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Given the individual and systemic stress endured by children and families during the COVID-19 pandemic, research examining culturally responsive school experiences and supports to enhance resilience is critical. This study examined the relationship between caregivers' perceptions of COVID-19 impact, mental health distress among children and caregivers, and school-based sociocultural protective factors, including culturally responsive practices in schools and the relationships between teachers and caregivers, concurrently and longitudinally. Data were collected from caregivers of elementary-aged children at two-time points from March to April 2020 (N = 174) and one year later in 2021 (N = 114). Regression analyses revealed that COVID-19 impact positively predicted and parent-teacher joining negatively predicted mental health concerns among children and families, concurrently and longitudinally. Furthermore, there was a positive relationship between caregivers' perceptions of teachers' social awareness and justice practices and mental health symptoms for children in 2020. Parent-teacher joining longitudinally moderated the relationship between COVID-19 impact and caregivers' mental health concerns. This study provides implications regarding sociocultural resilience factors that should be considered in schools amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

The underrepresentation of Black youth in high-achieving academic settings places significant importance on examining their daily experiences. This study investigated the relationship between school discrimination, well-being in academic settings, the risk for anxiety and depression, and school mental health help-seeking intentions. Participants included 110 Black high school students (66% women; mean age = 15.67) attending a special-admissions public school who participated in their school universal mental health screening. Black high school students in this high achieving context experienced few occurrences of school discrimination, yet these experiences still significantly impacted their internalizing severity. The mediation analyses revealed that experiences of discrimination predicted lower levels of academic efficacy and school connectedness, which predicted higher levels of internalizing symptoms. Experiences of discrimination were not related to mental health help-seeking at school. However, Black youth's intentions to seek mental health services at school were low, regardless of discriminatory experiences, as evidenced by the percentage of universal screening dissent and their self-reported plans to seek support. The findings highlight the need to consider Black adolescents' experiences in high achieving schools when engaged in universal mental health screening and individual and school-wide mental health prevention efforts.

In this paper, we discuss the reasons why agricultural and applied economics and similar departments are often stand‐alone academic units. The factors that affect and shape the relationship of agricultural and applied economics faculty and departments with those from general economics departments are discussed. We present case studies of three universities having different relationships with general economics faculty at their respective universities: a merged unit, an unmerged unit, and a never‐merged unit. We conclude with rationale for the existence and future trajectory of agricultural economics and related academic units at Land Grant Universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cover cropping has the potential to improve resilience of agriculture to climate‐change‐induced extreme weather events. However, rigorous quantitative evidence on the resilience effect of cover crops is still lacking. Using a novel data set that combines satellite‐based cover crop information and county‐level crop insurance data, we examine the impact of planting cover crops on prevented‐planting‐related losses that are typically caused by heavy rainfall events. The US federal crop insurance program offers "prevented planting" coverage, which pays indemnities if insured growers are unable to plant their crop due to adverse weather. Linear fixed effects models, instrument‐based estimation methods, long‐difference models, and a number of other robustness checks are utilized in the empirical analysis to achieve the study objective. Our findings suggest that counties with higher cover crop adoption rates tend to have lower levels of crop insurance losses due to prevented planting. The resulting reduction in prevented planting risk also becomes larger with longer term, multiyear cover crop use. These results support the notion that cover crops improve soil conditions such that the likelihood and magnitude of prevented planting losses decrease. We posit that the ability of cover crops to handle excess moisture (i.e., through better water absorption and improved water infiltration in the soil) is the main factor in its ability to reduce prevented planting losses in the US Midwest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]