Student success in any realm, education, health, recreation, depends on relationships built in the community. School leaders are key to enabling these relationships through schools in creating a safe community for learning. My role at Clemson includes the development of school building leaders and school district leaders. Since 2004, five programs in Educational Leadership have been revised through five pilots in partnership with 16 different school districts. My research interests focus on school and community relationships, school safety, and the effects of educational policy on teaching and learning and relationships.
The formation of the NDPC Fellows opens an opportunity for ensuring that research on school engagement reaches practices and vice versa. Meta-analyses on dropout prevention and reviews of research on the various effective initiatives expand on the contribution that NDPC’s new online journal, Engage: An international journal on research and practices in school engagement promises. As the Editor for Engage, I’m particularly interested in seeing a more dynamic flow between research and practice.