of the Catholic Church, Catholic schools are charged with educating students' hearts and minds. Multiple standardized academic tests and other student assessments are available for monitoring both student and teacher outcomes in Catholic schools, but fewer measures exist for considering the school's faith-related mission. Although tests of student religious knowledge and benchmarks related to specific Catholic elements of the school are available, we do not yet have a robust set of instruments that provide teachers and leaders an understanding of their progress in providing a school environment permeated by Catholic culture and faith. To consider how students in Catholic schools perceive the Catholicity of their school and how these perceptions vary among different student groups, we developed, piloted, and validated the Sense of School Catholic Identity Survey (SSCI). This 20-item survey measures Grade 5 through 8 students' perceptions of their Catholic school as personal and invitational, sacramental, unitive, and eucharistic. Findings from the pilot study suggest that responses differ by student grade level, religious tradition, and gender. Future testing of the scale will examine school-level differences in Catholic identity.

This study explored the experience of Catholic school principals in Ohio whose schools have participated in the EdChoice Scholarship program. The researcher employed the lens of principal time usage to examine the experiences of Ohio Catholic school principals with EdChoice, with a focus on the direct experiences of principals participating in the program, the principal's role in the supervisory aspects of operating the program at a school, and on the connections between workload and principal perceptions of the EdChoice program. The research questions were explored through semi-structured interviews with eight Catholic school principals and three administrative designees at those schools. The study concluded that no signifcant and direct administrative burden was created by the program on the study participants, but that secondary effects are present, such as the potential need for the hiring of a staff member to manage the program and the importance of communication with stakeholders. Additionally, this study illustrated the need for Catholic school principals to remain aware of and engaged in the legislative process in Ohio, as changes made by the government can have a direct effect on the operation of a school.

The purpose of this exploratory qualitative study was to examine how the perceptions and experiences of teachers relate to the suspension and expulsion of preschoolers in Catholic schools. Results indicated that teachers have a range of experiences with suspension, from children being removed from the classroom temporarily to out-of-school suspensions lasting up to a week. Most participants also had experienced expelling a student because of behavior. Patterns that emerged from the data included a frequency of extreme behavior from some children, the application of various strategies in response to challenging behavior, the use of exclusionary discipline when other strategies did not work, and a resistance to change practices without additional supports. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Community-engaged learning opportunities are increasingly prevalent in higher education. In addition to positive personal growth and learning outcomes, these opportunities allow students to learn about the community surrounding their campus and formulate their own understandings of social responsibility and citizenship. These connections can be especially powerful for students at colleges and universities located in or near urban areas. This study assesses the impact of REAL Dayton, a community engagement immersion program at a midsized Catholic and Marianist university, on students' attitudes toward and perceptions of their city through pre/post surveys and interviews. The program encourages students to build their knowledge of the city and create sustained relationships with the broader community. This research enhances understandings of the effects and outcomes of community engagement programs for students. Findings demonstrate the impact of community engagement on student knowledge about their city and student perceptions of their own roles as community members.

This study explores some of the demographic, personal, and experiential factors of emerging adults that correlate to a spectrum of moral outlooks ranging from moral universalism to moral relativism. Data was gathered from 466 volunteer undergraduate students. Respondents' demographic, experiential, and personal factors served as independent variables. The relativism index score form Forsyth's Ethics Position Questionnaire (1980) served as the dependent variable. Results suggest several conclusions: First, adults in the life of youth are a significant factor in moral outlook, exerting influence in both universalistic and relativistic directions. Second, religious practice and involvement contribute to a universal moral outlook. Third, the personal characteristics of grit and spiritual transcendence contribute to a universal moral outlook. Fourth, engaging in sexual activity outside of marriage contributes to a relative moral outlook. Fifth, a Catholic school education at both the grade and high school levels contributes to a universal moral outlook.

Over the past twenty years, Catholic elementary schools that self identify as "inner-city" have closed at a higher rate than Catholic schools in other locations. These schools have also long been associated with a legacy of effectively serving low-income students, students of color, and recent immigrant students, suggesting that the persistent closure of these schools may have a negative impact on these communities. In this paper, we set out to assess the extent to which there have been demographic or organizational changes over the past twenty years in these "inner-city" schools. We found that while these schools do still serve higher proportions of students of color than Catholic schools nationally, there are distinct organizational and demographic trends that have developed in these schools that merit additional analysis or investigation. We conclude this paper with several suggestions for how to build a research agenda around this up-to-date demographic and organizational analysis of this segment of U.S. Catholic elementary schools.

This study explores the impact of professional learning communities on student achievement in a small school setting. Aaron Hansen's book, "How to Develop PLCs for Singletons and Small Schools," offered a guide for arranging vertical, grade-level teams with one teacher per grade level at one private, K-8 school. The faculty engaged in high quality, effective professional development using PLC objectives and norms to analyze NEWA MAP data. They adapted instructional practices and implemented formative assessments to influence student growth in math and reading scores. Results indicate that the PLC training that took place between the Fall and Winter MAP testing cycles positively impacted student growth results from Winter to Spring tests. Research limitations are addressed in the discussion section.

School choice policies seek to increase access to educational opportunities and stimulate innovations in schooling. This study examines the early stages of one such innovation--school-wide curricular specialization--in three Catholic elementary schools adopting a STEM focus and uses interviews to consider how and why different levels of support exist for the shift and under what conditions private and religious schools are prepared to make significant changes in instructional practice. Findings suggest that school resources--material, human, and social along with professional development--play an important role in shaping engagement in the adoption of a school-wide curricular focus.

This paper reports on a recent survey of principals of Catholic high schools across the country regarding the existence of formal gender identity policies or informal practices with respect to the behavior and treatment of transgender students in their schools. The survey's findings are discussed in the context of recent developments with respect to the science, clinical interventions, and legal accommodations surrounding gender variance. The paper also describes the political developments with respect to this issue and some of the pushback in communities of faith. It concludes by suggesting the need for receptivity to scientific findings as part of a broad-based discussion of gender identity policies in Catholic secondary education.

St. Patrick's Catholic School is a coeducational Catholic preparatory school located in a large northeastern city. The school serves an exclusively non-white, working-class student population who demonstrates the motivation and potential to attend and graduate from college. The school's mission calls for its staff to be guided by "cura personalis," meaning they will care for the whole person; yet, data show that the school's students were extremely stressed out and that much of their stress was attributable to homework. This study sought to determine if reducing the amount of homework could improve students' mental health while not negatively impacting academic performance. Across ten classrooms, teachers reduced the amount of homework they were assigning by 50% for a period of at least three months with an aim of reducing students' self-reported levels of stress by 30% while maintaining their same academic performance. At the conclusion of the project, the number of students reporting high to moderate levels of stress decreased by nearly 30%. The next step is to expand this pilot from ten classrooms to 20, thus having every teacher reduce the homework they are assigning to more effectively measure the impact it has on both students' mental health and their academic performance. The project this year indicated that reducing homework school-wide would relieve a significant amount of stress for St. Patrick's students while ensuring their academic performance remains steady.

In the spring of 2020, schools of all sectors across all nations were forced to close their doors as COVID-19 rippled through communities. Drawing upon the concept of liminality, which refers to a stage, state, or period of transition (Soderlund & Borg, 2017), this study investigated the intersections of the experience of liminality during the pandemic and functioning for Catholic school leaders. Interviews with urban school leaders were analyzed to understand key characteristics of liminality as experienced by school leaders within organizations. Findings indicate that school leaders responded to the liminal experience by sharpening the focus of work, which simultaneously complexified the traditional roles of individual and organization. These findings have significant potential in illuminating a path forward during liminal times for educators of all sectors. This paper provides an opportunity to interpret the impact of the pandemic across all sectors of education, with a primary analysis on Catholic schools.

Higher education institutions increasingly embrace hybrid learning to offer adaptable and variable educational techniques. After the COVID-19 limits were loosened, students could now take in-person and online courses simultaneously. Students engaged in distance learning for almost three years gradually return to class. Although hybrid learning has been the subject of numerous research among typical college students, little is known about how this method of instruction affects individuals with special needs. This descriptive qualitative study examined their opinions and experiences in hybrid learning environments to close this gap. Semi-structured interviews and theme content analysis were used. This study includes students with various diagnoses, including sensory impairments, learning disabilities, physical impairments, and social, emotional, and behavioral disorders. Findings revealed that students' experiences with hybrid learning were marked by efficient learning, safe feeling, a sense of belonging, and expectation setting. College students with special education needs can benefit from efficient learning and a safe feeling. However, it presented difficulties in establishing a sense of belonging and clearly defining expectations, highlighting the need for customized approaches to satisfy their various needs.

In 1950, the Sisters of Mercy opened Mercy Junior College in Tarrytown, New York for younger members of their order. In 1961, with financial assistance from the Rockefeller family, they relaunched it as a private 4-year institution for women at a new complex in Dobbs Ferry. From 1911 onward, however, the Rockefellers had a complex relationship with the Sisters of Mercy, who then lived in Tarrytown next to the main Rockefeller estate of Kykuit. While the Rockefellers' financial support of the Sisters toward the construction of a new complex in Dobbs Ferry is modest in comparison to the Rockefellers' other philanthropic endeavors in the field of education, it represents the most significant support to New York higher education outside of Rockefeller University, which Rockefeller, Sr. founded in 1901 as an institute for medical research. This article consequently explores the complex relationship between the Rockefellers and the Sisters of Mercy to illuminate a neglected aspect of Rockefeller philanthropy in their home state of New York. As a result of the Rockefellers' aid, Mercy College was able to thrive and evolve into a multi-campus, co-educational and secular institution. Today, as Mercy University, it offers nearly 100 undergraduate and graduate degree programs and its main campus in Westchester County still consists primarily of the buildings built with Rockefeller assistance.

Reporting a Brisbane Catholic Education (BCE) project spanning 2018-2020, this paper looks at what happened when early primary English as an Additional Language or Dialect (EAL/D) learners were given eReaders with multilingual texts to take home to read together with their families. The shift in pedagogy to view our learners as multilingual and developing multicompetence rather than English language learners only, influenced our decision to make digital texts in community languages more readily available to our students. Although our increasingly digital world has led to improved access to information, texts in different languages and the opportunity for students to access learning in different ways, we realised that many students at BCE schools, particularly those from a refugee background, have limited access to these resources. Along with improved access for students, we also wanted parents to have access to reading materials in their home languages, so that they could read together with their young children. Our goal was not only to facilitate reading in both home languages and English but to create greater student engagement in reading, while strengthening home and English literacy. In the course of developing the BCE digital library, we realised that we needed to find out more about what helps our multilingual students with reading and gain a greater understanding of family literacy practices in our school communities. Our learnings about the sustainability of libraries, student progress in reading, and family literacy practices in Brisbane Catholic Education school communities has important implications for how we teach multilingual learners to read today.

US Catholic schools have been known to educate the whole child. However, the Catholic sector has not widely embraced a shared understanding of whole child education or how it is operationalised, nor have researchers interested in this sector effectively measured the impact of approaches in any or all domains. This conceptual paper presents a framework for whole child education in US Catholic Schools, articulating five domains and key elements that help define holistic education in Catholic schools while providing a theological grounding for this framework. We offer a series of dilemmas that arise from the implementation of this Whole Child Framework, while recommending future lines of research to be explored around this conceptual framework.

The article addresses the role of Catholic early childhood education, the parents and the kindergarten in setting the developmental background for the child's future life perspectives and personal development. This research subject is analysed in the context of the situation in Ukraine, and the article focuses on how the respondents -- Ukrainian female refugees -- perceive the value of the process. The article begins with an outline of the essentials of Catholic education and their practical implementation through the educational conception developed by Edmund Bojanowski. Then it analyses opinions of refugee women from Ukraine, surveyed with action research methodology and a diagnostic survey to discover how the respondents understand the value of Catholic education and its importance in responding to contemporary life challenges. The respondents' opinions reveal how the state of war in Ukraine has brought home the importance of family education and the role of the parents and Catholic early childhood education in kindergarten for the well-being of the individual, the family and society. Research conclusions highlight a need to enhance early childhood education practices in an era of dynamic socio-cultural change, marked the unexpected and highly challenging events. Despite on-going secularisation, there is a growing conviction that Catholic early childhood education can offer a solid foundation for this enhancement, due to its reliance on stable, universal set of values and its emphasis on the regularities of child development.

Our multi-disciplinary research team explored the experiences and concerns of Latino/a students and their parents related to being welcomed and included in Catholic high schools in a United States diocese. We collected both qualitative and quantitative data in order to create a fuller picture of Latino/a experiences in these high schools. We make recommendations based on our findings to advance the scholarship on best practices for including students of new demographic groups in Catholic high schools with a specific focus on welcoming and including Latino and Latina students in Catholic high schools.

Black men and boys have been constructed as libidinous threats to white womanhood and white racial purity since the sixteenth century. In the wake of the landmark "Brown" decision, white citizens fused the Black male rapist trope with segregation theology to create private segregation academies to minimize Black-white contact. These schools remain more segregated than traditional public schools. The participants in this study were recruited to a private Catholic high school where the entire Black population was made up of Black boys who played a sport and whose interracial relationships with white girls triggered resistance. Drawing from qualitative data, the purpose of this paper is to highlight five Black boys' experiences with phallic-based Negrophobia in a predominantly white and private Catholic high school. Findings reveal that participants realized they were transgressing institutional boundaries to preserve a racial order, and their transgressions were constantly policed and monitored.