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Article History

Received: 15 November 2023

Accepted: 4 February 2025

First Online: 17 February 2025

Declarations

:

: The Office of Research Compliance at Montana State University approved this exempt study. Research was completed using guidelines establish by the MSU board.

: Instruments for obtaining informed consent were approved by Montana State University. Informed consent was gained for the survey instrument and interview protocol.

: Following this research guidance, the Montana Office of Public Instruction gained informed consent for participants in the surveys and interviews. MT-OPI is the state educational agency for Montana. Under 34 CFR § 99.31 MT-OPI can collect student data and in certain conditions disclose student data. This study uses MT-OPI data provided internally to a staff member and no data was disclosed to a third party.

: This study did not involve an experiment. The study did involve human subjects. Data-collection instruments were approved by the Montana State University Office of Research Compliance.

: Robin Clausen is passionate about identifying barriers that students may face in their schooling, including identifying economic disadvantage in school communities and determining ways that educators might lessen the incidence of dropout. He earned advanced degrees from the University of Colorado, Boulder and Penn State University.

: The authors declare no competing interests.