Goal 1: Establish how counselors can be critical participants in education reform and effective contributors to the central mission of  schools – to educate all students to high levels.

Goal 1 Objectives - Participants will:

1. Understand education reform issues and initiatives and develop strategies to ensure that reform policies are equitable.
2. Learn ways of connecting school counseling to the mission of schools.
3. Understand the impact of counselor action on equity and student achievement.
4. Recognize that traditional counselor skills contribute uniquely to education reform.
5. Learn how to work with all stakeholders in schools & communities to achieve educational equity and excellence.

Goal 2: Challenge the belief systems of participants

Goal 2 Objectives - Participants will:

1. Understand the imperative for change and be able to communicate it to others.
2. Examine their own belief systems and understand that belief systems can have positive or negative consequences for students and their life chances.
3. Learn how to influence the education system through systemic changes that increase students’ achievement.

[back to top]

Goal 3: Provide skills that will assist participants to work systemically as well as individually in leadership, advocacy, teaming & collaboration, and use of data to help schools and school systems achieve educational equity and excellence for all students.

Goal 3 Objectives: Participants will:

A. Leadership

1. Learn how to articulate counselors’ role in the leadership of schools.
2. Understand the importance of school counselors having a strong voice for equity and excellence for all students in the leadership of schools.
3. Learn strategies to utilize the power of counselors’ role to shape educational leadership to benefit students who are least well served by the system – including high as well as low-achieving students.
4. Develop a plan and strategies to facilitate systemic change including school policy and instructional programs.

B. Teaming & Collaboration:

Participants will:

1. Learn how to use teaming & collaboration skills to promote educational equity and social justice in the educational system.
2. Identify the critical components of successful teaming & collaboration that can help schools become successful places for all students.
3. Develop a plan to provide leadership in implementing teaming and collaboration principles to improve educational experiences and outcomes for all students.

C. Advocacy Objectives:

Participants will:

1. Understand advocacy and what it means to work systemically as an advocate for all students.
2. Learn a framework for working as an advocate to help schools achieve educational excellence and equity.
3. Identify the opportunities and overcome the obstacles in working as an advocate.
4. Learn strategies for shifting from focus on individuals to focus on changing those aspects of the system that are impediments to equity and social justice for all students.
5. Develop a data-driven advocacy plan that will change the system to be responsive to the academic and social needs of all students, especially students of color and students from low-income families.

D. Use of Data Objectives:

Participants will:

1. Understand the importance of using data in making systemic change.
2. Understand the importance of data driven school counseling programs and effective interventions to improve student achievement and development.
3. Learn the critical data elements that impact school-wide student outcomes.
4. Learn ways of accessing, analyzing, and presenting date to dispel myths about student achievement.
5. Learn ways of using data to demonstrate the relationship between counselor behavior/interventions and student outcomes.
6.  Devise an action plan using critical data elements to design an educational equity advocacy plan for systemic change.

[back to top]