Kyla Wahlstrom

Changing Times: Findings From the First Longitudinal Study of Later High School Start Times

In the early 1990s, medical research found that teenagers have biologically different sleep and wake patterns than the preadolescent or adult population. On the basis of that information, in 1997 the seven comprehensive high schools in the Minneapolis Public School District shifted the school start time from 7:15 a.m. to 8:40 a.m. This article examines that change, finding significant benefits such as improved attendance and enrollment rates, less sleeping in class, and less student-reported depression. Policy implications are briefly discussed, acknowledging this to be a highly charged issue in school districts across the United States. Recent research information about the sleep needs of adolescents and the influence of sleep on learning and behavior has captured the attention of school districts across the United States. Physicians, parents, school board members, and others are asking school administrators and policymakers to acknowledge the medical evidence about the biological sleep patterns of teenagers and to adjust school schedules accordingly. The discussions and debates have been intense because this is a multifaceted issue. School administrators are being asked to weigh the factual information about the biology of adolescents’ sleep patterns against the competing demands of teachers’ work preferences, athletic and afterschool activity schedules, and bus transportation schedules. This article presents findings from a 4-year study in a large, urban school district that altered high school start times significantly from 7:15 a.m. to 8:40 a.m. This change affected more than 12,000 secondary students within a total K‐12 population of nearly 51,000 students. Theoretical PerspectivesIn the early 1990s, medical research found that teenagers have biologically different sleep and wake patterns than the preadolescent or adult population. On the basis of that information, in 1997 the seven comprehensive high schools in the Minneapolis Public School District shifted the school start timefrom 7:15 a. m. to 8:40 a. m. This article examines that change, finding significant benefits such as improved attendance and enrollment rates, less sleeping in class, and less student-reported depression. Policy implications are briefly discussed, acknowledging this to be a highly charged issue in school districts across the United States.

Children's perceived benefits and barriers in relation to eating breakfast in schools with or without Universal School Breakfast.

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to identify and compare perceived benefits and barriers related to breakfast consumption and concerns about weight among children in schools with or without a Universal School Breakfast Program (USBP). DESIGN Teacher-administered survey at the end of a 3-year pilot program. SUBJECTS/SETTINGS Fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade students in six USBP pilot schools (n = 827) and four control schools (n = 615). Control and pilot sites were matched by geographic location and socioeconomic status of students. Response rates were > 70%. VARIABLES MEASURED Perceptions of benefits and barriers related to breakfast consumption and weight-related concerns. STATISTICAL ANALYSES PERFORMED Chi-square tests were used to assess statistical differences in categorical responses to survey items. RESULTS The majority of students perceived that eating breakfast provides benefits of increased energy and ability to pay attention in school. Commonly held perceptions of barriers to eating breakfast were lack of time and not being hungry in the morning. Compared with children in non-USBP schools, those in the USBP schools were less likely to wish they were thinner, to go on a diet, or skip breakfast because it might make them fat and more likely to believe that eating breakfast will give them energy and help them pay attention. IMPLICATIONS Based on the results of this study, nutrition educators may find it helpful to develop educational materials and programs based on the reciprocal determinism construct of Social Learning Theory to promote breakfast consumption. The focus should be on practical strategies to address barriers and encourage behavioral changes for both children and their parents.

Principals as cultural leaders

Principals shape the culture in positive ways when they share leadership and take responsibility for shaping classroom improvements.

Linking leadership to student learning: Introduction

Leadership matters. At least the evidence of “local” leaders’ effects on student learning—particularly those in formal leadership roles such as principals—is quite compelling. And it matters for no other reason that a great many people want it to matter. When people view leadership as part of the solution, they allow it to influence them. “Followership” is, after all, a voluntary state of mind, and “leadership” is an attribution on the part of those in that state of mind who, however temporarily, allow themselves to be influenced. What prompts people to assume the cloak of followership? In some circles, after all, being anything other than a leader seems almost unpatriotic. In other circles, just using the word follower in one’s writing about leadership produces quite predictable objections from those with egalitarian sentiments at the pristine extreme. And yet leadership and followership fundamentally depend on one another for any meaning at all. The four articles in this special issue all have leadership in their titles, and we view them as studies of leadership. But we could, almost as easily, view them as studies of followership. Perhaps we should have, as they have at least as much to say about the states of followers as the practices of leaders. For example, the article by Wahlstrom and Louis speaks to the nature of teachers’ trust in leaders, and their sense of collective efficacy; this study helps us understand how these teachers’ internal states are influenced by leadership and, in turn, how such internal states influence the instructional practices of teachers. As another example, Leithwood and Jantzi’s article examines the causes and consequences of school principals’ sense of collective efficacy. In this study, school-level “leaders” are conceptualized at least partly as followers in relation to influence exercised by those in district leadership roles.

Leadership and Learning: What These Articles Tell Us

In this issue, we examined leadership in education at many levels, from the state to the classroom. Although there are hundreds of different roles that intersect and are interrelated in the education of children in America, three roles stand out as distinctly critical in its delivery—school administrators, classroom teachers, and state policy makers. The articles included here examine in great detail the contextual conditions and interactions of the actors in those three arenas. The central focus of all of the articles is about exploring what persons in those roles do and what kinds of effects their actions are perceived to have on the delivery of education. For each article, the authors conducted an analysis of data from the Learning from Leadership project, with the overall research question being, “What is the effect of educational leadership on student achievement?” Their subquestions are grounded in the project’s conceptual framework and emerge from substantial reviews of relevant literature. Although each article is able to stand on its own findings and conclusions, when looking across all of the articles, four themes emerge:

How Successful Leadership Influences Student Learning: The Second Installment of a Longer Story

This chapter summarizes recent evidence about the links between successful leadership and student learning. Results of a wide-ranging review of literature, initially completed several years ago (Leithwood, Louis, Anderson, & Wahlstrom, 2004) and regularly updated, are combined with key findings from a large-scale study of leadership and student learning currently underway in US schools. Results from the study reported in this chapter are based on responses by more than 3,400 teachers and 130 school administrators to the first of two rounds of surveys. Also included are selected results the first three rounds of district and school site visits including observations of instruction in more than 165 classrooms and interviews with 32 principals and 180 teachers, along with based members, community members and district staff.

Relationships between school start time, sleep duration, and adolescent behaviors

Objectives: The objectives were 2‐fold: (1) to examine how high school start times relate to adolescent sleep duration, and (2) to test associations between sleep duration and mental health– and substance use–related issues and behaviors in teens. Design: This study examines selected questions from survey data collected between 2010 and 2013 high school students. Setting: Respondents included more than 9000 students in grades 9 to 12 in 8 high schools in 5 school districts across the United States. Measurements: The survey instrument is the 97‐item Teen Sleep Habits Survey. Logistic regression models were used to calculate adjusted odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals. Because of clustering within schools and the use of repeated measures, generalized estimating equations were used to account for variance inflation. Results: Greater sleep duration was associated with fewer reports of various mental health– and substance use–related issues and behaviors (all P values <.01). For instance, for each additional hour of sleep reported, there was a 28% reduction in the adjusted odds of a participant reporting that he or she felt “unhappy, sad, or depressed.” Later wake‐up times were associated with a reduction in risk for some, but not all factors. Later start times were significantly associated with greater sleep duration. Conclusions: Given that later start times allow for greater sleep duration and that adequate sleep duration is associated with more favorable mental health– and substance use–related issues and behaviors, it is important that school districts prioritize exploring and implementing policies, such as delayed start times, that may increase the amount of sleep of adolescent students, which is needed for their optimal development.

Examining teachers' beliefs through action research: guidance and counseling/pastoral care reflected in the cross-cultural mirror

Abstract The TRIO Project (Teacher Training & Research for Individuals & Organisations) began with the notion that cross-cultural reflection could be an effective tool by which teachers could examine their personal belief systems about learning, teaching and pupil guidance. University-based teacher educators from four countries, the Netherlands, Russia, the United States and the United Kingdom, worked collaboratively to create this 3-year project. They first had teachers systematically examine their own teaching practices at the local level using action research strategies and then brought them together in an annual international workshop, where the teachers from all four countries were able to reflect upon their work and their pedagogical belief systems using a cross-cultural lens. This article describes the process used to facilitate that exchange, and what was learned by both teachers and teacher-educators about the value of cross-cultural reflective practice leading to personal and professional growth.

Self-report surveys of student sleep and well-being: a review of use in the context of school start times

&NA; A large body of literature supports the need to delay high school starting times to improve student health and well‐being by allowing students an opportunity to get sufficient and appropriately timed sleep. However, a dearth of uniform and standardized tools has hampered efforts to collect data on adolescent sleep and related health behaviors that might be used to establish a need for, or to evaluate outcomes of, bell time delays. To assess validated tools available to schools and contrast them with tools that schools have actually used, we identified and reviewed published, validated self‐report surveys of adolescent sleep and well‐being, as well as unpublished surveys, used to assess student sleep and related health measures in US high schools considering later high school start times. Only three of the surveys reviewed had adequate psychometric properties and covered an appropriately wide range of health and academic questions to allow for discernment of outcomes in pre‐post educational settings. The surveys exhibited marked variability in numerous areas, including focus, terminology, calculation of sleep duration, mode of administration, context of administration, and follow‐up procedures. Our findings provide sleep researchers and school administrators with an overview of surveys that school districts have used, along with a deeper understanding of the challenges of choosing, designing, and administering self‐report surveys in the context of changing school schedules. They also highlight the opportunities presented by these instruments to assess outcomes of delaying bell times, compare communities meaningfully, and establish the need for later school start times in individual school districts.

Later start time for teens improves grades, mood, and safety:

A recent study by the University of Minnesota looked at eight high schools across the U.S. that chose later start times, from 8:00 a.m. to 8:55 a.m. The study found significant decreases in absences and tardiness as well as greater academic benefits for schools with the latest start times. Among the 9,395 students in the study, those who slept eight or more hours each night were less likely to report symptoms of depression and fall asleep in class. Moreover, after the change to a later start time, the number of car crashes in the districts studied decreased by 13%. Included are recommendations for schools and districts considering changing their high school start times.