News Release FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Denise Ward | (619) 2604659, ext. 6994 |wardd@sandiego.edu
11th Annual CS3 Forum to Address State of Counseling in California Schools SAN DIEGO, Sept. 22, 2009 – With state budget cuts becoming the norm in school districts over the past few years, schools have made cuts to a variety of programs, including the arts, libraries, nursing and physical education. Now they are reducing counseling – the basic support that students need to learn how to meet challenges and succeed in life. The Center for Student Support Systems at the University of San Diego will address this issue head on during the 11th Annual Forum on the State of Counseling and Guidance in Schools to be held on Dec. 11, 2009 at the School of Leadership and Education Sciences. Area counselors, counselor educators, educational leaders, and graduate students in education and counseling will convene to examine the current issues and sharpen their skills. This year, participants can expect to hear perspectives on school counseling from other related fields and will walk away from the forum with a big picture understanding of just how important counseling is in the life of a student, how the current fiscal crisis is impacting the provision of adequate student support, and how all Californians suffer as a result of the reductions in counseling and guidance. Participants will be inspired to get involved in advocating for the need to keep counseling and equipped with new information on ways to meet their current challenges of larger case loads, underserved children and insecurity of their own positions. The forum was established by the USD Counseling Program in 1999 as a way to bring together those in the counseling field. Since its founding, the event has grown from 60 participants to more than 200 each year. The Forum has been the scene of several groundbreaking initiatives and announcements, such as the establishment of the San Diego County Association of School Counselors and the establishment of the Center for Student Support Systems, which now organizes the event each year. USD’s Center for Student Support Systems is one of only two in the country involved in conducting research, supporting policy development and providing professional development to counselors.
The keynote speaker for the 2009 forum is Pat Nailor, Ph.D., presidentelect of the American School Counselor Association. Others scheduled to make presentations include: Bob Fellmeth, J.D., executive director of the Children’s Advocacy Institute and USD law professor; Russ Rumberger, Ph.D., director of the California Dropout Research Project and U.C. Santa Barbara professor; Scott Himelstein, director of USD’s Center for Education Policy and Law and former deputy state secretary of education; Loretta Whitson, executive director of the California Association of School Counselors and director of the Student Support Systems for Monrovia Unified School District. For more information and registration information, go to www.sandiego.edu/cs3. About the University of San Diego The University of San Diego is a Catholic institution of higher learning chartered in 1949; the school enrolls approximately 7,800 undergraduate and graduate students and is known for its commitment to teaching, the liberal arts, the formation of values and community service. The fall 2007 establishment of the Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies brings the University’s total number of schools and colleges to six. Other academic divisions include the College of Arts and Sciences and the schools of Business Administration, Leadership and Education Sciences, Law and Nursing and Health Sciences. ###