While researchers acknowledge the importance of parents feeling welcomed and engaged in their child's school, the school's welcoming practices to engage parents have been rarely explored. Parents' qualitative responses provide insight into what impacts their initial and ongoing experience of being welcomed into their child's new school. In total,…

Living doubled-up is a form of homelessness that can go undetected by schools, yet the toll it takes on the lives of students is significant. Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to determine how students who live in doubled-up homeless families differ from low-income students who live in permanent housing with regard to demographics,…

This article presents an analysis of a Latino parent group and an African American parent group in California who struggled to engage with a contentious urban school reform. Using Bourdieu's cultural capital framework, the study focuses on the institutional responses to parent involvement, and the inequality in access that occurs as capital from…

Much of the existing literature on urban school reform focuses on how the relatively small number of our nation's largest urban districts are approaching school reform with these objectives in mind. However, does smaller district size have any bearing, direct or indirect, on the nature of superintendent leadership? The authors' exploratory…

This article examines campaign finance activity in two large school districts: San Francisco, California and Hillsborough County, Florida. Using datasets containing contributions to school board candidates, it explores from whom candidates raise campaign funds. The findings indicate that entities with material interests in school board decisions,…

A survey of emergency preparedness was conducted in three public school districts in urban areas of Los Angeles County. Eighty-three school sites were surveyed using self-administered questionnaires. Although designated respondents generally felt that their schools were well prepared, the survey also revealed the need for improvements in written…