New Mexico Comprehensive School Counseling Program Guide

Introduction

The New Mexico Comprehensive School Counseling Program Guide

Spring, 2005

The State of New Mexico Public Education Department's Vision is for excellence and equity in education. Its mission is to create and maintain a customer-focused organization that provides leadership and service to bring about improved educational results.

The New Mexico State Board of Education and the State Department of Education do not discriminate with regard to race, culture, ancestry, color, national origin, sex, age, religion, or handicap in their programs or hiring practices.

New Mexico State Board Of Education

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Original Draft, Summer, 2003:

Freida A. Trujillo , MA, NCC, NCSC, Resource Counselor, Albuquerque Public Schools, NMSCA Special Projects Representative

School Year 2003-2005 Revisions Committee:

Linda Hanna, MA, NCC, LPC, School Counselor, Placitas Elementary, Bernalillo Public Schools
Ishana Norman, MA , School Counselor, Roosevelt Elementary, Bernalillo Public Schools
Freida A. Trujillo, MA, NCC, NCSC, Resource Counselor, Albuquerque Public Schools, NMSCA Special Projects Representative
Laura Owen, M.Ed., Cibola High School , Albuquerque Public Schools, NMSCA Secretary and Webmaster

School Year 2003-2005 Editing Committee Committee:

Linda Hanna, MA, NCC, LPC, School Counselor, Placitas Elementary, Bernalillo Public Schools
Ishana Norman, MA , School Counselor, Roosevelt Elementary, Bernalillo Public Schools
Laura Owen, M.Ed., Cibola High School , Albuquerque Public Schools, NMSCA Secretary and Webmaster
Lori Sanchez, MA, LCP, Rio Rancho Mid-High, Rio Rancho Public Schools, NMSCA Middle School Vice President
Freida A. Trujillo, MA, NCC, NCSC, Resource Counselor, Albuquerque Public Schools, NMSCA Special Projects Representative

School Year 2004-2005: Crosswalking of National and State Benchmarks, Standards and Indicators:

Ishana Norman, MA , School Counselor, Roosevelt Elementary, Bernalillo Public Schools
Laura Owen, M.Ed., Cibola High School, Albuquerque Public Schools , NMSCA Secretary and Webmaster
Lori Sanchez, MA, LCP, Rio Rancho Mid-High, Rio Rancho Public Schools, NMSCA Middle School Vice President

School Year 2005-2006 Calendars, Activities and Policies for Each Program Component, Curriculum (aligned with national and state benchmarks, standards and indicators), Program Evaluation and Supervision:

*New Mexico School Counseling Association is recruiting volunteers to contribute to these sections.

Special thanks to Corina Chavez, __________, at the Public Education Department (PED) and The New Mexico College Awareness Coalition (NMCAC) for their partnership with the New Mexico School Counseling Association to make this project happen.

INTRODUCTION:

STATEMENT OF NEED

In the Winter of 1995, The New Mexico State Department of Education published The New Mexico School Counseling Services Program Guide. This was a Technical Assistance Handbook for School Counseling Programs. In the decade that this program guide was published many changes have taken place in education.

Our current educational system is being challenged by the growing needs of students and the rising expectations of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and today's global society. New Mexico is a culturally diverse state with a need for culturally sensitive and appropriate comprehensive school counseling programs that address the needsof all students.

Many of our children attend school with emotional, physical and interpersonal barriers to learning. Professional School Counselors respond to the barriers of learning by addressing the barriers, providing support, and assisting students in building resiliency skills.

While Professional School Counselors attend to students in crisis, the majority of the school counselor's time, energy and professional development should focus on the direct services to all students so that every student received the maximum benefit from the program, reducing the number of students in need of crisis intervention.

PURPOSE

The State New Mexico Public Education Department's Vision is for excellence and equity in education. Its mission is to create and maintain a customer-focused organization that provides leadership and service to bring about improved educational results. The New Mexico Comprehensive School Counseling Program Guide provides direction to districts in New Mexico in developing, planning, implementing and evaluating a school counseling programs so that Professional School Counselors are integrated as integral educational team members.

School Counseling Programs are expected to be comprehensive in their scope, preventative in their design, developmental in their nature, and an integral part of the total educational program. Comprehensive School Counseling Programs in New Mexico are guided by the American School Counselor Association National Model, which addresses the educational, social/emotional and career needs of all students. All information contained herein is based on the ASCA National Model, which has been adopted by the State of New Mexico, and serves as the guideline for developing multi-culturally appropriate and comprehensive school counseling programs in New Mexico .

The ASCA National Model is intended to create one vision and one voice, and the vehicle with which to plan, implement, manage, and evaluate school counseling programs. This guide is intended to do the same for school counseling programs in the State of New Mexico. School districts and individual school sites, while following the ASCA National Model and New Mexico Comprehensive School Counseling Program Guide should tailor their Comprehensive School Counseling Programs to address the student needs at their individual sites.

RATIONALE

When schools fail to clearly define the counselor's role...
School administrators, parents with special interests, teachers or others may feel their agenda ought to be the school counseling program's priority. The results often lead to confusion and criticisms when they are disappointed. (Carolyn Maddy Bernstein, 1995)

Where School Counselors Have Been:

Prior to the ACA National Model (2003), school counseling programs have suffered from a lack of legitimization. If you look at the educational reform documents, “A Nation At Risk,” “Goals 2000,” and even “No Child Left Behind,” Professional School Counselors were not mentioned. School counseling began over 100 years ago. It had its origins in vocational education. Frank Parsons was the Father of guidance. At that time, teachers served in the guidance role. Later came a mental health movement towards a more clinical approach for Professional School Counselors. Carl Rogers promoted non-directive approaches to school counseling. With Sputnik and the National Defense Education Act, counselors were then asked to identify students who were talented in math and sciences for college. During the Civil rights movement, school counseling took a social shift. Then in the 1970's Professional School Counselors introduced a developmental approach. And finally in the 80's and 90's Professional School Counselors were dealing with economic and safety issues.

Historical Problems in School Counseling Programs

Phyllis Hart and Marilyn Jacobi wrote a book entitled “From Gatekeeper to Advocate: Transforming the Role of the School Counselor” in 1992. This book served as a key factor in the Education Trust's design and development of the Readers Digest DeWitt Wallace Foundation movement to transform the way Professional School Counselors are trained. One of the chapters in the book discusses the six problem in school counseling programs.

• Lack of basic philosophy – few counselors are guided by a well developed philosophy or belief system, one that indeed drives the entire program and the behaviors of the Professional School Counselors within the program. As a result, Professional School Counselors have tended to work independently and have often been reactive.
• Poor integration – school counseling remains ancillary rather than a core component of K-12 education. Professional School Counselors must connect with other stakeholders in the school system as an integral partner in the total educational program.
• Insufficient student access – in most schools, counselor-pupil ratios are so high that few students see the Professional School Counselors. Some Professional School Counselors still provide only individual counseling rather than ensuring every student receives school counseling services through school wide guidance curriculum. The student to counselor ratio is recommended by the American School Counseling Association National Model is 1:250. Currently, New Mexico 's average is 1 to 378 according to data from the State Nonfiscal Public Elementary/Secondary Education Survey (2001-2002).
• Inadequate guidance for some students – particularly poor and minority students are often denied the opportunities for academic rigor which is often afforded to the middle class students. Parents' ignorance and intimidation of the system only exacerbates this problem.
• Lack of counselor accountability – Professional School Counselors have not been held accountable for student development and academic achievement, and more fundamentally, have not had an understanding of what constitutes accountability. This means more than process data. It means being accountable for results.
• Failure to utilize other resources – the Professional School Counselors can not run their programs in isolation; rather counselors are encouraged to better utilize school and community resources to create networks of referrals for a variety of needs that are beyond the scope of the school.

These historical problems have led to more current problems in school counseling profession, namely the adding on of additional responsibilities, such as:

• Master schedule duties – Many counselors now perform the function of building the schools master schedule instead of the administrator when this is clearly and administrative role. Certainly Professional School Counselors would want to participle as a consultant and expert in the process, but unfortunately, in many schools they carry the bulk of the responsibility in this area, therefore diminishing school counseling services for students.
• Testing coordinators – In a world of increased high stakes testing, more and more Professional School Counselors are called on to assist in the preparation for testing. The appropriate role for a school counselor is to interpret the results of these test and to analyze them in conjunction with multiples measures of students achievement.
• Detention room coverage – In the absence of a teacher or other certificated staff, Professional School Counselors often are called on to cover detention rooms. The more appropriate role is to work systemically to assist in the prevention education appropriate to deter the students attendance in the detention room
• Discipline – Professional School Counselors are not disciplinarians and do not possess the appropriate credentials for disciplining students. Their appropriate role is to provide counseling for students before and/or after discipline, to determine the causes of students behavior that leads to discipline to provide curriculum school wide for the deterrence of behaviors that lead to discipline, and to collaborate on school leadership teams which work systemically to create policies which promote appropriate behavior on campus.
• Classroom coverage – School counselors are team players and understand the need to assist when emergencies arise and classrooms need coverage. The problem in this area is when Professional School Counselors are turned to regularly and first in order to cover classes. This is an inappropriate use of counselor's time and skills.
• Clerical responsibilities The school counseling programs contains many areas in which clerical assistance is necessary to perform functions that are outside of the Professional School Counselors' appropriate job description. Many districts should and do employ guidance assistants to provide this service so that Professional School Counselors can spend their time in direct service to students.

Varied and Conflicting Approaches

• Vocational counselors vs. Mental Health counselors
• Directive (NDEA approach) vs. Non-directive (Carl Rogers)
• Individualized services (therapeutic model) vs. Comprehensive (educational model) program
• Pre-service training varies as do administrative expectations. Counselors trained in programs rooted in psychological and clinical paradigms and others rooted in educational paradigms.

As a result, Professional School Counselors have lacked legitimization, a consistent identity, and limited or no involvement in reform movements. Their roles have varied from state to state and they have been assigned Non-School Counselor responsibilities. The inappropriate use of Professional School Counselors on non-counseling responsibilities has wasted many dollars that could have been better invested in counselors implementing programs that actually benefit students.

Where New Mexico Professional School Counselors Are Now

Current Trends in Education

You are all aware of the many trends in education today and these terms should be very familiar to you.

• Education reform movement – all experts tell us that it's here to stay. It is not a passing fad, and it is not going away, so Professional School Counselors have to be included as important partners in the reform.
• Accountability – everyone in the school system, including the school counselors, are being held accountable for student results. This is being ensured by Public Education Department reviews of districts and schools as a result of past lack of accountability.
• Standard-based movement – standards-based education is here to stay as well.
• High-stakes testing – this is an emotional and highly contested issue nationwide, but it is still a requirement of No Child Left Behind.
• Achievement gap – equity and access – the work of the Education Trust is to ensure equity and access for all students, particularly lower income and minority students.
• Retention – promotion is now more performance-based than developmentally based.
• More block grants – are coming down to the local school sites and stakeholders must decide how these funds are to be spent.
• School safety – more funds are expended in this areas now than ever before. School sites have a choice in how they will expend these funds through prevention, intervention or apprehension.
• Vouchers – these are still lurking and are not going away.
• Performance, not entitlement – the culture in education has changed from one or entitlement to performance.

Current Trends in School Counseling

The school counseling profession has moved forward to address these issues.

• The ASCA National Standards for School Counseling Programs were introduced to align the school counseling program with the academic mission of the school, to legitimize the profession and to assist in defining the role of the school counselor.
• Transforming School Counseling Initiative (Education Trust – Dewitt Wallace) has had projects in universities nationwide. Its original goal was to transform the pre-service programs for Professional School Counselors. It has been integrated into a new Ed Trust project, the Met Life Foundation training in Advocacy, Leadership and Systemic Change.
• State models are being developed or updated to incorporate the work of the Ed Trust and the ASCA National Standards, as well as other existing models.
• Results-based school counseling begins with the end in mind. Many districts have moved to programs designed to produce results.
• Legislation is passing in many states to both examine the role of the Professional School Counselors and to include the ASCA National Standards.
• The decision to hold a National Summit to create a National Model for School Counseling Programs was a decision ASCA made to bring the leaders in the field together to create One Vision, One Voice. ASCA moved forward to develop the model to address the historical concerns, the current problems and to assist the practicing school counselor in planning for the future of their programs and the profession through one lens – a common lens. The model provides the mechanism with which Professional School Counselors and school counseling teams will design, coordinate, implement, manage and evaluate their programs for students' success.

The American School Counselor Association (ASCA) through collaboration at the National Summit created the ASCA National Model for School Counseling Programs. The goal is to connect school counseling with current educational reform movements that emphasize student achievement and success. The ASCA National Model was completed in 2003. New Mexico has adopted the ASCA National Model and advocates for Comprehensive School Counseling Programs based on the ASCA National Model.

Our current New Mexico School Counseling Services Program Guide will be ten years old in the Winter of 2005. While the guide is extremely useful, it is not current or in alignment with the National Model. A current New Mexico Comprehensive School Counseling Program Guide was needed for New Mexico Professional School Counselors to use in implementing quality Comprehensive School Counseling Programs that meet the needs of our New Mexico children.

Where We Are Going

We need to adjust our sails and head in a new direction. The adjustment that comes with the ASCA National Model is going from just providing an answer to “What do counselors do?” to answering the new and more important question, “How are students different because of what Professional School Counselors do?” This means moving from a culture of entitlement to a culture of performance. The National School Boards Association published an article that addressed the need for education to move from an entitlement culture to a performance culture. The American School Counseling Association has taken this article and instead of reading through the administrators mind, or the school board member's lens, or the teacher's lens, they have revised it to read through the professional school counselor and the school counseling programs' lens. For school counseling programs, this means moving from programs that focus on the number of activities we perform to focusing on the outcomes and results of these activities. Programs that focus on performance indicate the results of these activities. Collecting process data is important so that programs can see what they are doing and for whom. The outcomes of these programs are what stakeholders want to see; it is what funding is based on. Performance cultures focus on adapting and changing as the demographics change, as student needs change, instead of doing what we have always done.

By aligning School Counseling Programs with the New Mexico Department of Education's Mission , the School District's Mission , the School's Mission and school improvement plan, professional school counselors will:

• partner as leaders in positive systemic change
• ensure equity and access for every student
• promote academic, career and personal/ social development for every student

REFERENCES

American School Counseling Association, PowerPoint Presentation: Professional School Counselors: Partners in Student Achievement (2003).

Competencies for Professional School Counselors [ 6.63.6.9 NMAC - Rp 6 NMAC 4.2.3.12.9, 02-14-03 ]

Licensure Requirements for Professional School Counselors, K-12 NMAC 6.63.6

Evaluation of Counselor Performance NMAC 6.69.3.1

Sept./Oct. 2001, issue of the ASCA School Counselor, Article: “Brainstorm”

May/June 2002, issue of the ASCA School Counselor, Article: “The Block to Build On.”

Executive Summary, ASCA

Introduction | Foundation | Management System | Delivery System | Accountability
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