Blog 7 Chapter 7

Mt. Data’s Dilemma (Dollarhide & Saginak, p 108) seems to be happening close to home, the Reading School District let go of all of the School Counselors in the whole district last year.  The reason number 1 being budget cuts and the fact that school counselors are not mandatory in the public school.  I can relate to the feeling of utter despair that the school counselors felt after hearing the news about having to show data to basically prove they are attributing to academics and school success. 

Many of the school counselors have probably been doing the same thing for years, and can attest to the fact they most of their day they are putting out fires and filling their schedules with classroom guidance lessons, parents meetings, conferences, small groups and anything else that may come their way.  Now they have to not only figure out how to collect data but to make positive use of it showing how the school counselors’ efforts link directly to academic achievement and school success.  They are probably already overwhelmed with their caseloads and the district dumps this on them like a ton of bricks.

On the other hand, I understand the districts need to show that the school counselors are necessary for the academic achievement and school success especially when it comes to funding and government passed down laws regarding education.  The school wants to back the school counselors, but they need evidence in the form of raw data that can tabulate a correlation with the school counselors.  The school counselors’ responses were not solution focused, and they seemed to be run down by obligations they already have.  I believe that this accountability gesture from the district will help to push the counselors to do the right thing.  I hope that the administration backs the counselors, as they will not have time for as many classroom guidance lessons, conferences or other forms of interaction that will take away from the school counselor trying to collect data to protect their job.

The article goes further into accountability from the early 1920’s to 2003 discussing that school counselors need to be accountable for student success.  I’m wondering why there is so much debate over what school counselors do, don’t do and should do?  Is there a national association for Nurses? Or Janitors?  Why are the school counselors always on the chopping block?  This brings me to the fact that the job we are educating ourselves for is great, amazing and life changing to the students we have the pleasure of helping.  We need to set the bar for school counselors (when its our time) and show the school district, administration, students, parents and community why we LOVE our job/career.  We want to do the right thing, and we want to be held accountable no matter the cost of time or resources. 

Reference

Dollarhide, C.T., & Saginak, K.A. (2012). Comprehensive school counseling programs (2nd Ed.). New York: Pearson, Inc.

Gysbers, N. C. (2004). Comprehensive Guidance and Counseling Programs: The Evolution of Accountability. Professional School Counseling, 8(1), 1-14.