Creating Welcoming Schools: The Role of Positive Climates in Reducing Absenteeism

JEROME GRAHAM is an assistant professor of K–12 Educational Administration at Michigan State University. His research evaluates the implementation and effects of educational policies and practices that have the potential to make schools more humanizing for Black children. Jerome's work explores the question, “How would schooling look differently if it were structured in a way that equitably facilitated the social and emotional learning (SEL) and well-being of all—and especially Black—students?” He anchors this work through interdisciplinary, mixed-method scholarship that highlights three areas that would look radically different if policies and practices nurtured students’ well-being: school climate, school discipline, and mental health. His research draws attention to these areas by: (1) problematizing, analyzing, and documenting the disparities that often make school a “site of suffering” for Black students and (2) investigating the implementation and effects of policies and practices offering alternatives to current schooling approaches that would center, improve, and affirm well-being.

YI-CHIH CHIANG is an assistant professor of P–12 educational administration at Idaho State University. Her research uses an equity lens to examine education reform, focusing on policy implementation, school improvement, and educator professional learning. Her research investigates (1) teacher leaders’ career trajectories in the educator labor market and their roles in fostering organizational improvement and effective policy implementation and (2) how policy implementation is shaped by discourse and stakeholder engagement, with a particular emphasis on addressing systemic inequities in education.

SU YON CHOI is a PhD candidate in education policy at Michigan State University. Her research focuses on two key levers through which education policy and practice can create supportive schooling conditions for underserved student populations. First, she examines how the autonomy of educational leaders shapes the conditions under which schools operate and, in turn, influences student learning. Second, she analyzes how school climate and organizational practices shape student behavioral outcomes. Across both levers, she centers chronic absenteeism as a key outcome to understand how policy and practice shape student success.