MASCA
MASSACHUSETTS SCHOOL COUNSELORS ASSOCIATION
VOL. 48, NO. 8
The Changing School Counselor’s Role By MICHELLE BURKE MASCA President
MICHELLE BURKE
W
e are all aware that the role expectations of a school counselor, especially in Massachusetts, have changed considerably over the past ten plus years. These changes made some school counselors consider retirement, but they have also made many improvements in our service delivery. The changes needed to be made. Our country was losing rank, dropping to twelfth among developed nations in college degree attainment. And far too many low-income, special education, and minority population students were not finishing high school. In addition, school counselors were not helping every student on their caseload. Rather, we were spending much of our time on individual appointments and focusing on students with social and emotional issues. This small minority of our caseloads was taking up the majority of our time. If we truly cared about our children, it was time for us to re-evaluate our roles. We needed to become leaders for change and develop programs that would help all students in a more effective and efficient manner.
BHS moves forward At Beverly High School, we began increasing our number of classroom presentations every year to include grade-
specific topics. These group presentations got us out of the office more often, and we were able to build rapport with students who normally would not come by our office on their own. We found that, after spending time with us in these group presentations, many students were more comfortable to come by our office with questions or concerns. I will never forget what a parent said to me early in my career at an evening Open House: “You will probably never see my son; he doesn’t have any problems.” That statement was very powerful to me and has been a driving force in my career. Although we were initially fearful of change, our counselors found that we loved the classroom setting. The energy was exciting. We were very competent in leading discussions, providing information, and supporting students in a large group setting. In addition, we gained more visibility in our building, and many staff members offered positive feedback. This year, we took our efforts one giant step forward. We volunteered to teach a semester course for our juniors. The timing was perfect. For the past few years we had been talking about the need for a junior course taught by us, and our school needed more courses because students were no longer allowed free periods. Our administration thought it was a great idea, and after some trepidation, we jumped right in. (continued on page 10)
APRIL 2012
Defining College and Career Readiness By DONNA BROWN MASCA Executive Director
T
he issues of college and career readiness have engaged educators in serious conversation for the past few years. In 2010, The Christian Science Monitor published an article entitled “No Child Left Behind embraces ‘college and career readiness’” by Amanda Paulson. Through interviews and references to a variety of experts, Paulson discusses what it means to be college and career ready and the difficulty in measuring all the attributes that constitute readiness. She cites various studies that find between 30-40 percent of students require remediation before tackling credit-carrying courses. She also refers to an older study by the group Achieve that queried employers about their entry level employees’ preparedness. Here, again, 40% lacked the skills needed to be successful. David Conley, director of the Center for Educational Policy Research at the University of Oregon in Eugene, opines that besides the cognitive skills emphasized in the Common Core standards, students must possess “self-management skills and knowledge about the culture of college— including how to choose and apply to the right one— as well as academic skills and content knowledge.” He continues saying, “What students need to know in high school is not every detail. They need a structure of knowledge, big ideas and large organizing concepts.” I was very interested in Conley’s com(continued on page 4)
MASCA Annual Spring Conference CoCo Key Hotel & Water Resort, Danvers April 29 – May 1, 2012 Register online or with the form on page 8.