Suchergebnisse

Many schools have increased their use of paraprofessionals as a primary mechanism to include more students with various disabilities in general education classes. Although intended to be supportive, service delivery that relies extensively on paraprofessionals has resulted in a host of challenges for public schools and questionable services for students with disabilities. This article offers an in-depth description of one elementary school over a 3-year period. It chronicles the school's use of an action planning tool to pursue alternatives to overreliance on paraprofessionals as well as service delivery and financial changes that occurred as a result of the school's actions. The impact of the actions the school implemented and intended next steps offer authentic perspectives for schools facing similar challenges as they seek to extend inclusive schooling opportunities.

Active restoration is becoming an increasingly important conservation intervention to counteract the degradation of marine coastal ecosystems. Understanding what has motivated the scientific community to research the restoration of marine coastal ecosystems and how restoration research projects are funded is essential if we want to scale-up restoration interventions to meaningful extents. Here, we systematically review and synthesize data to understand the motivations for research on the restoration of coral reefs, seagrass, mangroves, saltmarsh, and oyster reefs. We base this analysis off a published database of marine restoration studies, originally designed to estimate the cost and feasibility of marine coastal restoration, derived from mostly scientific studies published in peer-reviewed and some gray literature. For the present study, the database was updated with fields aimed at assessing the motivations, outcomes, and funding sources for each project. We classify restoration motivations into five categories: biotic, experimental, idealistic, legislative, and pragmatic. Moreover, we evaluate the variables measured and outcomes reported by the researchers and evaluate whether projects adhered to the Society for Ecological Restoration's (SER) standards for the practice of ecological restoration. The most common motivation of the scientific community to study restoration in marine coastal ecosystems was experimental i.e., to seek experimental data to answer ecological research questions or improve restoration approach, as expected since mostly peer-reviewed literature was evaluated here. There were differences in motivations among the five coastal ecosystems. For instance, biodiversity enhancement was the most common case for a biotic motivation in mangrove restoration projects. The most common metrics evaluated were growth/productivity, survivorship, habitat function, physical attributes, and reproduction. For most ecosystems, ecological outcomes were frequently reported, with socio-economic implications of ...