Middle Level Principals' Parent Involvement Practices

The purpose of the exploratory research study was to identify middle level principals’ parent involvement practices. Parent involvement impacts students in positive ways, and a principal must have the ability to involve parents. The job description of a principal can be difficult to place on paper. Principals multitask throughout the day and often shift from leader to conflict resolver in a moment’s notice while also focusing on the safety and overall well-being of the entire school community. Principals play a significant role in making parents an integral part of the school by involving them in their child’s educational process. Principals need to develop a supportive and welcoming environment for both students and parents. The review of literature examines reasons why teachers may or may not involve parents, explains different models of parent involvement, and identifies barriers to parent involvement. Knowing the principal plays a key role in facilitating parent involvement, the overall aim of the exploratory study is to examine middle level principals’ parent involvement practices.Middle level principals in the western region of Pennsylvania were surveyed to determine how their current practices aligned with Joyce Epstein’s six parenting practices which include parenting, communicating, volunteering, learning at home, decision making, and collaborating with the community. Findings indicate middle level principals engage in using practices within all six categories. Findings also indicate principals can improve practices that are more individualized for students and families. A need for professional development for principals and teachers in order to involve parents into the school community was identified

Computational prediction of pressure change in the vicinity of tidal stream turbines and the consequences for fish survival rate

The presence of Tidal Stream Turbines (TST) for tidal power production, leads to changes in the local physical environment that could affect fish. While other work has considered the implications with respect to conventional hydroelectric devices (i.e. hydroelectric dams), including studies such as physical impact with the rotors and pressure variation effects, this research considers the effects of sudden changes in pressure and turbulence on the hypothetical fish with respect to TSTs. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is used to investigate changes to the environment, and thus study the implications for fish. Two CFD methods are employed, an embedded Blade Element representation of the rotor in a RANS CFD model, and a blade resolved geometry using a moving reference frame. A new data interpretation approach is proposed as the primary source of environmental impact data; ‘rate of change of pressure’ with time along a streamtrace. This work also presents results for pressure, pressure gradients, shear rates and turbulence to draw conclusions about changes to the local physical environment. The assessment of the local impact is discussed in terms of the implications to individual fish passing a single or array of TST devices

The Impact of Enhancement Initiatives on the Structure and Dynamics of the Connecticut River Population of American Shad

During the interval 1975 to 1981, improvements to existing fishways and new fishway construction at high-head mainstream dams located at river km (rkm) 139, 198, and 228 on the Connecticut River, combined with the breaching of a low head dam at rkm 110, created access by American shad to their historical spawning areas from which they had been excluded since the late 18th century. This resulted in a significant upriver relocation of the main spawning activity by shad, but, to date, has failed to produce the anticipated increase in total population size from the increase in total spawning habitat available. This upriver displacement of spawning resulted in an increase in the length of the spawning migration and a corresponding increase in the energy expended to reach the spawning grounds. The result was higher adult mortality and dramatic reduction in the repeat spawning component of the population and in the mean size and age of adult fish. An increase in the variance in annual population abundance followed this reduction in population age structure. The loss of larger repeat spawning females is estimated to have resulted in a 20% reduction in mean population fecundity and could account for a 14% reduction in annual recruitment to the population. These outcomes are consistent with predictions founded on knowledge of the population dynamics and migration energetics of the species available at the time the enhancement initiatives were begun. Unrelated, but very successful restoration efforts directed to Atlantic Coast populations of striped bass also appear to have negatively impacted the shad population of the Connecticut River through increased predation. The implications of these findings for future management are discussed