The "American School Counselor Association (ASCA) School Counselor Professional Standards & Competencies" can provide the foundation for guiding and evaluating school counselors' practices and programs (ASCA, 2019). When appropriate measures are used to evaluate PK-12 school counselors, teachers, principals, and student support…

The observation and supervision of New Jersey educators stand as a critical professional component to ensure that school staff is provided with timely feedback about their performance and recommendations and support for continual improvement. As a result of the TeachNJ Act (2012), efforts were made to formalize this process across New Jersey's…

The professional identity of school counselors needs consensus from the field. School counselors believe their professional identity is as a counselor (Webber, 2004). The American School Counselor Association (ASCA) defines school counselors as educators (ASCA, 2019), while some researchers argue for a dual identity educator-counselor (DeKruyf et…

The purpose of this study was to further investigate the relationship between the instruments identified by Kose and developed by Maras et al. (2013), Astramovich (2016), and Dimmitt et al. (2007) to provide validation to the proposed taxonomy of program evaluation competencies for school counselors. Theoretically, these instruments should be…

School counseling is a dynamic, evolving profession that has shifted throughout the decades to address students' needs in response to societal changes. The American School Counselor Association National Model has been instrumental in outlining the current role of school counselors and the components necessary for comprehensive school counseling…

Previous research suggests high school counselors are not living up to their potential as social/emotional, academic, and postsecondary counselors. This article addresses this concern by studying how schools and districts utilize counselors. Through interviews and observations of high school counselors, administrators, and counselor educators in…

School counselor-school administrator relationships have seen greater attention in the literature, especially as it relates to the development and implementation of comprehensive school counseling programs. These programs are well-suited to support the holistic development of children and adolescents in K-12 schools. As a part of this…

There is a lack of an established framework or taxonomy in the academic literature to systematically analyze school counseling policies. This study was conducted to fill in this gap. Specifically, the researchers propose an initial taxonomy developed based on review of relevant school counseling policy documents and research. The proposed taxonomy…

How can school counselors support large-scale postsecondary and career-readiness initiatives? While schools and districts want to use personalized learning or individualized learning plans as a way to align students' school experiences to their postsecondary and career goals, schools may lack the human capital to support and guide this endeavor.…

The professional identity of school counselors has changed and adapted in significant part due to the empirically supported American School Counselors Association (ASCA) National Model. The roles of school counselors within the P-12 school setting have been ruled by job descriptions (describing the expectations of the position) and performance…

This article is the second of a two-part series that describes the development of the "Taxonomy of Policy Levers to Promote High Quality School-Based Counseling." Previous article (Morshed & Carey, 2020) described the development of the taxonomy using content analysis of existing published descriptions of policy levers. This article…

The purpose of the study was to examine the perceptions of the school counseling evaluation process among counselors and their evaluating principals in an urban public school system. Specifically, this study explored who conducts counselor evaluations, how evaluations are conducted, what competency indicators school counselors perceive as…

This article describes initial efforts to pilot an evaluation instrument for school counselors. The pilot was a collaboration led by the state's school counselor association involving a state department of education (DOE), local school districts, and university faculty members. The article begins with a brief overview of historical and contextual…

Professional school counselors have been advocating for their role as counselors in the schools for decades (Galassi & Akos, 2007; Gysbers, 2002; Slaten & Baskin, 2013). Although researchers have addressed this concern through advocacy in service and writing, school counselors continue to perform a significant amount of non-counseling…

For students whose families and friends do not have college-going experience to share, applying to college can be challenging. School counselors can fill the gap, but in many schools--especially those serving students most in need--counselors are spread thin. This NASBE policy update explores the ways state boards of education can address the…