President's Letter: Inspiring Celebration

This president’s message is being written after I returned from Washington, D.C., to honor Nancy Reyes, school counselor at North Plainfield High School and our 2022 New Jersey school counselor of the year. I am sharing this because the experience that Nancy had as our representative and the gala we attended in her honor were so inspirational. Imagine being with almost 50 school counselors from around the United States, each celebrated and honored as all school counselors should be. On the next page you will see pictures from Nancy’s adventures touring D.C., meeting Secretary of Education Miquel Cardona and attending the gala at Union Station. I suspect she will be featured in the next ASCA magazine or another ASCA publication. Thank you, Nancy for representing New Jersey. I cannot wait for Laura Forston-Williams, school counselor at Deptford Middle School and our 2023 New Jersey school counselor of the year, to attend this event next year! Thank you, Dana Karas, director of school counseling at Princeton High School, and Amy Lombardo, school counselor at Middlesex County Magnet Schools, for coordinating the efforts for the SCOY awards. And I thank Carl Palmer, school counselor at Washington Township High School, for connecting to all our county presidents to make them aware of the SCOY award. Laura Fortson-Williams and all our county SCOYs will be recognized at an awards luncheon in March. I look forward to being inspired by all of our county SCOYs!

I hope that you all had fun with National School Counseling Week the first week in February. NJSCA continued with a tradition of providing virtual professional development experiences that was started by Jess Smedley, director of school counseling at Hillsborough High School and our past president. We hosted two during NSCW – kicking us off was Laurie Corizzo, school counselor at Ridge Ranch Elementary, demonstrating the “Cooking with Corizzo” activity she started during COVID closure to stay connected to her students and families. Dozens of school counselors joined us that evening to share a meal and camaraderie. The following night, we focused on school counselor stress and stress management, with a presentation through our partnership with the Union Workforce Initiative. We offered two more workshops in February, one to support our English language learner students and another on bullying and harassment in the workplace. Two workshops are scheduled for March, one on grief and loss and the second on resilience training. All available for you to learn from the comfort of your home! Thank you to Tracy Blauvelt, school counselor at JFK High School in Iselin, N.J., and Adam Rothschild, school counselor at Princeton High School, for coordinating all the logistics for these events.

Finally, remember that our spring conference at Kean University will take place on Friday, April 21, 2023. It looks to be a sell-out again! We have outstanding workshops planned and are excited to have Alma Lopez, the 2022 National School Counselor of the Year, as our keynote speaker. Be sure to register today if you have not already!

Contact Cindy Povall, NJSCA president, at cindypovall@gmail.com or 908-705-5526.