CSCA Legislative Update

The Government Relations Committee has been working hard the last year to lay legislative groundwork. We still have much to do, but we are making progress in our government relations efforts.
 
Some of our goals as a state include:

• Changing all language at the state level from “guidance counselor” to “school counselor”
• For the state to ensure that all Connecticut public school students have access to comprehensive school counseling programming K-12, with programs implemented by certified school counseling personnel
  • Require that the term “school counselor” apply only to certified school counselors that require a master’s degree with specific counseling coursework and field work experiences in school counseling
• Mandating appropriate school counseling ratios at all levels

 CSCA’s Legislative efforts this past year:

• August 2016 - the government relations committee met with Representative Gayle Mulligan. The committee discussed the role of the school counselor with her and what legislation we were hoping to get through. She gave us tips on how to go about the process and discussed who we needed to talk with at the state level.
• October 2016 - CSCA leaders were invited to present at the capitol about the role of school counselors and their impact on student success. They presented to Representative Gayle Mulligan, Representative Jeff Currey, Laura Stefon and John Frassinelli of the CT State Department of Education. This presentation provide a greater awareness of the role comprehensive programs play in impacting student success.
• December 2016 - CSCA cowrote a letter with CACES (CT Association for Counselor Education and Supervision) to the state Department of Education regarding a suggested amendment to state regulation 10-145d-556.a, which stipulates the amount of time graduate students in school counseling programs must spend completing their internship. The current regulation states: (a) Holds a professional educator certificate; or holds or is eligible to hold an initial educator certificate, and has had either 30 school months of successful teaching experience or has completed a full-time supervised school internship of 10 school months in a school (Pre-K through 12) setting. The suggested change is as follows: “(a) Holds a professional educator certificate; or holds or is eligible to hold an initial educator certificate, and has had either 30 school months of successful teaching experience or has completed a supervised school internship of 600 hours over 10 school months in a school (Pre-K through 12) setting.” Such an amendment would not only meet the gold standard of CACREP Accreditation requirements, but also would be congruent with the state’s minority recruitment initiative.  The current requirement for a full-time, year-long unpaid internship places considerable hardship on individuals.  This is moving forward and we hope to hear more about it his fall.
• January 2017 - committee member Jennifer Parzych met with Education Committee member and Representative Tim Ackert regarding our proposed legislation.
• February 2017 - CSCA proposed legislation to representatives Tim Ackert, and Jeff Currey outlining the change in language from guidance counselor to school counselor, and the need for comprehensive school counseling programs K-12 in all of our schools with appropriate ratios. 

Future goals for the Government Relations Committee

• Continue to reach out and form connections with legislators on the Education Committee
• Resubmit for the next congressional session our proposed legislation
• Potentially hire a lobbyist this year who can help us move forward with our proposed legislation; the committee will analyze the pros/cons of hiring a lobbyist before making this decision
• Provide professional development for school counselors around how to advocate for their school counseling programs 

The Government Relations committee has learned a tremendous amount about the legislative process over the last year. Unfortunately, the process takes much longer than we wish it would, but we are determined to continue our efforts at the state level to advocate for all school counselors. The work that we do every day as school counselors is vitally important to the success of all our students and we want to make sure that those making the decisions for our schools are well aware of that. We strongly encourage you to reach out to your local state representatives and senators about the work you do as a school counselor and why it is important that school counselors are in all our schools. Check out CSCA’s website for more materials produced by our Government Relations Committee. If you wish to join the committee please contact us at cscachairman@gmail.com.