NC School Counseling Strategic Leadership Team

Notes from May 7, 2018

  1. Present: Amy Schroeder, Ashlie Bucy (and interns Jon and Kiya), Carol White, Christie Lynch Ebert (DPI Interim Director), Christy Welch, Cynthia Floyd, Cynthia Martin, Callie Womble, Jeff Warren, Andrew Sioberg (and new staff member, Theresa Coogan), Linda Kopec, Maria Pitre-Martin (DPI Deputy Superintendent), Mark Wiles, Miriam Chitiga, Monty Hickman, Olivia Oxendine (NC SBE member), Scott Elliott, Stacey Wilson-Norman (DPI Chief Academic Officer, and Tracey Tardiff
  1. Updates
  2. Good News –
  3. SBE Presentation February 28
  4. Status of Recommendations (PowerPoint slides)
  5. SREB Go Alliance Academy Modules (PowerPoint slides)
  1. Boosting FAFSA completion – Dr. Maria Pitre-Martin
  • Completion rates are much lower than the number who begin the FAFSA, but do not complete it
  • Boosting FAFSA completion rates is a major focus of NCDPI and NCSEAA

FAFSA Conversation/Ideas shared:

  • Go through athletics as part of process with physical, EKG, FAFSA offered through LEA (Watauga)
  • Mentors
  • Mock senior year during junior year (Watauga)
  • FAFSA free-money dance
  • Analyze reasons why students are not completing (undocumented minors, remarriage of parents, etc. - CC)
  • Lessons could be developed
  • SREB course - FAFSA information embedded in course (Residency Determination Service - RDS) - Amy
  • Look at tax information - parents' tax - biggest hurdle for students
  • Can we bring over info. that is already collected in PS? (Watauga)
  • 4 pilots of promoting with school athletes (per Burt J meeting with Athletic association)
  • Student athletes - competitive - special relationships with Coaches (nag, encourage to complete)
  • Maria - we will bring back to you some additional recommendations and more of a plan for how to move forward - this is of major importance!
  • Tennessee - doing a much better job with this
  • We really need a state-wide strategy - needs to come to SBE sometime soon (Oxendine)
  • We have very few who hit even the 50% mark (districts)
  • Jackson Co. has a good completion average
  • CFNC began financial aid counseling with parents; required parents to fill-out FAFSA as part of some other activity they had to do (college day - allowed to be away from school for a day to do something related to college prep; the rest were bussed to a community college and deliberately asked to complete paperwork) (Scott)
  • We have some kids whose parents are incarcerated and need help from school counselor
  • Partnership with H and R Block and GearUp
  1. Metric Data Points Vote Results (each member present got three votes for top choices)

Note that this does not mean that items with no or few votes cannot be measured, but, as a Team, priority will be given to measuring those of which the most members indicated were top choices.

# Votes / Potential Metric / Comments/Questions
12 / FAFSA completion rates / Available via Marcia Weston and Federal Student Aid web site
9 / College application rates / Can we get this from UNC, NCCCS and NCICU (some would be duplicates)? Or should we get from high school post-graduate intentions data - Graduate Data Verification System (GDVS)?
5 / ACT gap scores / Should be able to get from DPI’s Advanced Learning and Gifted
5 / Credentials (CTE, CCP) / DPI CTE has this data
3 / General practice surveys of counselors, CDCs / Would need to be created and administered
3 / WorkKeys / DPI CTE has this data
3 / Absenteeism / DPI has this data
2 / 1 or more college transferable credits
2 / Soft skills / How do we measure this?
2 / Number of IHEs with MSA and school counseling programs with evidence of a CCR curriculum / Is this something grad. students could do as a project?
2 / Review of IHE syllabi for evidence of CCR curriculum implementation / Is this something grad. students could do as a project?
0 / Growth mindset (met/not met) / How do we measure this?
0 / Suspension/expulsion
0 / Course enrollment
0 / ACT benchmarks
0 / Number of CACREP vs. NonCACREP institutions in NC
  • Follow up survey re: practice changes of counselors/CDCs who participated in SREB courses is already planned to be done; but we need volunteers for a subcommittee to work on what this survey should include.
  1. Focus for Today
  2. Metrics for measuring outcomes
  3. Revisiting the definitions of Career and College Ready and College Going Culture
  4. Assessing current administrator preparation practices

Individual Committee Meetings

  1. Higher Education Preparation of School Counselors and Administrators Committee
  1. Recommendations for Career and College Ready definition revision
  2. Add dispositions or soft skills
  3. The definition should include (knowledge, skills, and dispositions)
  4. Look at connection between variables and goals
  5. What can be measured?
  6. RAMP vs. nonRAMP schools used as example for data collected. Academic preparation could not be assessed in this context
  7. Recommendations for definition revision for “College-Going Culture”:

National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) definition:

“refers to the environment, attitudes, and practices in schools and communities that encourage students and their families to obtain the information, tools, and perspective to enhance access to and success in post-secondary education”

Add:

  • All students and families
  • Knowledge, attitudes, and skills to pursue college
  • Engagement- support through the process starting in elementary school and throughout the lifespan
  • District, school, and community should be included throughout the process
  • A guided principle for all interactions

Recognize that we must meet the students where they are (resource accessibility)

  1. Recommendations for assessing current administrator preparation practices
  • Understanding roles between counselors and administrators - Which indicators are the responsibility of the counselor?
  • Why are principals not utilizing their counselors?
  • Lack of awareness
  • Overload of info in short trainings
  • No defined measured accountability on student service personnel
  • Are counselors familiar with new school counselor rubric?
  • No “report card”- no quantifiable data (e.g. Attendance, Frequency of visits, Develop action plans at beginning of the year)
  • Use national averages to target the work of support services- (i.e., bullying- what is the average in the state? Statistically, how is this represented in the school? How can support services be utilized?
  • Broad points also discussed and potentially work exploring further, include:
  • Accountability during training?
  • What are the expectations?
  • Case study of students?
  • Counselor + teachers working conditions survey
  • Program evaluations
  1. Next steps
  • Dig deeper into relationship between administrators and counselors. For example: What are counselors being taught? vs. what are counselors able to implement?
  • Explore Comprehensive counseling plan- counselor admin. annual agreement (e.g., Survey? Collect data periodically on status of plan, funding?)
  • Should there be something in place associated with mandate for school counselor and school improvement plan
  • Discuss schools using social workers as counselors (Avery, Catawba, Caldwell)- and why raising the unethical nature of this is bad for the state. Do we need to educate and communicate on this?
  1. Post-Graduate In-service for School Counselors, CDCs and Administrators Committee
  1. Definition of Career & College Ready
  • Questioned whether it was inclusive enough (e.g., Missing “graduates,” not just students
  • Questioned whether it was inclusive enough of the following:
  • Career Ready
  • College Ready
  • Life Ready
  • Would like to see something that is more focused on being Post-Secondary ready, not just “college” ready as college denotes 4-year.
  • Think we should convene with more senior level stakeholders in drafting a revision. This group could include:
  • State Board of Edu.
  • Senior leaders from various post-sec. options / institutions
  • Possible Student Member of Committee
  • Ideally, we would also initiate a conversation around changing the grad. requirements
  1. Proposed Definition of “College-Going Culture” *REVISIT*
  • Would like to see this term adjusted to be more inclusive of all paths (4-Year, 2-Year, Certificates and Credentials)
  • One definition we found and like: “Refers to the environment, attitudes, & practices in schools & communities that encourage students & their families to obtain the information, tools, perspective to enhance access to, and success in, post-secondary education.”
  • Potential terminology change “Excellence for All”
  • Suggest convening a group to discuss this further.
  1. Recommendations for assessing current administrator prep. Practices in instruction on roles of student services staff
  • School Leadership License Standards
  • Evaluation that the superintendents & Principals use for student services staff
  • Survey of systems offices of how staff is evaluated
  • NCASA
  • “Principal Leadership Programs”
  • Want to do workshops
  • RAMP – American School Counselors Association
  • Distinction for Excellence in Counseling
  • Take Inventory of professional development opportunities are currently being offered? Assess how can they be improved and/or scaled
  • Could Student services competency be translated into a CEU?
  • Need to focus on education and communications plan around this – targeting administrators.
  • Think about this holistically. In addition to SREB there are other existing NC resources
  • Could we incorporate into License Renewal: Student Services Certification Requirement
  • Leverage RESAs for education and communication strategy
  • Incorporate student services / supports into school report cards
  • Similarly, link FAFSA completion to school report card
  • Create best practices for administrators (toolkit) on how to leverage counselors in school improvement plans
  • Potential contacts to leverage:
  • School advisory boards
  • NC Principals fellows Commission
  • Pat Ashley (Source of Contact)
  1. Next Steps & Top Priorities for Committee
  • Would like other senior level leaders incorporated into the committee leadership
  • With our efforts, be strategic w/ who is the messenger
  • Consider Reach Higher Pitch (Convening)

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