Editorials / Opinions

Freeway 5 and the Implementation of AB1802
By Harvey Hoyo, Ed.D. - President, CSCA

At a recent meeting of the Orange County Counseling Network Roundtable, I was pleased to see such great enthusiasm for servicing our at-risk students as defined in the AB1802 legislation. While the enthusiasm is universal around California, implementation varies from district to district. Some districts are on hold to see how this wonderful legislation plays out while most have jumped in to some degree or another. Indeed, many district officials express concerns for the lack of qualified professional school counselors.

As Winnie Strong, former Interim President of the CACD remarked, "It's like finding yourself driving a 2007 Mercedes with 20 inch spoke alloy wheels and a 604 horsepower motor down Freeway 5; but the factory still needs to install doors and a steering wheel." Similar to many other pieces of education legislation, AB1802 provides guidelines; but leaves the details to local interpretation. Student results, especially in grades 7 and 10 become keys to this legislation. The legislation also requires individualized counseling sessions with both 7 th graders whose 6 th grade state test scores fall "Far Below Basic" and 11 th graders who did not pass the CAHSEE (the California High School Exit Exam) in the 10th grade. AB8102 provides a tremendous opportunity for school counselors to take leadership and help shape the support services necessary to matriculate these targeted students through our educational system and on to postsecondary educational programs.

In addition, the legislation requires participating districts to establish a method for students to demonstrate competencies in developing their educational goals by middle school. As counselors know, the first step for student success is to decide where they are going. From that point on, the professional school counselors along with others serving on the educational team can better assure that the students reach their goals.

An AB1802 Clearinghouse has been established to provide necessary resources for student support professionals. The Center for Student Support Systems (CS3) at the University of San Diego, under the auspices of Dr. Lonnie Rowell, and the Los Angeles County Office of Education's California Counseling Leadership Academy under the direction of Mr. Bob Tyra are to be commended for this potentially useful website. This site aims to assist school counselors, administrators, counselor educators, and researchers interested in the implementation of AB1802.

Another helpful resource, under the sponsorship of the College Board, is the National Office for School Counselor Advocacy which addresses the professional school counselors' goal of providing access to a post-high school college option. More valuable information can be found at http://www.collegeboard.com/prof/counselors/nosca.html.

As required by the legislation, school districts from Capistrano Unified to Hemet Union High School District have been fine tuning their comprehensive school counseling guidance plans. Included in that plan is the development of a system for documenting that the required counseling sessions and recommended academic support actually take place. As the roundtable session demonstrated many school districts struggle to align their current student data base systems to 1802 requirements. Paper-pencil tracking sheets are being developed for counselor usage. More difficult is to add those tracking sheets to the current student data management program and to assure that a counselor friendly data management system tracks changes in important variables such as attendance and GPA improvement resulting from the mandated conferences. It will also become essential for counselors to follow up assuring that students are taking advantage of the recommended support services. Counselors should not be content to say, "I've held a 15 minute conference; the rest is up to the student."

In addition, as a result of these processes, counselors are realizing the need to examine the quality and effectiveness of those support services. It is essential, for example, that if Johnny needs support with understanding the algorithm of ratio and proportion, then he must receive instruction in that missing piece while attending the district-provided after school homework club. 1802 opens doors for counselors to review program quality assuring that the academic support is aligned with the needs of the targeted students. In the past, I recall, school counselors were happy because the district offered after school tutorial support. Now, it's more complicated. Effective support programs assess missing information and develop mechanisms to assure that the missing information is provided to targeted students. The two middle schools in Little Lake Elementary School District, for instance, have been struggling with this issue and are making significant progress in aligning student needs with appropriate student support.

While these are exciting times for our profession, it is imperative for the professional school counselor to raise quality issues as counselor teams revise their district's comprehensive school guidance plan. Counselors must demonstrate data showing their interventions make a difference. It's all about your counseling program's results or outcome data. If we don't accept this challenge, we will find ourselves driving down Freeway 5 with our shining Mercedes sedan without doors and a steering wheel.

Harvey Hoyo, Ed.D. is Lead Faculty for School Counseling at National University- Costa Mesa. He can be reached at hhoyo@nu.edu