President's Letter: NDSCA Supports Your Growth

The end of summer is a busy and exciting time for school counselors. We are getting our offices organized, preparing our minds for what the new school year will bring us, planning classroom lessons, and so much more. The focus of this issue of our newsletter is classroom management. Classroom management is a vital skill that all school counselors utilize on a regular basis.

The North Dakota School Counselor Association will continue to partner with ASCA to provide our members with a newsletter on informative topics specifically relevant to school counselors. You will be receiving the publication in a new easy-to-read format five times per year now. Each newsletter will focus on different topics from being an advocate to career readiness and legal and ethical issues.

The annual ASCA National Conference took place in Denver, Colo., in July. This year was the largest ASCA conference to date, with more than 3400 attendees. Attending the ASCA conference is a wonderful opportunity to meet counselors from across the United States and around the world, receive professional development on new and trending school counseling topics, and catch some very inspiring keynote speakers. The 2018 conference will be held July 14-17 in Los Angeles.

The Midwinter Counseling Conference is an excellent local opportunity to receive professional development and will take place in Bismarck February 11-14, 2018, with the NDSCA-sponsored preconference on Saturday, February 10. We hope to see you all there. NDSCA has also been working on finding new ways to provide our members with more professional development opportunities, so stay tuned for upcoming events that may interest you.

The North Dakota School Counselor Association will continue to work on providing professional development opportunities, advocating for the school counseling profession, and providing resources for our members. Please feel free to contact me to share new ideas with NDSCA or ask any questions. Please follow us on Facebook at North Dakota School Counselor Association, https://www.facebook.com/NDSCA/ Visit our website, www.ndsca.org, for a copy of our strategic and yearly work plans, upcoming events, counselor mentor contact information, awards applications and more.

Contact Savannah Hogue, NDSCA president, at Savannah.Hogue@k12.nd.us.