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The increased need for effective school leadership development, especially in rural and high-needs schools, has led to an increase in research-practice partnerships between districts and universities. Yet, there is a need for systematic analysis of the outcomes of such partnerships. The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of a leadership development initiative on 16 school leaders and eight leadership coaches and their leadership and leadership coaching practices. The initiative, the Leadership Learning Community (LLC), was created through a research-practice partnership between a consortium of 12 predominantly rural, high-poverty school districts and two universities to meet the districts' leadership development needs. The results of the study demonstrate the benefits of rural school districts partnering with other districts and universities to provide cross-district leadership development through facilitated professional communities and job-embedded coaching to develop rural school leaders and coaches able to lead continuous school improvement efforts.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to characterize parameters used for frequency-following response (FFR) acquisition in children up to 24 months of age through a systematic review. Method: The study was registered in PROSPERO and followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses' recommendations. Search was performed in six databases (LILACS, LIVIVO, PsycINFO, PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science) and gray literature (Google Scholar, OpenGrey, ProQuest)as well as via manual searches in bibliographic references. Observational studies using speech stimuli to elicit the FFR in infants with normal hearing on the age range from 0 until 24 months were included. No restrictions regarding language and year of publication were applied. Risk of bias was assessed with the Joanna Briggs Institute Critical Appraisal Checklist. Data on stimulus, presentation rate, time window for analysis, number of sweeps, artifact rejection, online filters, stimulated ear, and examination condition were extracted. Results: Four hundred fifty-nine studies were identified. After removing duplicates and reading titles and abstracts, 15 articles were included. Seven studies were classified as low risk of bias, seven as moderate risk, and one as high risk. Conclusions: There is a consensus in the use of some acquisition parameters of the FFR with speech stimulus, such as the vertical mounting, the use of alternating polarity, a sampling rate of 20000 Hz, and the /da/ synthesized syllable of 40 ms in duration as the preferred stimulus. Although these parameters show some consensus, the results disclosed lack of a single established protocol for FFR acquisition with speech stimulus in infants in the investigated age range.

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to examine how the leadership coaching capacities of experienced school leaders can be developed to support less-experienced school leaders to lead continuous improvement efforts. In this article, we report the findings of a 2-year study of experienced school leaders who developed their leadership coaching knowledge, skills, and dispositions to enhance the capacities of less-experienced school leaders in a research-practice partnership called the Leadership Learning Community. Research Methods: We drew on qualitative research methodology to answer the study's research question. To collect our data, we utilized participant observations of 12 professional development days and 70 job-embedded coaching sessions over a 2-year period, yearly semistructured interviews with the eight leadership coach participants, and other artifacts related to the Leadership Learning Community. We analyzed our data using multiple rounds of coding to arrive at the themes. Findings: The findings highlight the possibilities of developing leadership coaching capacity through a combination of community-based structured and facilitated learning opportunities and experiential learning. The findings also add to the limited research regarding leadership coaching as a strategy for enhancing school leadership development. Conclusion and Implications: The results of the study provide assistance to national and state administrator organizations, educational service districts, and school district administrators endeavoring to meet the learning needs of school leaders through leadership coaching. Further research should be conducted to understand how the leadership coaching capacities of leadership supervisors and developers can be facilitated.

Hospital articles processed by steam are widely used in the Central Sterile Supply Department (CSSD), responsible for due sterilization. Steam sterilization is discussed worldwide, aiming to protect patients. If steam is outside the specified requirements, the sterilization process may fail, resulting in the wet packs at the end of the sterilization cycle. The present study evaluated the steam quality at Santa Catarina Hospital (São Paulo, SP, Brazil) from 2016 to 2022. Saturated steam containing noncondensable gases, excess condensate, or even superheat was characterized using the methodology indicated in the European Standard EN 285:2015. From 2016 to 2020, qualification tests showed that the saturated steam quality does not achieve standard limit parameters. Infrastructural maintenance actions were taken to adjust the saturated steam quality. In 2021, the steam quality followed technical standards, and its adequacy was confirmed in 2022. The points developed by the hospital's maintenance department, the adoption of appropriate devices for this purpose, and the correct preventive maintenance in the autoclaves, together with the correct qualification of the equipment and proof of the steam quality, contributed to improve the safety of the hospital sterilization process and reduce the incidence of wet packages. [Display omitted] • Steam quality directly influences the sterilization process. • Steam must be free of condensate, noncondensable gases, and cannot superheat. • Poor steam causes sterilization failures and wet packs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine how a school leadership team in a rural, high-poverty elementary school learned to lead continuous school improvement in a research-practice partnership. Design/methodology/approach: This case study draws on qualitative research methods, improvement science and Deming's notion of a system of profound knowledge to identify how members of the school leadership team understood and approached their school improvement work differently as a result of engaging in continuous improvement processes in a research-practice partnership. Findings: The findings illustrate how engaging in continuous improvement processes in the research-practice partnership enhanced the leadership team members' capacities to prioritize and solve problems, incorporate multiple and diverse perspectives in problem-solving efforts and establish a culture of increased risk-taking and ownership of teaching and learning outcomes. In sum, the members of the leadership team became the drivers of their own change processes. Originality/value: The findings provide insight into how leaders in rural, high-poverty schools can build capacity within their schools to meet the demand for increased student achievement by leading collaborative, continuous improvement processes grounded in improvement science in research-practice partnerships.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper was to determine what experienced school leaders learned through participating in a three-year leadership initiative, called the Leadership Learning Community (LLC), that helped them coach less experienced leaders to lead school improvement efforts. Design/methodology/approach: Data were collected and analyzed using a qualitative design throughout the three-year initiative. Findings: The findings indicate the LLC leadership coaches learned to accept and navigate the leaders' developmental and contextual needs, practiced and honed their coaching skills and recognized their own developmental needs. Originality/value: These findings address the paucity of research on leadership coach learning and development.

The purpose of this paper is to present findings from a study of a 3-year leadership development initiative designed to enhance the leadership capacities of 10 school leaders from a consortium of rural, high-poverty school districts. The initiative provided cross-district, job-embedded, and personalized leadership development through leadership coaching in a professional community. The findings highlight what the leaders learned about involving and interacting differently with others for shared effort and ownership; enabling distributed leadership for increased capacity; using a systematic process for school improvement; and approaching school improvement with a new mindset. We conclude the article with implications for further research and practice.

In this article, we report the findings of a study of a three-year, research-practice partnership designed to enhance the leadership capabilities of school leaders in 12 predominantly rural, high-poverty school districts in the southeastern United States. The partnership provided cross-district, job-embedded leadership development to ten school leaders through leadership coaching in a leadership learning community (LLC). Utilizing transformative learning theory, we illustrate how the leaders' participation in the LLC increased their leadership capabilities through a combination of personalized learning, a focused improvement process, facilitation and coaching, and collaboration with other leaders. We conclude with implications for research and practice.

In this article, we report findings from two cases of rural, high-needs elementary schools in the Southeastern United States that successfully improved learning outcomes for their students. As illustrated by our findings, a combination of effective teacher professional development, focused student learning initiatives, and enhanced community and family involvement contributed to the removal of the schools from priority and below average designations. In addition to illustrating the leadership practices that positively influenced improvement efforts in these two schools, and expanding the nascent body of scholarship on context-responsive leadership, our findings serve as a starting point for a larger project centered on the nexus of school leader agency in increasingly diverse cultural contexts.