February 2016 Volume 1, Issue 1

The Messenger NATIONAL SCHOOL COUNSELING WEEK!!!

School Counselors & Career Specialists • National School Counselor Week

FEBRUARY 1 – 5, 2016 National School Counseling Week 2016, "School Counseling: The Recipe for Success” will be celebrated from Feb. 1-5, 2016, to focus public attention on the unique contribution of professional school counselors within U.S. school systems. National School Counseling Week, sponsored by ASCA, highlights the tremendous impact school counselors can have in helping students achieve school success and plan for a career. National School Counseling Week is always celebrated the first full week in February.

Unsung Heroes As a school counselors or career specialists, we impact the lives of so many! We are the pulse of our school buildings and district teams. One academic semester is done and we are approaching the end of another school year. Yes, it’s almost done and it seems as if we have only just begun! Thank you on behalf of all of the students and their families you selflessly and diligently serve daily. As an educator, we play many roles in the lives of our students. For some you are that safe haven, for others you are the conduit of HOPE! You may wear the title of School Counselor or Career Specialist but, at any given time of any given school day, you may be required to wear the hat of a teacher, nurse, mentor or even a parent figure. The impact you make on students follow them long after the last bell has rung and classes have been dismissed.

Individual Highlights: Who Am I?

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PSSCA Advocate of the Year

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In The Know

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ACT Info.

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SCOIS

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School counseling personnel are often the unsung/unrecognized heroes in schools and districts. Although I am quite positive that your commitment to preparing our students to be successful 21st century citizens is not done with the intention of being recognized, YOU DESERVE IT! Again, “THANK YOU” for all that you do for our students, families, faculty and staff!

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Who Am I? Dr. Edward (Ed) A. Johnson, GCDFI Education Associate, Office of Student Intervention Services School Counselor/Career Specialist Liaison 805-B Rutledge Building 1429 Senate Street Columbia, SC 29201 Office: 803-734-6267 Fax: 803-734-5281 [email protected] “Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.” –Malcolm X

School Counselors and Career Specialists, I am honored to be here at the SCDE as your liaison. I come to you from the Beaufort County School District with a vast array of knowledge and experiences. I do not profess to know everything, but I believe reading is essential. I have served the Beaufort community as a teacher, school social worker, and school counselor. As a school counselor, I have served in the capacity of Director/Lead on the school and district levels. I hold membership within the PSSCA, ASCA and SCEA. Personally, I am the proud father of four wonderful young people and the grandfather of one with two on the way, due in April! (I am so excited!) I am also an active and life member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. My Motto: “Please, don’t tell me about your greatest works; show me your latest and how it has made a difference for the betterment of the lives of others!” Again, I look forward to working with and for you, my fellow School Counselors and Career Specialists. If I can be of assistance to you, please do not hesitate to contact me.

District administrator earns 2016 statewide honor for her support of school counselors BEAUFORT – A Beaufort County School District administrator has earned statewide recognition for her support of school counselors. Bonnie Almond, the district’s director of secondary education, has been presented with the 2016 School Counselor Advocate of the Year Award by the Palmetto State School Counselors Association. This is the first year for the new statewide recognition, which honors individuals who have demonstrated their support of school counseling programs. “I’m gratified to be recognized, but at the same time I know that this award is so much bigger than any one person,” Almond said. “School counselors are critical components of successful schools, and their contributions are critical components of our district’s strategic plan. They make up a core element of the overall vision for our district, for our superintendent and for our Board of Education.” Almond was nominated by Beaufort County School District counselors and was selected for the statewide honor by the awards committee of the Palmetto State School Counselors Association.

Photo - left to right: Kidada Irick (Port Royal Elementary School), Mary Hady (Hilton Head Island Elementary IB), Sara Reynolds (St. Helena Elementary School), Deborah Moore (Joseph Shanklin Elementary School), Lori Howell (Lady’s Island Middle School), Geri Henderson (BCSD, Lead School Counselor/School Counselor Right Choice), Bonnie Almond, Dr. Edward Johnson (State Dept. of Education, School Counselor/Career Specialist Liaison), Jennifer Simmons (Hilton Head Island Middle School), Sherry Williamson (Beaufort High School), Jalissa Newton (Lady’s Island Elementary School), Carol Brediger (Mossy Oaks Elementary School), Kimberly Brown (Whale Branch Early College High School) and Janice Ulmer (Battery Creek High School - not pictured).

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The Messenger

In The Know *SCCA Conference “All In: SCCA Supporting, Educating and Advocating for All Counselors” th th Hilton Head Island, SC February 25 – 27 , 2016 http://sccounselor.org/conference/ *SC Education Association Spring Conference th March 5 , 2016 Columbia, SC https://www.thescea.org/aboutus/events/ *SCEBS: TD Convention Center, Greenville, SC. th th June 26 – 29 , 2016 http://www.ebsummit.info/how-to-register.html *ASCA National Conference “Recipe for Success” th th New Orleans, July 9 – 12 , 2016 http://www.ascaconferences.org/

*SREB Annual HSTW Conference Louisville, KY. th th July 13 – 16 , 2016 http://www.sreb.org/page/1142/summer_conference.html Staying in the know……

The School Counselor Listserv is an awesome way to share ideas with colleagues and stay abreast of upcoming professional development activities and best practices. If you do not currently subscribe, you can do so by accessing the link below. http://listserv.ed.sc.gov/scripts/wa.exe?SUBED1=guidanc e&A=1

SREB: Go Alliance Academy and Academic Common Market Go Alliance Academy has launched a new online platform for counselor training. Please click on this link for additional information: http://www.sreb.org/page/2003/GAAnews.html. To find out how your state, district or university can participate, contact SREB Go Alliance Director Alice Anne Bailey, (404) 879-5601. In addition, we appreciate your continued support of the Academic Common Market, which is administered by the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB), this program allows for South Carolina residents who are enrolled in specific programs at public out-of-state institutions to be charged only the applicable in-state tuition by the institution in which the student is enrolled. Eligible programs are those programs, which are at least 50 percent different in curricular content than programs offered in South Carolina. Participating states are Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia (Florida and Texas participate at the graduate level only).

For additional information about the Academic Common Market program, utilize the following link: http://www.che.sc.gov/Students,FamiliesMilitary/LearningAboutCollege/AcademicCommonMarketInformation.aspx . The most up to date listing for programs for South Carolina residents may be found on the SREB website http://www.SREB.org at program inventory. For more information contact: Saundra E. Carr, M.A. Academic Common Market, Program Coordinator Division of Academic Affairs & Licensing South Carolina Commission on Higher Education 1122 Lady Street, Suite 300 Columbia, South Carolina, 29201-3245 Phone: 803-737-2274 Email: [email protected]

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Enhancements to the ACT Writing Test

Details of Enhanced ACT Writing Test Announced http://www.act.org/actnext/faq.html#Enhancements

“Enhancements to the ACT Writing Test!!”

Why are you enhancing the ACT writing test? As with all of our solutions, the modifications to the ACT writing test are driven by research and evidence. We have gathered and analyzed evidence of critical writing competencies during a decade of working with direct writing assessments in the high school, college, post-graduate, and workforce populations. We have also gathered important information about the writing skills that are valued by high school and college educators from our own ® ACT National Curriculum Survey research, our own 2011 NAEP Writing Framework research, and our participation in the creation of the Common Core State Standards. Based on these rich sources of research and our ACT College and Career Readiness Standards, we have developed a Writing Competencies Model that will guide our continuum of writing assessments from elementary school to career. Enhancements to the design of the ACT writing test and the expanded score reports will ultimately provide more insights to help students become college and career ready. Students will receive scores for four critical writing competencies: •

ideas and analysis

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development and support

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organization

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language use

What will the enhanced design of the ACT writing test look like? While the current ACT writing test is an exercise in classic persuasion, the enhanced ACT writing test presents students with a rhetorical purpose that is more broadly argumentative. Each prompt will present a paragraph that introduces and gives context to a given issue, and three perspectives on the issue. Included in the test booklet are two pages of planning space, which introduce a series of critical questions that support writers as they develop and express their ideas in response to the rhetorical situation. The writer’s task has three subcomponents. The writer is asked to “evaluate and analyze” the given perspectives; to “state and develop” his or her own perspective; and to “explain the relationship” between his or her perspective and those given.

Writers may adopt a perspective from the prompt, partially or fully, or may generate their own. Taken as a whole, these pieces constitute a rich argumentative task that draws from subgenres including evaluative argument and rhetorical analysis, and that also calls upon the tools of expository writing. Enhanced Writing Test Sample Prompt (PDF, 2 pages) What scores will students receive? In addition to a subject-level score which will be on the familiar 1–36 scale, the ACT writing test will provide scores for four important domains of writing competency reflected by the ACT Writing Competencies Model: ideas and analysis, development and support, organization, and language use. The test will measure students’ ability to evaluate multiple perspectives on a complex issue and generate their own analysis based on reasoning, knowledge, and experience, enabling them to more fully demonstrate their analytical writing ability. Assessing these critical writing competencies separately will enable ACT to better identify and reward the strengths students exhibit in their writing, while also noting specific deficiencies. Students will also receive a new score that combines the scores from the English and reading tests with the writing subject-level score (called an ELA Score). As is the case today, the writing score does not affect the 1–36 ACT Composite score. What insights will the new writing scores provide? The move to analytic scoring allows for a fine-grain evaluation of students’ writing abilities. We will continue to link reported scores to our ACT College and Career Readiness Standards for Writing and Ideas for Progress. What will the score reports look like from students who took the current ACT writing test? Scores for the current ACT writing test will be reported as they are currently, a single score on the 2–12 scale.

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The Messenger February is Job Shadow Month

South Carolina Department of Education Office of Student Intervention Services 1429 Senate Street Columbia, SC 29201

School Counselors and Career Specialist Let’s Get Our …..

PHONE: (803) 734-6267 FAX: (803) 734-5281 E-MAIL: [email protected]

SCOIS On!!!!!

We’re on the Web! See us at: http://ed.sc.gov/

There are so many new features to SCOIS. School Counselors/Career Specialists, let’s get engaged and utilize the free resources available to us to assist our students in becoming better 21st Century prepared!!! **SCOIS has available “single sign-on” through PowerSchool …. ** https://sccis.intocareers.org/materials/portal/home.html “It’s Your Brand”

Article Submission: Are you doing awesome things in your school or district? If so, SHARE, SHARE, SHARE..... Submit information and pictures so that we can share them with your colleagues across the state via this newsletter. All submissions should be emailed to: [email protected]

SC Department of Education, Office of Student Intervention Services: A newsletter for School Counselors and Career Specialist