How to Share the Vision of National Standards for School Counseling Programs
The national standards for school counseling programs were developed by the American School Counselor Association to complement the raised standards for teachers set forth by the No Child Left Behind Act. Specifically, the standards seek to address the emotional, physical, social and economic attributes of student learning. Standards include improving confidence in academic achievement, relating school work to careers and developing interpersonal skills. School districts and school counselors can share the vision represented in these standards by broadening efforts to communicate the standards with colleagues.
Instructions
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Distribute a newsletter among the schools in your district. Your school may already have a newsletter format that you can follow, or you may create a newsletter from a Word document. Type "National Standards for School Counseling Programs" in the header. Divide the newsletter into three separate sections with titles "Academic Development," "Career Development" and "Personal and Social Development." Under each title, describe what the program expects to achieve and provide examples of methods to achieve these goals. Email the newsletter to colleagues and other school counselors and principals in your school district.
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Add a page to the school website outlining the national standards for school counseling programs. Describe the program in three separate sections with titles "Academic Development," "Career Development" and "Personal and Social Development." Define precisely the steps that your school is taking to nurture student attitudes, knowledge and skills that contribute to effective learning; teach students strategies to achieve future success and satisfaction; and train students on safety and survival skills.
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Implement the national standards and publish the results in an article. Write a journal article comprising the description of the national standards and the efforts made to meet those standards. Discuss the changes that occurred in the students and whether parental involvement helped or hindered the efforts to improve the counseling department in accordance with the national standards. Evaluate what steps could have been done better and what goals are difficult to measure, and are therefore a weak point in the standards. Submit the finished article to a journal that specializes in education or school counseling.
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Host a conference for school counselors in your state or region, or host a national conference. Book a resort or hotel location with a conference room and available hotel rooms for the event. Hire caterers to provide refreshments. Put together a panel of speakers that includes school counselors who have implemented the national standards for school counseling effectively and members from the American School Counselor Association. Send out invitations to school counselors nationwide to sign up and attend the conference. Create reading materials and handouts that can be used as a reference for the conference sessions.
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