Xinxin Zhang

REL Northeast & Islands staff supported the Vermont Agency of Education in surveying school counselors across the state about college and career pathway advising practices in February 2021, including how the counselor's role changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. This document summarizes the survey findings.

A large urban school district wanted to understand how its first-year teacher mentoring program might better support the district goals of increasing retention and maintaining a diverse workforce. This study investigated new teachers' participation in that program; how participation varied across teacher characteristics, especially how participation varied by the racial/ethnic makeup of new teacher-mentor pairs; and how participation in various aspects of the program was related to new teache...

In recent years Rhode Island's Providence Public School District (PPSD) has put initiatives in place to reduce high chronic absenteeism. This study explored attendance supports aimed at reducing chronic absenteeism that PPSD schools implemented in the 2018/19 school year. Although some schools had attendance supports in place before 2018/19, in 2018 the district added new requirements for schools to address chronic absenteeism. The study investigated what attendance supports were most commonl...

This study examined participation in accelerated college credit programs dual enrollment, concurrent enrollment, and Advanced Placement courses in Rhode Island high schools to understand their effects on educational attainment in the 2013/14 grade 9 cohort. The state, which has funded and promoted these opportunities for students to earn college credit during high school over the past five years, sought evidence of the programs' effects on participants' high school graduation rates, postsecon...

This applied research methods report is a guide for state and local education agency policymakers and their analysts who are interested in studying teacher mobility and retention. This report is the second in a two-part set and builds on the foundational information in report 1. This report presents guidance on how to interpret differences in mobility and retention rates by teacher, school, or district characteristics; analyze year-to-year trends in mobility and retention; compare mobility an...