Improving Data for School Discipline Research Conference

Funded by the American Education Research Association (AERA)’s Research Conference Grant Program and hosted by the University of Florida’s Education Policy Research Center, the Improving Data for School Discipline research conference brought together a select group of leading and emerging scholars in the field of school discipline research to collaboratively chart paths toward innovative data sources that further our understanding of school discipline and the effectiveness of policies and interventions at reducing exclusionary discipline and improving equity in discipline.

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School Reopening Plans and Reported Cases of COVID in Schools

Like schools worldwide, schooling in Florida has changed drastically this year because of the global COVID-19 pandemic. Almost all Florida school districts reopened this year with an in-person option guided by local reopening plans that aimed to create safe learning environments. UF’s Education Policy Research Center tracked the development of these reopening plans as part of the Florida School Reopening Plans Database. Now that schools have reopened, this policy brief examines how characteristics of reopening plans relate to reported cases of COVID in schools through October 24th. The results in this brief, while correlational, suggest that practices including beginning the year entirely remote and requiring masks are related to lower COVID rates in schools.

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