Program Information
Professional Counseling, Specialization: School Counseling, M.Ed.
The Transforming School Counseling Initiative
The School Counseling Program at UGA and the Athens-Clarke County School System were part of a national initiative to transform the preparation and practice of school counselors. This partnership was one of six nationally to receive planning and implementation grants from the DeWitt Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund to transform the preparation and practice of school counselors. The grant is administered through The Education Trust.
The rationale for this national initiative as stated by The Education Trust:
School counselors have an enormous impact on the choices students make and their future options. School counselors are ideally positioned in schools to serve as advocates who create opportunities for all students to define, nurture and accomplish high academic aspirations. Educational equity, access to quality preparation and support for student success in these efforts become fundamental concerns for the school counselor. Yet school counselors have been left totally out of the standards-based education reform movement. No work has been done to ensure that future school counselors receive pre-service preparation to serve as advocates for all students, and especially for low-income students and students of color, in a standards-based system. In 1996, the Education Trust, with support from the DeWitt Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund, worked with a panel of leaders to identify what school counselors need to know to be able to help all students succeed academically. In the second phase of the Initiative, the Trust worked with ten institutions of higher education and their K-12 district partners to plan new training models for school counselors. In the third phase of the initiative the Trust is worked with six institutions and their K-12 school district partners who designed and implemented their planned program changes.
Key Activities or Components in the UGA/Clarke County Collaboration:
- Classic City Counselors Collaborative - a partnership between program faculty and local school counselors who meet monthly on topics of mutual interest
- Best Practices Conference - an annual conference for local counselors, graduate students, and alumni that updates participants on the grant and provides opportunities for sharing successes from the field
- Counselor Academy - an annual week-long professional development opportunity for partnership counselors, graduate students, and school counseling program faculty on topics related to the new role for school counselors.
- Community Caucus - an annual gathering of counselors, graduate students, program faculty, other school system and university personnel, and community leaders to consider issues facing children and adolescents in our county
- Counseling and Performance Assessment Lab - a technology lab to support counselor, faculty, and student development related to the use of applications to support the new vision for school counseling and to promote student achievement.
- African American Male Initiative
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