Woodrow Middle School* recently underwent a renovation project to its 75-year-old building—a renovation that closed the library for a year and reduced the library's collection to bare essentials. Spurred by the...

The first tip is thinking ahead... One of our best tools as parents is being prepared. As your son or daughter gets to the middle school years, get ready for at least occasional conflicts. Think through what is truly...

This study focused on parents' relationships and involvement in their children's lives and the effects on the students' school engagement and school performance. The study used the Wave I data from the National...

The last United States Census reported that young adolescents spend the majority of their waking hours in the care of someone other than their parents. Couple this with adolescents' growing need for independence, and...

What's Wow! about your school? Effective middle level leaders rarely miss an opportunity to connect with families of current and potential students to tell the story of how their middle school positively affects the...

"Your son's average is a low C. His grade is not as high as it should be, primarily because he is not turning in his homework, and I am not sure he is studying for tests. I was hoping you could shed some light on...

Service-learning is a teaching and learning method that connects meaningful, community service experiences with academic learning, personal growth, and civic responsibility (Shumer & Duckenfield, 2004). Learning...

What is parent involvement? Parent involvement is important to the educational success of a young adolescent and yet generally declines when a child enters the middle grades (Epstein, 2005; Jackson & Andrews,...