Sample/Participants
A nonprobability sample selection process began with the total population of 163 public high schools in California that were classified as rural (as described above).1 The sample of schools was further refined by identifying California rural high schools that were high-poverty if they had 35% or more students participating in the free/reduced price lunch program (Education Data Partnership, 2005b) or were eligible for federal Title 1 funding as reported by the NCES CCD website (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2005a).