President's Letter: ISCA in Action

Summertime, and the livin’ is…BUSY! As I sit to write my first letter to you as president of ISCA, it is the middle of summer “break,” and I am reflecting on behalf of myself and the other ISCA board members how much has been happening all summer for our members.

During June, we collaborated with the Indiana Counselor Association in Fort Wayne in a presentation exploring the fact that “this is an amazing time to be a counselor.” We also “connected the dots” with some of our friends and colleagues at the School Health Association conference in Indianapolis. Many of us were a part of an incredible day in Marion exploring the collaborative relationships between counselors and administrators. College and career were hot topics with our friends from IYI in Indy. Some of us served on advisory teams throughout the state on topics such as counselor preparation programs and comprehensive school counseling programs. When July arrived, your new board members, committee chairpersons and committee members spent a full day planning and preparing for what is going to be an absolutely incredible year for the Indiana School Counselor Association!

We have some amazing things heading your way in the upcoming school year, including our fall conference November 15-16. If you have not already done so, you will definitely want to register as soon as possible! As soon as our Indiana work was completed, we packed our bags and headed out to Los Angeles to represent our state at the American School Counselor Association national conference. While there, several of us served as voting members representing all of you on some of our national platforms. Indiana not only had counselors as presenters at numerous sessions, but we also had the largest number of schools in any state this year receiving the prestigious RAMP designation for schools dedicated to comprehensive school counseling programming.

As you read this, the summer “break” is over for all of us. But I know that the momentum of the work from this summer will be the springboard for what is ahead for the coming school year. This issue of our newsletter is all about “New Year, New Approaches.” I am hopeful that each of you has had a moment this summer that renewed you for a fresh start this fall. I hope that everyone found inspiration for something new you are hoping to accomplish for your students, your stakeholders and yourselves! For me, much of that inspiration has come from serving all of you in this new capacity as president throughout the summer and looking forward to our year together. I am humbled and excited to start the new school year and learn and implement new ideas and new approaches. I also look forward to hearing about what you are doing – best wishes for an amazing start!

Contact Stephanie Kozuch, ISCA president, at skozuch@cpsc.k12.in.us