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National Invitational Conference:
“The Role of School Counselors in Closing the Gap” |
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| February 6-7, 2003
in Philadelphia, PA |
The National Invitational Conference, “The Role of School
Counselors in Closing the Gap,” convened February 6–7, 2003,
in Philadelphia, PA. The Minority Student Achievement
Network (MSAN), The Network for Equity in Student
Achievement (NESA), and the Laboratory for Student Success (LSS)
cosponsored the event, the goal of which was to discuss the
critical role of school counselors in standards-based school
reform. Counselors have been excluded from policy
initiatives and discussions of school reform; yet as the
“eyes and ears” of schools, with strong communication and
conflict resolution skills, they are ideally positioned for
encouraging and supporting student achievement and closing
the achievement gap between students of color and White
students.
“We have to change the culture of achievement,” stated JoAnn
Manning, Executive Director of LSS. The status quo in
education is “not acceptable.” It is time to get to work
formulating “action plans” for transforming the role of
counselors in schools and helping low-performing students
become participants in high-performing learning communities.
Conference participants offered thought-provoking
suggestions for improvement. Reese House of The Education
Trust in Washington, DC, presented a “vision” for engaging
school counselors in reform efforts. Nan Henderson,
President and cofounder of Resiliency In Action, Inc., in
San Diego, CA, highlighted the importance of caring and
support in relationships with students and using resilience
research as a framework for shifting attitudes and beliefs
about achievement from a deficit view to a focus on
students’ individual strengths, which include an innate
ability to overcome stressful life events and challenges.
Counselors can elicit students’ innate ability to overcome
academic challenges and help them improve their school
performance.
Participants included school counselors, teachers,
superintendents, directors of school counseling, principals,
social workers, and other education professionals. Attendees
participated in small group discussions and developed action
plans for change in school teams. The conference concluded
with a discussion of next steps for implementing changes in
the participants’ home districts. |
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view conference images |
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