President’s Letter: Resources for Readiness

Hello, and welcome to 2019! I hope your New Year is off to a great start and you are finding a way to manage the myriad roles and responsibilities you must fulfill as a school counselor. During National School Counseling Week (February 4-8), I hope you found time to celebrate your successes as a school counselor, and your administrators, colleagues and families recognized the tremendous impact school counselors have in helping students succeed. To further recognize school counselors on a national level, ASCA held the 2019 School Counselor of the Year Gala on February 1 in Washington, D.C. School counselor representatives from all 50 states and Guam were honored at a formal ceremony with coverage from a multitude of media and press outlets. View details, photos and a recap of the event on ASCA’s website. PSCA was honored to have our 2017-18 elementary school counselor of the year, Jayne Hain (from Southwest Elementary School, Lebanon County School District) represent us at the event and call attention to the wonderful accomplishments of Pennsylvania school counselors.
 
I extend sincere thanks to all who attended PSCA’s 63^rd Annual Conference in Hershey last November. The conference treated Pennsylvania school counselors to an array professional development experiences from some of the foremost experts in our profession. As always, there is no shortage of changes afoot for school counselors across Pennsylvania. As you may recall, at our 2017 conference, the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) presented the Career Readiness Indicators for the Future Ready PA Index and ESSA Accountability. In November 2018, PDE redesigned the College and Career Standards that all public schools must meet. At the conference (and the fall regional workshops that PSCA sponsored), school counselors were provided specific guidelines for students as they progress through their school careers. Access information about the redesigned standards.
 
I know we often struggle to find time to complete such initiatives while balancing the other requirements that our jobs present on a daily basis. To that end, I am excited that this edition of The Pennsylvania Counselor concentrates on college and post-secondary readiness and offers a variety of resources that may help you to meet these goals in a timely and efficient manner. I hope the articles encourage you to consider how you can best promote whichever form of post-secondary training is best suited for your students and their particular aspirations. I also urge you to visit the Better Make Room website. The Reach Higher Initiative – created by former First Lady Michelle Obama to address our nation’s need for workers with postsecondary training and to encourage students to take charge of their future by completing a level of training beyond high school – lives on past her days in the White House as part of the Better Make Room Campaign. The Better Make Room website houses tools and links to guide students on their postsecondary path and remove barriers that have previously prevented students from achieving their goals.
 
Along these lines, I also share with you an excellent presentation given by Franciene Saben and Krystin Baker (school counselors from Illinois) at the 2018 ASCA National Conference in Los Angeles regarding college signing day and other postsecondary activities for your school. Access their presentation. They have also kindly granted permission for you to use any of the resources located in their presentation.
 
I wish you the best as you begin the second half of the 2018-19 school year. PSCA is committed to keeping you at the cutting edge of developments pertaining to the school counseling profession. Please be sure to check our website regularly for updates and review the biweekly PSCA eXTRA newsletter. As developments occur, these tools will help you keep current with all things related to school counseling in Pennsylvania.
 
Contact Michael Perrott, PSCA president, at maperrott@yahoo.com.