Sheeren Naser

As school psychology works to advance social justice in research, training, and practice, interpretation of social justice often emphasizes dismantling the racism in our educational system. Associated efforts among school psychologists and school psychology organizations to address decolonization have primarily been symbolic (e.g., land acknowledgements). Social justice and antiracism are important but insufficient to disrupt colonization and support liberation. To truly realize liberation as both a process and a goal, we must work towards decolonization. And to decolonize the field, school psychologists must understand colonialism and how it has and continues to shape the field. This critical consciousness is necessary to support the un/learning needed to better support sustained, structural change in all aspects of our professional work. This manuscript is the first in a two-part series on colonization, decolonization, and Indigenization of school psychology. Here, we provide an overview of colonization and then discuss its influence in education and school psychology, including diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice initiatives. We assert that decolonization and Indigenization are required to address colonization as a macro-structure and prevent its continued harms in schools and society.

Social justice initiatives often ignore or minimize the concepts, processes, and realities of colonialism, decolonization, or Indigenization. In Part 1, we overviewed colonialism and how it shapes school psychology and limits the potential of equity and social justice initiatives to promote inclusive liberation. We argued that decolonization and Indigenization are necessary for liberatory futures. In Part 2, we define Indigenization and decolonization, discuss the varied ways each can be enacted, and propose leveraging the two in tandem to foster liberatory school psychology praxis for transformative action. We define this praxis and provide key examples of how it addresses the harms of colonialism in educational and school psychology practice. We conclude with an illustrative composite story accompanied by guiding questions to support readers’ reflexivity.

Dominant knowledge systems rely on a Western perspective of creating and disseminating new information. These systems marginalize traditional ways of knowing including co-creating knowledge, personal narratives and lived experiences, as well as inherited cultural knowledge. Additionally, Western knowledge systems have centered the White adult male as the primary knowledge creator both through what has been valued in contemporary scientific traditions and culturally in the image of who is considered capable of creating knowledge. Those who do not fit this image have historically been marginalized and exploited in the pursuit of knowledge making including youth and particularly youth with diverse racial/ethnic identities. It is these narrow epistemological systems that have informed school psychology research and practice since its inception. Recent calls for social justice as central to school psychology work have challenged the status quo and emphasized the amplification of marginalized voices in research and practice. Therefore, this article outlines methodologies that subvert more traditional knowledge-making strategies foundational to school psychology work and critiques these to provide guidelines for methodologies that can truly incorporate youth as co-researchers, particularly Black, Indigenous and youth of color within a US context. A case study illustrating the implementation of these guidelines is included.

One uniquely marginalizing school environment for sexual and gender diverse (SGD) youth is school based sex education (SBSE). While research has documented the negative sexual and mental health impacts these marginalizing environments can have for SGD youth, we know less about the developmental competencies that this population of youth exercises to survive in and cope with these environments. In this paper, we aim to answer the following question: What are the developmental competencies that SGD youth exercise in sex education spaces? We conducted focus groups with SGD youth (n = 17) in a Midwestern metropolitan region. Our study documents youth exercising six adaptive competencies to persevere through oppressive SBSE. Our data holds several scholarly and practical implications. In our discussion section, we present recommendations for creating inclusive and affirming school environments and nurturing these competencies in youth.

The purpose of this study is to describe how school-based sexuality education (SBSE) in the context of health education frames and teaches sexuality, sexual orientation, and gender identity. Understanding how schools address sexuality and gender provides insight into how school systems might ostracize sexual and gender diverse (SGD) youth. This study used content analysis to survey 13 health education textbooks in the United States. The content of textbooks provides a sampling of cultural, economic, and political activities and the ways they may be portrayed in the school setting. All textbooks had to be (1) health education textbooks, (2) intended for middle and high school, (3) published in the last 15 years, and (4) required or recommended by a state or local Department of Education, or produced by a publisher recommended by a department of education. Results of this study indicate that 11 of the 13 reviewed textbooks had abstinence based or abstinence only until marriage sexuality education that presented narrow, binary definitions of gender and sexual orientation, and that ignored or provided misinformation about gender identity and sexual orientation. Results of this study suggest that school personnel should consider alternatives to widely available health textbooks to teach more inclusive, affirming, and effective sexuality education.

The current study describes the process of a participatory consultation framework, the Participatory Culture Specific Intervention Model (PCSIM), to plan and implement a data-based decision-making framework. The framework integrates proactive and systematic identification of emotional and behavioral needs as well as cognitive psychology techniques to promote more deliberate teacher decision making around student behavior. Using a participatory consultation framework is one way to build deeper school buy-in for implementing new initiatives by addressing immediate needs, taking into consideration school context and culture, and explicitly involving important stakeholders in all aspects of the planning and implementation process. We will describe the PCSIM consultation process for developing and piloting a decision-making framework around student behavior that emphasizes prevention and attempts to negate the role of implicit racial bias on decision making in order to reduce disproportionality in behavioral referrals. The current study describes phases 1–9 out of 11 of the PCSIM processes.

The extant literature on suicide-related thoughts and behaviors (STB) has highlighted increased patterns of risk among specific minoritized populations, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, intersex, two spirit, and queer (LGBTQ+) youth. Compared to their heterosexual and cisgender peers, LGBTQ+ youth are at increased risk for having STB. Identity-specific stressors such as homonegativity and anti-queerness are among the unique factors posited to contribute to this risk and inhibit factors that protect against suicide. The school setting has been a focal point for suicide prevention and intervention and may also play a key role in linking students to care; however, schools also hold the potential to provide supports and experiences that may buffer against risk factors for STB in LGBTQ+ students. This systematic literature review presents findings from 44 studies examining school-related correlates of STB in LGBTQ+ students, informing an ecological approach to suicide prevention for school settings. Findings underscore the importance of school context for preventing STB in LGBTQ+ youth. Approaches that prioritize safety and acceptance of LGBTQ+ youth should span multiple layers of a student’s ecology, including district and state level policies and school programs and interventions, such as Gender and Sexuality Alliances and universal bullying prevention programs. Beyond their role as a primary access point for behavioral health services, schools offer a unique opportunity to support suicide prevention by combating minority stressors through promoting positive social relationships and a safe community for LGBTQ+ students.

Gender and sexually diverse (GSD) students face unique challenges in schools due to the privileging of cisgender and heterosexist norms in these settings. In particular, GSD youth who belong to ethnically and racially minoritized groups face further challenges within school environments that disregard their cultural contexts and intersectional identities. It is important for school psychologists to ensure safe and high-quality mental health, educational, and behavioral supports for these students. One possible avenue for building these types of supports is through school consultation. When school psychologists collaborate with other professionals in a culturally competent, participatory way, their work has the potential to bolster behavioral, academic, and mental health outcomes at the individual, group, and/or systems levels. Adapting Ingraham’s multicultural school consultation model, this article proposes a multicultural, GSD affirming school consultation framework that also approaches the experiences of racially and ethnically minoritized individuals through the lenses of intersectionality and minority stress frameworks. Across its five domains, this adapted framework aims to give practitioners and researchers a conceptual foundation to support GSD students of minoritized ethnic and racial identities by considering interactions among consultants, consultees, and clients within their wider school contexts.

The purpose of this study is to describe the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, intersex, two spirit, and queer (LGBTQ+) youth with school-based sexuality education (SBSE), as well as to document strategies LGBTQ+ youth are using to address their evolving and specific sexual health needs outside of SBSE. Researchers conducted focus groups with 17 adolescents (ages 14–18) from urban and suburban Midwestern cities. Results of this study indicate LGBTQ+ youth find SBSE to be heteronormative, cisgender focused, and primarily focused on pregnancy and disease prevention, which contributes to LGBTQ+ youth experiences of exclusion. In response to SBSE that did not meet student needs, participants reported seeking sexual health information outside of SBSE. Other sources included family and other trusted adults, the Internet, and community resource centers. Students reported variable rates of use and trustworthiness across these resources. Results of this study suggest that school personnel should consider alternatives to traditional SBSE models to meet the needs of LGBTQ+ youth, and that an important part of SBSE should include guidelines for Internet safety.

The BASC-3 Behavioral and Emotional Screening System Student Form (BESS SF) is the latest iteration of a widely used instrument for identifying students at behavioral and emotional risk. Measurement invariance across race/ethnicity and gender for the latest BESS SF has not yet been established. Using a sample of 737 U.S. urban fourth- to eighth-grade students, we tested competing models of the BESS SF to determine the best-fitting factor structure. We also tested for measurement equivalence by race/ethnicity (i.e., White, Black, Latinx) and gender (i.e., boys, girls). Consistent with prior findings, we identified that a bifactor structure of the BESS SF best fit the data and supported measurement equivalence across race/ethnicity and gender. These findings provide further support for using the BESS SF to conduct universal behavioral and emotional screening among diverse students. More research is needed in schools serving students with greater racial/ethnic and socioeconomic diversity.

Despite the evidence implicating implicit racial bias in teacher decision-making as one reason for the overrepresentation of Black male students in school discipline practices, there is minimal research regarding interventions that address implicit racial bias in the school setting. A System 2 cue refers to a behavioral cue that engages more deliberate and controlled cognitive processes in decision-making and mitigates the impact of unconscious racial bias in decision-making, in contrast to System 1 processing which employs more automatic cognitive processes. This pilot study evaluated the use of a System 2 cue in teacher decision-making and included 361 practicing teachers. All participants read a vignette describing a Black male student’s behavior and were then assigned to a control condition or the System 2 cue condition. Differences in teacher perception of troublesome behavior were analyzed with independent samples t test and likelihood of completing an office discipline referral was compared with binary logistic regression. Results indicate that addition of a System 2 cue predicted ODR likelihood, but perception of troublesome behavior was more predictive and explained the relationship between System 2 cue and referral likelihood. Further, we found differences in two aspects of troublesome behavior perception (i.e., level of concern and belief that the behavior will occur again in the future) for teachers receiving a System 2 cue compared to those who did not, preliminarily suggesting that some perceptions of troublesome behavior may be alterable through System 2 cues. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)

Impact Statement

Results of this study indicate that cuing more deliberate decision-making processes in a student behavioral referral process rendered teachers less likely to perceive the behaviors of a Black student in a vignette as troublesome. Teachers who were less likely to perceive student behavior as troublesome were also less likely to complete an office discipline referral. These results indicate that cues prompting teachers to be more deliberate about decision-making may impact teachers’ perceptions of student behavior and ultimately result in fewer discipline referrals for Black boys in schools. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)

Schools are encouraged to take a proactive approach to mental health through the use of a tiered system of supports facilitated by universal mental health screening. However, schools may experience difficulty implementing universal screening and large-scale systems change. The purpose of this study was to explore multilevel implementation determinants, identify strategies that aided implementation, and examine how implementation determinants and strategies impacted implementation reach for two schools adopting and initially implementing universal screening within a tiered mental health system. We used a mixed-methods case study design where qualitative analysis of focus groups identified themes related to implementation determinants and strategies, and quantitative data compared implementation reach before and after the initial implementation of universal screening. Focus groups identified themes of broader influence, structures, school climate, personnel, and resources that enabled and obstructed the implementation process. To aid the tiered system, schools used implementation strategies of outreach and systems, screening, and intervention planning. Integrative mixed-methods analysis identified influences of these determinants and strategies on changes in implementation reach at Tier 1; however, only minimal changes occurred at Tiers 2 and 3. Results highlight the importance of attending to implementation factors when adopting and initially implementing a tiered mental health system.

Decision-making has been identified as one of the most important skillsets in sexual health. This exploratory qualitative study explored how US middle and high school textbooks integrate the recommended sexual health decision-making skills recommended by Future of Sex Education (FOSE), a collaboration of organisations in the USA supporting comprehensive sex education. Using content analysis, we assessed 13 U.S. middle and high school health education textbooks recommended by school districts, state boards of education, and publishers. While textbooks touched on the knowledge and content areas for each skill set, skills were not taught to the extent that the skill was achieved or using a scaffolded approach that showed significant growth from middle to high school textbooks. As a result, young people receive inadequate content to competently perform the skills recommended by current National Standards. Changing state and district level health and sex education policies and aligning the curriculum with these standards, can better promote youth sexual decision-making.

Recent academic and popular conversations regarding #MeToo, sexual violence and harassment, and rape culture have begun to focus on K-12 educational spaces in the U.S., but they rarely examine how educational curricula actually foster or combat these dynamics. In this article, we present a qualitative content analysis of health education textbooks, which explores the following question: What implicit and explicit messages do youth receive about sexual violence, and specifically, sexual violence prevention in health education textbooks? As we explored this question, we analyzed the roles that sex education curricula may play in shaping (e.g., contributing to, intervening upon) rape culture. We found the following messages across textbooks: abstinence is the only way to preserve one’s safety; lack of abstinence increases risks, including the risk of being raped; and girls/women must assume personal responsibility and enact strategies that preserve one’s abstinence and prevent them from being raped. This article concludes by teasing out how curricula can shape interactions, relationships, and culture, and by offering recommendations for improving sex education curricula.

There are known cultural variations in correlates of and symptoms related to suicide-related thoughts and behaviors; however, the majority of research that informs suicide prevention in school systems has focused on research based on Euro-American/White students. By exploring school-related risk and protective factors in ethnic-racial minoritized students, we expand existing multicultural models of suicide prevention for school settings. Specifically, this systematic literature review identified 33 studies conducted with American Indian and Alaskan Native, Hispanic and Latinx, Black and African American, and Asian American and Pacific Islander students. Findings underscore the importance of building relationships with the school community and fostering a sense of safety for students, the need to approach school-based suicide prevention and intervention with cultural considerations, and the importance of connecting students and families with providers in culturally sensitive and informed ways. Taken together, schools need to build school–family–community partnerships that promote culturally sensitive approaches to suicide prevention.

Impact Statement

Findings from this review underscore the importance of strengthening school relationships, fostering a sense of safety and trust, and eradicating bullying for preventing suicide in ethnic-racial minoritized students. By expanding on previous theories of multicultural suicide prevention, we call for the implementation of culturally sensitive risk assessments and suicide prevention programs in school settings that are built from partnerships with families and communities.

Behavioral and social-emotional challenges experienced in childhood are risk factors for negative educational and health outcomes. Universal social-emotional screening in schools has been identified as an effective approach to identifying children at risk for mental health and behavioral challenges and is congruent with tiered frameworks for data-based decision-making and mental health service delivery. Even so, implementation of screening in schools has been limited, and many schools continue to rely on office discipline referrals (ODRs) as a primary source for the identification of students needing support. This paper uses two case studies to illustrate key steps in the process of implementing universal screening. The case studies demonstrate a systematic approach to implementation and ways in which universal screening can be used to support multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) initiatives, highlighting the importance of foundational planning using a multidisciplinary team of school personnel.

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The chapter discusses the roles and responsibilities of the school psychologist in their commitment to promote child rights and well-being on individual and system levels. The school psychologist’s roles that are explored include assessment, individual and group intervention, consultation, research and evaluation, and advocacy. Furthermore, the chapter highlights the school psychologists’ unique position as advocates for child rights in education. Finally, concrete guidelines about school psychologists’ future roles in the implementation of children’s rights are presented.

While there is a myriad of ways to use technological advances in the school setting, this chapter focuses particularly on educational technology in contrast and supplemental to a traditional or more typical school setting. The chapter starts by describing articles of the UN (1989) Convention on the Rights of the Child (Convention) that are of importance in understanding the use of technology in schools, followed by a description of technological trends in learning. The chapter delves into three important applications of technology in advancing child rights in education, including how technology can support student access to learning (Article 28), how technology can support education that advances the development of each child’s full potential (Article 29), and finally a section on practical applications for school psychologists to facilitate technology use in line with the Convention, including protecting each child’s freedom of expression (Article 13), thought (Article 14), and association (Article 15). This chapter relies on case studies and practical examples from the authors’ own experiences to illustrate the concepts being described.

This chapter presents the conceptual foundations for envisioning school psychologists as child rights advocates. Using an ecological-developmental framework (Bronfenbrenner, Measuring environment across the life span: Emerging methods and concepts. American Psychological Association, Washington, DC, 1999), we depict the child’s ecology as a nested set of systems that influence the child’s development and well-being. The school psychologist is pictured as a central “mesosystem” that facilitates the integration of child rights throughout the ecology. To the macrosystem, we added a meta-macrosystem that represents the all-encompassing influence of child rights on the ecology of the child. The second model is a depiction of child rights-based school psychology, in which we envision the integration of child rights based on the UN (Convention on the Rights of the Child. Available: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/crc.htm, 1989) Convention on the Rights of the Child (Convention) within professional school psychology. Surrounding the child’s ecology, we portray the key components for professional school psychology that are critical to promotion and advocacy for child well-being: mission, guiding principles, contexts, stakeholders, domains, and roles. Within this model, we integrate child rights and professional ethics as guiding principles for the school psychologist. Finally, we provide an overview of Convention articles and discuss their integration with the mission and standards for international school psychology. This chapter sets the stage for subsequent chapters in the book that address integration of child rights with school psychology.

Creating a culture of respect for child rights within professional school psychology requires that child rights are central to the ideology of professionals individually and collectively and that individual professionals have the knowledge, values, beliefs, and skills for engaging in child advocacy. To accomplish this necessitates review and possible reconceptualization or extension of professional preparation and development. The purpose of this chapter is to examine the competencies necessary for engaging in advocacy efforts and current representation of child rights in professional standards for training, practice, and ethics and to propose a course of action for initial preparation in university training programs and continued professional development of school psychologists. We also introduce the training materials (These training materials are available in a training manual which is a resource to this volume provided online at no charge by the publisher) developed through the collaborative efforts of ISPA, CRED-PRO, Tulane University, APA’s Division 16, and Cleveland State University, and we conclude with recommendations for training programs and professional organizations.

This chapter presents the conceptual foundations for envisioning school psychologists as child rights advocates. Using an ecological-developmental framework (Bronfenbrenner, Measuring environment across the life span: Emerging methods and concepts. American Psychological Association, Washington, DC, 1999), we depict the child’s ecology as a nested set of systems that influence the child’s development and well-being. The school psychologist is pictured as a central “mesosystem” that facilitates the integration of child rights throughout the ecology. To the macrosystem, we added a meta-macrosystem that represents the all-encompassing influence of child rights on the ecology of the child. The second model is a depiction of child rights-based school psychology, in which we envision the integration of child rights based on the UN (Convention on the Rights of the Child. Available: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/crc.htm, 1989) Convention on the Rights of the Child (Convention) within professional school psychology. Surrounding the child’s ecology, we portray the key components for professional school psychology that are critical to promotion and advocacy for child well-being: mission, guiding principles, contexts, stakeholders, domains, and roles. Within this model, we integrate child rights and professional ethics as guiding principles for the school psychologist. Finally, we provide an overview of Convention articles and discuss their integration with the mission and standards for international school psychology. This chapter sets the stage for subsequent chapters in the book that address integration of child rights with school psychology.

Consultation, one of the central roles of a school psychologist, is a strong method for the promotion of child well-being at a public health level (Doll, Cummings, Transforming school mental health services: population-based approaches to promoting the competency and wellness of children. Corwin Press with National Association of School Psychologists, Thousand Oaks, 2008). As an evidenced-based service delivery model, consultation enables school psychologists to use a prevention framework of practice that better serves the needs of entire student populations (Hess et al., Comprehensive children’s mental health services in schools and communities: a public health problem-solving model. Routledge, New York, 2012). The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child continually calls for efforts to ensure the provisions of the United Nations (Convention on the rights of the child. United Nations, Geneva. Retrieved from http://www.unicef.org/crc/, 1989) Convention on the Rights of the Child (Convention) are widely known and understood (Committee on the Rights of the Child, Report of the committee on the rights of the child. United Nations, New York. Retrieved from http://www.un.org/documents/ga/docs/55/a5541.pdf, 2000; United Nations, General Assembly, Report on the committee of the rights of the child. A/67/41. Retrieved from http://www.refworld.org/pdfid/50a0cd982.pdf, 2012). This chapter serves to educate school psychologists on the Convention and to demonstrate how the Convention could be integrated into the consultation practice of a school psychologist. Through case examples that utilize primary forms of consultation, the chapter illustrates ways in which the Convention can strengthen the consultation process and improve outcomes for consultees and students. By engaging in consultation with a child rights lens, school psychologists improve the overall quality of their consultation practice as well as their capabilities overall.

One of the most important rights ensured by the United Nations’ 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child is the right of all children to education, which is addressed in Articles 28 and 29. The United Nations’ 2015 Sustainable Development Goals, specifically Goal 4 (SDG4), calls for universal inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong learning by 2030. In this chapter, we examine children’s rights to education and the responsibility of adults and society to ensure child rights within educational settings, as articulated in the Convention and SDGs. We also address how the Convention and SDG4 can be used to guide schools and educators in establishing policies, structures, and practices that ensure the promotion and protection of child rights within educational settings. Further, we examine the role of schools and educators in teaching children about their rights, for example, through integration into school policies and curriculum. We propose that efforts to ensure child rights to and within education be directed at the child, providers (e.g., caregivers, teachers), school system, community, and policymakers. We conclude with an illustrative story from a child’s perspective.

This study used growth curve modeling to map risk by gender across the middle school transition. Participants included 609 (49.5% female) students in grades 4–8 in an urban school serving primarily African American youth from low-income communities. Results indicated that overall risk increased over time and was consistent over the middle school transition. Further analysis indicated risk change was domain and gender specific. For example, across the inattention–hyperactivity and externalizing domains both male and female students showed increased risk; however, risk increased at a faster rate for girls. Despite patterns of increase in risk, boys and girls showed stability in their reports of personal adjustment, a domain associated with resiliency. These results highlight the importance of screening to capture student need over time and the inclusion of strengths-based domains in screening tools.

Minoritized youth encounter racial and ethnic prejudice and discrimination in a variety of settings, including schools. Prejudice refers to harboring negative attitudes and beliefs toward targeted social groups; discrimination reflects translating those attitudes into actions that marginalize targeted groups. Exposure to racial and ethnic discrimination has been associated with numerous detrimental outcomes for youth, including poorer mental health outcomes and lower levels of academic performance. This article describes the nature of racial and ethnic discrimination encountered by minoritized youth as well as its impact on these populations. It also reviews research on prejudice reduction interventions for youth, with a focus on those interventions designed for school settings. In light of existing research, several policy recommendations support high-quality, evidence-based programming in schools.

To fulfill the promise of inclusive school environments that support all students, it is necessary to understand the mechanisms by which discrimination and support occur in the school setting and how these mechanisms impact student development. The current study explored ways schools facilitate supportive or marginalizing experiences for first generation Arab heritage youth in the United States and investigated how these experiences impact acculturative experiences and identity negotiation for these students. Focus groups were conducted with 21 Arab American early college students and community dwellers. Qualitative analyses revealed three mechanisms by which the school setting uniquely impacts Arab heritage student’s identity negotiation in high school:

1. peer and teacher discrimination
2. school curriculum treatment of Arab history and culture
3. and broader school structures that allow for student cultural expression

Implications and suggestions for School Psychologists are discussed.

A critical component of any school-based prevention program is early identification of student risk as reported by Lane et al. (Remedial and Special Education 32:39–54, 2011). While screening for academic risk has grown in the last decade, screening for behavioral risk has remained stagnant. Few schools systematically screen for behavioral and emotional risk, and those that do rely on subjective referral systems that have been linked to disproportionality in special education and exclusionary discipline practices. An alternative to these subjective referral systems is universal screening for behavioral and emotional risk. Despite evidence that this standardized screening measure is both valid and reliable, few schools have adopted universal screening tools for behavioral and emotional risk. One potential reason for the lagging use of screening for behavioral and emotional risk is lack of information regarding the utility of these measures. This study compares the predicative validity of a universal screening tool for behavioral and emotional risk, and the predictive validity of the more traditionally used office discipline referrals. Results indicate that the universal screening measure, the Behavioral and Emotional Screening System Teacher Form (BESS TF), is a more reliable predictor of student GPA (t₍₁₃₂₎ = 5.062, p < .001) and absences (t₍₁₃₂₎ = 2.370, p < .02) than office discipline referrals (ODRs), while both ODRs and the BESS TF reliably predict student suspension rates. The ability of the BESS TF to identify students experiencing behavioral and emotional risk that impacts both their academic and behavioral functioning at school makes it a more useful measure than ODRs alone.

School-based universal screening for behavioral and emotional risk can serve as a foundation for effective multi-tiered service delivery systems. The current study examines the measurement and structure of one such universal screener, the Behavioral and Emotional Screening System Student Form (BESS SF). Four models were investigated including a unidimensional model, a multidimensional model, a second-order model, and a bifactor model. This study is the first to use a bifactor model in examining the structure of the BESS SF, and further adds to the literature by using bifactor modeling with a predominantly low-income, urban, African American sample. Results indicate that the bifactor model provided the best fit. Practically, results support interpretation of the global risk score as well as the domain-specific factors.

Background: School satisfaction is linked to a number of important school outcomes like academic performance and school engagement. Following exposure to disasters, adolescents may undergo mental health challenges that threaten factors critical to school satisfaction, such as positive school climate and supportive school relationships.

Objective: The current study examined the mediating role of posttraumatic stress symptoms on the relationship between exposure to a hurricane and school dissatisfaction.

Method: Regression analyses were used to test relationships in a large sample of predominately White female high school students who participated in a needs assessment 6 months after Hurricane Katrina.

Results: Results revealed a significant, direct association between hurricane exposure and dissatisfaction with school, as well as indirect associations via posttraumatic stress symptoms.

Conclusions: These findings underscore the need for research to explicate the relationship between disasters and school satisfaction. Research is also needed to determine whether school-based interventions that have shown success in reducing anxiety symptoms in youth post-disaster also work to minimize disruptions in the school environment and ultimately reduce dissatisfaction with school.

The United Nations (1989) Convention on the Rights of the Child was designed to promote and protect the survival, development, and well-being of children, thus extending human rights to individuals from birth to age 18. This article examines the consistency of the Articles of the Convention with the professional standards for school psychology, as articulated by the major organizations representing the profession in the USA––American Psychological Association, International School Psychology Association, and National Association of School Psychologists. Although the standards for ethics, practice, and training of these organizations are generally consistent with the UN Convention, the standards lack the specificity provided by the Convention’s 54 Articles. To facilitate the application of child rights’ principles in school psychology practice, we propose a model for integrating the professional standards with the Articles of the Convention. In addition, we describe a curriculum for training of school psychologists, developed through a partnership of several organizations, which is consistent with the model. In the curriculum, the school psychologist is regarded as the mesosystem in the child’s ecology, to characterize the psychologist’s central role in ensuring the promotion and protection of child rights within school, family, community, and society.

Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath caused widespread loss and disruption to New Orleans and the surrounding communities. This review examines the impact of disasters, specifically Hurricane Katrina, on children’s mental health. Particular attention is given to the long-term effects of untreated mental health concerns, which include pervasive problems such as emotional and behavioral dysregulation as well as increased academic problems. The article also addresses lessons learned about meeting the mental health needs of children in a post-disaster environment by examining the successes and failures within the current system and legislative aims designed to ameliorate the vast level of need for mental health services that still exists 5 years after the storm.