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As the push and expectation to attend college continues to increase, making the process of getting into college more competitive than ever before, there is a need to interrogate whether and how efforts to create a college-going culture and increase college readiness among students, particularly those from historically marginalized backgrounds, might have an adverse impact on students. This study illuminates 59 students’ voices who participated in a multisite descriptive case study examining the strong college-going culture and college readiness efforts at three racially and economically diverse urban public high schools in different regions of Texas. Although students revealed positive aspects of their schools’ efforts, this study focuses on some of the negative, unintended consequences related to how students felt and coped with being overwhelmed, scared, and increasingly stressed as a result of the narrow focus on college readiness. Such findings must be considered by scholars, policymakers, and practitioners alike.

School antibullying initiatives are increasingly focused on educating students about the impact of proactive bystanders to reduce victimization. However, according to the social-ecological perspective, children can also choose to adopt bystander responses based on what their parents teach them at home. School counselors are equipped to disseminate best practices of bullying prevention to parents and increase school and home communication on effective bystander responses, but how much this influences what parents teach their children as bystanders is not clear. The current study examined whether parental perceptions of school climate and awareness of antibullying interventions affected what parents teach their children to do as bystanders to school bullying. Results indicated a significant and positive relationship between parent and school counselor agreement on the presence of antibullying interventions and parents teaching their children to stand up for the victim if they witness bullying at school. We discuss strategies to promote home and school collaboration on antibullying initiatives, extending the role of school counselors in antibullying efforts, and future directions.

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Gary Armstrong, assistant principal, is faced with a delicate situation. The elementary school recently enrolled a transgender student, and the principal, Amy Lamar, is resistant to considering the student’s unique needs. This case was developed for use in a leadership course. Instructors can use the case to encourage dialogue around legal frameworks, roles and perspectives of key characters, and theoretical perspectives informing decisions and policies. The four activities and discussion questions are designed to guide students in analyzing the scenario. The final activity involves comparing the scenario with a similar case with a different context and disparate outcomes.