Degree Name
EdD (Doctor of Education)
Program
Educational Leadership
Date of Award
8-2025
Committee Chair or Co-Chairs
Ginger Christian
Committee Members
Virginia Foley, Don Good
Abstract
The culmination of toxic stress and social-emotional instability can result in significant challenges for students. Incorporating an appropriate response to address the social-emotional needs of students must be a priority if schools seek to see improvements in attendance, discipline, and ultimately academic success. Resilient middle and high schools recognized the need to create innovative spaces for students to learn how to self-regulate challenging emotions during the school day. The purpose of this quantitative research study was to investigate the relationship between chronic absenteeism, office disciplinary referrals, and the use of Resilient Schools Reset Rooms in middle and high schools from three schools in two school systems located in Tennessee from 2022-2025. Specifically, this study examined the rates of chronic absenteeism and office disciplinary referrals the year before the introduction of a Reset Room, 1 year after implementation, and 2 years after implementation. A series of contingency tables and chi-square analyses were used to determine if there were significant differences among all students, only middle school students, or only high school students. Data analyzed included the number of students who were chronically absent, the number of students who were not chronically absent, the number of students with an office disciplinary referral, and the number of students without an office disciplinary referral over the past three academic years provided by the Tennessee Department of Education’s Education Information System (EIS). Findings indicated significant decreases in chronic absenteeism and office disciplinary referral rates for both middle and high school students after the 2nd year of implementing a Reset Room.
Document Type
Dissertation - unrestricted
Recommended Citation
White, Alex, "Give Me a Break: Exploring the Use of a Reset Room on Secondary School Students and Resilient Practices in Tennessee" (2025). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 4572. https://dc.etsu.edu/etd/4572
Copyright
Copyright by the authors.
