Youths' Perspectives on the Reasons Underlying School Truancy and Opportunities to Improve School Attendance by Lauren Nichol Gase, Amelia DeFosset, Raymond Perry and Tony Kuo

Utilizing a participatory research design and youth research assistants throughout the process, this study goes directly to the source by speaking directly to students who struggle with chronic absenteeism. Throughout they provide honest reflections on why they engage in school avoidance and identify actionable solutions for school leaders to promote more welcoming and engaging environments.

Strategy Development for Urban Dropout Prevention: Partnering With Formerly Incarcerated Adult Noncompleters by Decoteau J. Irby and Lynnette Mawhinney

This study provides a rare opportunity for educators to hear from those failed and marginalized by the education system. Their insights identify complex, structural factors that lead to school disengagement and offer humanizing strategies to create systems that support students, families and communities. This article demonstrates that educational leaders looking to create innovative supports should intentionally seek the perspectives of noncompleters whose view of the system will likely challenge both policy and practice.

“Seeing Their Eyes Through the Rearview Mirror”: Identifying and Responding to Students’ Challenging Experiences by Adam Alvarez

This case study focuses on the ways that one educator helped support his students through the trauma of community violence that directly impacted their school community. It explores how this educator developed intentional relationships with both his students and the community which allowed him to be a reliable, positive presence and influence in periods of turmoil. The article also highlights feelings of uncertainty and even helplessness that educators can experience as they struggle to find the best way to support their students through traumatic events.

Equity-Centered Trauma-Informed Education by Alex Shevrin-Venet

This book and the accompanying web-based resources reframes the dialog around trauma informed education in a focused, approachable and actionable manner. Shevrin-Venet helps educators make the necessary connections between causal factors of trauma such as systemic racism, community disinvestment, and poverty and the practice of trauma-informed education. She centers the lived experiences of students and encourages educators to ground their work in humanizing, affirming relationships with students and intentional efforts to reshape the systems that do not serve them.