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P.O. Box 752
Safety Harbor, FL 34695-0752
Phone or Fax: (888) 785-8611
www.Fla-SchoolCounselor.org
[email protected]
March 5, 2013
Dear Florida School Board Member,
As the President of the Florida School Counselor Association
I
represent the thousands of professional school counselors in our
state. You
may already know that school counselors are highly trained
professionals
who are concerned with student achievement, personal success,
and
ensuring a safe and secure learning environment for all
students.
Specifically, the school counseling curriculum advances student
personal,
social, academic, and career competencies. School counseling
programs aredesigned to reach every student at every level. School
counselors strive to
develop and deliver comprehensive school counseling programs
according to
Floridas Frameworks for Student Development Programs and the
Standards
developed by the American School Counselor Association National
Model.
Your school counselors endeavor to engage all students with
data-driven and
evidence based interventions that are part of an overall
accountability
system.
So how can your school counselors deliver such labor
intensive
programs and adequately help students when the average counselor
to students ratio in our state is 1:475 (the
national standard for student-to-school counselor ratios is
1:250)? This is a problem that gets in the way of
school counselors doing what you have hired them to do. FSCA has
a solution that will help although we cannot
do it without you.
We need your help to support school counselors in better
preventing student failure. Our bill, SB 0154
and H 0801, Student Failure Prevention Act, has been filed again
in Floridas Senate by our champion, Senator
Nancy Detert. The bill is being drafted in the House and we
expect filing before the deadline in early March.
Representative Adkins who filed our bill last year and is still
a staunch supporter cannot file for us this year due
to changes in her committee assignments. However, she is chair
of an important committee to us and is
working hard with FSCA to ensure that the bill gets filed and
has support.
What you can do?
1. Write a note to Senator Detert thanking her for her tireless
support.2. Write a note to Representative Adkins and thank her for
helping us help students.3. Contact your own legislators (and
others who may cover your school district in neighboring
jurisdictions) and let each know that you want their support.
Tell them that you support SB 154 and
any companion legislation filed in the House to increase school
counselors in every school, improve
student access to counselors, and to ensure that every student
has adequate and sufficient school
counseling programs.
The Florida School Counselor
Association (FSCA) expands
the image and influence of
professional school
counselors through
advocacy, leadership,
collaboration and systemic
change at the state level.FSCA empowers professional
school counselors with the
knowledge, skills, linkages,
and resources to promote
student success in the school,
the home, the community,
7/29/2019 School Board Letter 2013
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Letter to Florida School Board Members
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We strongly anticipate that the successful passage of this bill
will positively impact Floridas graduation,
attendance, and discipline rates. Parents, educators, and our
communities want students to be prepared to
learn, to work with others, and to exit schools with the best
learning and career development skills possible.
The Student Failure Prevention Actis what we all need to help
make this happen.
Support your districts school counselors to do their jobs well
by helping to advocate and promote this
advocacy effort.
Please feel free to contact me if you would like to talk
more.
Sincerely,
Russell A. Sabella, Ph.D.
PresidentFlorida School Counselor Association
