DataLEADers

DataLEADers: Connecting School Counselors to School Improvement

The North Carolina School Counselor Association has paired up once again with Dr. Carol Dahir, co author of School Counselor Accountability: A Measure of Student Success. The mission of our collaborative relationship with Dr. Dahir is to provide professional development in working with using data to show the positive results of a comprehensive school counseling program as a means to evaluate student achievement. Counselors who wish to take their skills to the next level, may apply as trainers for the eight regions to work with school counselors in data collection. Using the MEASURE model aligns school counselors with the ASCA National Model and our new North Carolina Standards for Professional School Counseling.

The scope of work commenced at the NCSCA conference in November with the overview of MEASURE training, "DataLEADers: Connecting School Counselors to School Improvement". The group of 140 counselors will continue to receive support and training throughout the remainder of the school year to finalize their own MEASURE. Dr. Dahir will return in 2010 fall conference to complete training and help acknowledge the MEASURE team with awards.

For all school counselors, the new North Carolina Professional School Counseling Standards demands counselor to seek evidence that school counseling programs are accountable, promote student achievement, and contribute to the instructional program. NC school counselors, now, more than ever before must rise to the challenge of accountability and use data to show the impact of their work on their schools and districts improvement goals. These goals may include attendance, drop out prevention, student behavior, promotion and retention and post secondary options.

School counselors who attended the training a) acquired knowledge and skills to assist in meeting the new NC Standards for School Counseling b) worked with school data to develop a MEASURE plan which connects school counselor to school improvement goals c) share accountability for student success by developing strategies to collaborate with key stakeholder to move school improvement data in a positive direction and d) shared best practices in using data to show what you do every day and how you make a difference!