This study examines how federal policy governing military recruiters' access to student information preserves informed consent for students and families. After a significant decline in active-duty members in the armed forces from 1954 to 2024, military recruitment has directed an increased amount of efforts towards youth, especially from underrepresented communities. This study analyzes the implementation of Section 8025 of the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015, which replaced Section 9528 of the No Child Left Behind Act. Section 8025 requires schools receiving federal funding to provide military recruiters with students’ contact information unless a parent explicitly opts out, removing schools’ ability to establish their own opt-in policies. While prior research has explored general awareness of military enlistment, little attention has been paid to whether students and families understand their right to opt out of this data sharing. This study seeks to answer: “To what extent is there a knowledge gap of the opt-out guidelines between school administrators and students from high schools in East Los Angeles?” Through interviews with both high schoolers and school administrators, this study has found that both groups often lack clear awareness that opting out is possible. The results further suggest that schools do not consistently present opt-out provisions as an active, accessible choice, a gap that helps sustain the school-to-military pipeline.

For years, both in and out of school, immigrant English Language Learners (ELLs) have felt culture shock, language barriers, social and economic differences, and a multitude of other factors of marginalization in their daily lives when coming to the United States. With present economic threats being made by the Trump administration to reduce funding for public school ELL programs, the purpose of this research is to explore how schools help or constrain this marginalized community’s sense of belonging by way of informal non-academic spaces. Through the narratives provided by six interviewees, four past ELLs and two teachers, I found that in environments where students' diverse backgrounds, cultures, and experiences are valued, respected, and integrated into the educational experience, culturally responsive informal spaces fostered enriching mentorship between teachers and their ELL students. However, interviewee narratives also revealed that even in a culturally responsive school climate, informal school spaces also serve to marginalize ELL students and exclude students, even via a teacher's well-intended, yet problematic ELL assumptions. The significance of this work is to highlight the stories of Latine immigrant ELLs and use them to create school strategies to support ELL finding a greater sense of belonging. Keywords: English Language Learners (ELLs), immigrant students, Latine immigrant, Cultural Responsiveness

A growing field of research examines impacts curriculum and instruction have on addressing inequities in college entry and retention for students of varying immigrant status. Our research examines college-access challenges and assets prevalent amongst immigrant students enrolled in high schools college-preparation courses, investigates curriculum and instruction design, and offers relevant recommendations. To analyze these issues, and utilizing a theoretical framing of culturally responsive pedagogy, we conducted a year-long community based participatory action research project at a local high school in Koreatown guided by the following questions: What are the unique college-going needs of high school students with varying immigrant statuses, and how can these be reflected in the curriculum and instruction of the college and career preparation courses? Methods include observation field notes, classroom lesson plans, and classroom artifacts across an academic year of three independent college-career readiness courses. We employ qualitative coding to find that students benefit from culturally responsive instruction, community asset based mentorship, accessibility of instruction through home language, and recognition of the way external factors affect classroom engagement. We offer recommendations into intentional curriculum support for students of varying immigrant status, especially first-generation or low-income students, in order to increase college and career success.

Community colleges are well-known to provide students with a path toward higher education that is affordable and accessible. Through the successful completion of general education courses and lower-division course work, community college students complete course work equivalent to that which can be taken at a 4-year university. However, as community college students transfer from a 2-year college to a 4-year university, they may face obstacles and challenges as they are acclimating to the new environment. This could vary in types of external factors such as the setting, academics, and community. In this intervention, its purpose is to identify the best way to build, shape, and foster resilient, social, aspiration, and navigation capital to equip transfer students to succeed and increase retention within the Chemistry and Biochemistry department at an R1 university.