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Running head: SCHOOL COUNSELORS’ LEADERSHIP ROLE 1

School Counselors’ Leadership Role in Accountability

Danhua Kong

Ball State University

SCHOOL COUNSELORS’ LEADERSHIP ROLE 2

School Counselor’s Leadership Role in Accountability

Rationale

Currently, school counselors are working in an environment that calls for accountability.

According to the ASCA National Standards (ASCA, 2005), professional school counselors’ role in

accountability is to develop and implement programs that are data/needs-driven, standards-based and

research-supported, and conduct follow-up activities to evaluate the programs. They also report results

and analyze outcome data to demonstrate effectiveness of applied school counseling programs and

identify areas can be improved for better results in the future. Professional school counselors’

performance is evaluated by instrument that is based on the School Counselor Performance Standards in

the ASCA National Model, and the ASCA School Counselor Competencies.

In other words, accountability is the demonstration of school counseling program’s

effectiveness in measurable terms. According to Brown and Trusty, accountability is a process

by which school counselors demonstrate that the school counseling program has made positive

impact on students (2005). To demonstrate and share accountability, school counselors need to

possess competencies (Engels & Associates, 2004) in conducting evaluation activities to

ascertain whether schools’ and students’ needs have been met and assess the effectiveness of

school counselors’ service. Also, in the process of assessing accountability, empirical data

obtained can be used as rationale for changes, thus ensure that students’ needs have been met

(Brown &Trusty, 2005). Based on what has stated, it’s unquestionable that improvement of

accountability is one of the essential tasks for school counselors. In order to effectively fulfill

this task, factors that influence accountability and methods that can be applied to improve it

should be studies.

Basically, school counselors function as professionals in design and implementation of a

comprehensive school counseling program through leadership, management, advocacy, and


collaboration. A large amount of publications on school counseling program accountability

emphasize the need and importance for school counselors to be more involved in leadership.

Given current education evolution, it also seems to be appropriate that school counselors’

intensive involvement in leadership should be accomplished (Brown &Trusty, 2005). Although

American School Counseling Association and many other educators have advocated school

counselors’ leadership role as of significance in the development and practice of school

counseling program, some school counselors in-training may still be unclear or uncertain about

the importance of being a leader or how to be a leader. Personally, even though I know it is one

of the basic requirements for school counselors to be program leaders, I was confused about the

leadership role regarding its importance, characteristics, and function; not to mention the ways

we can apply to become a leader. This paper is based on study of the course book several

articles, as well as my own understanding of the leadership role and how it is connected with

accountability, hoping that school counseling program can be more effective when school

counselors acknowledge the importance and ways to be leaders.

Articles

The articles I chose for this paper include our course book Designing and Leading

Comprehensive School Counseling Programs (Brown &Trusty, 2005), which provides detailed

explanation of the leadership role and skills required to be an effective leader; and three other

articles published in the recent 10 years, studying the school counselor leadership role in practice

and its association with accountability. They are School Counselor as Accountability Leaders:

another Call for Action, published in Professional School Counseling, 2009, by Christopher A.

Sink; School Counselors as Program Leaders: Applying Leadership Contexts to School

Counseling, published in Professional School Counseling, 2003, by Colette T. Dollarhide; and


Counselor Education Accountability: Training the Effective Professional School Counselor,

published in Professional School Counseling, 2006, by Pamelia E. Brott.

Summarization of Findings

In Designing and Leading Comprehensive School Counseling Programs (Brown

&Trusty, 2005), chapter 8, four approaches of leadership were introduced and leadership was

distinguished from management, coordination, and advocacy. What interested me most were the

characteristics of effective leaders, which can be used as an evaluation form for school

counselor-in-training to monitor and improve their training and development. Chapter 9 also

introduced some skills must be obtained to be an effective leader, including skills in dealing with

public relations, facilitating problem solving, building well-functioning team, and supervising

new school counselor-in-service.

School Counselor as Accountability Leaders: another Call for Action (Sink, 2009)

depicted the characteristics of accountability leaders, discussed the importance and responsibility

that leaders should be aware of in having the ASCA National Standards and other ethical

standards met, and also reviewed some commonly used implementation strategies and

instrumentation practices. At last, this article provided recommendations for future research and

practice.

According to the study, effective accountability leaders share a version of organization

that is mutually acceptable and an attempt to engage all faculty members who are willing to

contribute. In addition, effective leaders are open and sensitive, being responsible for one's

actions, willing to answer, and the forth. In order to sustain school improvement leadership

activities, leaders need to develop accountability skills, including collecting meaningful

quantitative data and conducting psychometric research to validate the instrumentation utilized in


research. Some published results-focused accountability instruments are Career Decision-

Making System- Revised, Gatehouse Bullying Scale, School Counseling Program Evaluation

Survey, and the forth.

School Counselors as Program Leaders: Applying Leadership Contexts to School

Counseling (Dollarhide, 2003) discussed the leadership contexts in which school counseling was

applied, outlined the activities and skills in each school counseling context, and presented ways

to effectively conceptualize and apply the leadership role in school counseling program. At the

end of the article, an example of the application of leadership contexts was provided based on a

holistic view.

In this article, effective leadership was perceived important for school counselors to be

actively involved in school reform, including the counselor commitment to align the program

with student competencies and devotion of time to design, implement, and account for a

comprehensive school counseling program. This study conceptualized leadership as consisting

of four contexts—structural, human resource, political, and symbolic:

Structural leadership activities address building viable school counseling programs,

human resource leadership activities highlight the need to inspire others,

political leadership activities emphasize that school counselors need to access formal

and informal power structures, and symbolic leadership activities prompt

school counselors to envision a goal and communicate that to all stakeholders (p.

306).

Challenges, activities and skills appropriate to each context need to be understood as

effective leadership. A holistic leadership "style” is expected to happen when leaders are able to

integrate contextually appropriate skills.


Counselor Education Accountability: Training the Effective Professional School

Counselor (Brott, 2006) focused on the crucial role that counselor education plays in structuring

counselors-in-training’s professional identity development. Counselor education programs

should perceive effectiveness-oriented learning experiences as crucial in training qualified and

effective school counselors. This article stated that accountability is one of school counselors’

professional obligations, as well as a reflection of their identity through reporting effectiveness in

service and of the grogram. The CACREP’s 2001 standards (CACRAP, 2001) were used to

identify components of training effective professional counselors, which consist of theories of

counseling, appraisal in counseling, school counseling, practicum in counseling, internship in

counseling. An action research project for training the effective professional school counselor

was also presented, including classroom activities, projects, and resources.

Integration of Findings

The articles I chose emphasized the importance for school counselors to be leaders in

designing and practicing school counseling program. They might conceptualize the leadership

role differently, but they all required leaders to be actively engaging in change, program design,

colleague inspiration, resources collection, and goal setting and sharing with other members.

After putting all the information from the articles together, a comprehensive picture of effective

school counseling program leaders appeared. Effective leaders are proactive, responsible, and

accessible. More importantly, they are able to prioritize, begin with the end in mind, negotiate to

maintain relationships, understand the position of others first, synergize, and renew their

personal resources (Brown &Trusty, 2005). They also need to develop skills to demonstrate

accountability in measurable terms, which consists of collecting data and doing research. In the

process of becoming effective grogram leaders, the counselor training program is crucial.


According to CACRAP’s 2001 Standards (CACRAP, 2001), effective professional school

counselor training program should consist of learning activities, such as helping relationships,

assessment, school counseling, clinical instruction, and clinical instruction, in order to develop

personal model of counseling, cognitive framework for accountability, and skills for reporting

accountability. The ultimate goal of the education program is to train school counselors to be

capable of designing counseling effectiveness project and embedding accountability into their

counselor identity (Brott, 2006).

Application

I think findings from these articles are inspiring and helpful in the process of becoming a

professional school counselor in both personal and professional aspects. Professionally, I have

had an in-depth comprehension of the necessity to be a grogram leader. With a comprehensive

knowledge of the leadership role in mind, I understand that it’s my duty to be proactive in

assessing students’ needs, advocating changes, envisioning program, accessing to support, and

collaborating with school staff to make changes. Personally, however, I have also identified

some defects that may hinder me from fulfilling my duties. In a word, I need to constantly

evaluate my personal and professional development in order to be an effective program leader.

Personal Development

In order to meet the requirements for a professional school counselor, I have to be

confident enough to advocate my role as well as students’ needs. As we’ve discussed before in

class, there are too many factors impeding school counselors- in-service’s professional functions,

such as unsupportive principals, lack of budget, disproportionate school counselor to students

rate, and the forth. Benefiting from in-depth self-introspection, I realized that I had difficulty in

refusing others’ requests and handling conflicts, because I was afraid of hurting others’ feelings


or losing friends due to disagreements. Conclusively, I was not confident about my interpersonal

skills and problem-solving skills. These articles provided characteristics, habits, values, and

skills of effective leaders, which help me to identify qualities I have already had and the areas I

still need to improve. After checking with the table 8.2 (Brown & Trusty, 2005), I think I’ve

developed the habits and values required for an effective leader, whereas I am still not confident

about my ability in communication, persuasiveness, assertiveness, diplomacy, advocacy,

planning, standards setting, and negotiation. In terms of characteristics, I found out the need to

be more imaginative, courageous, foresighted, decisive, self-confident, methodical, socially

aware, tactful, and self-disciplined. This table and the ASCA National Standards can be used for

my self-evaluation in the process of identity development.

Professional development

As the articles stated, effective leaders need to be intensively engaged in several

components of school counseling program: program design, program evaluation, and

involvement in social service committees. Designing a school counseling program requires a

vision of the grogram and practical ways to share the vision with other school staff. As part of

the design component, I have to persuade others faculty members to consider changes, or to

adopt educational approaches that reflect the vision. Since school counselors are required to

attend school board meetings and give presentations sometime, I can use this opportunity to

share the vision of the program and students with board members, with the purpose to persuade

them to agree upon application of the program. A clear view of the program is needed.

Findings suggested that effective leaders should obtain accountability and research skills.

Based on what I’ve learnt so far, school counselors may not conduct accountability assessment

often due to limited time and overburdening duties; however, they have to be capable of


obtaining and analyzing data, since their service and the program will be evaluated by school

principal and school board based on the results. Some results-focused accountability instruments

introduced in one of the articles seem to be applicable and helpful, such as Career Decision-

Making System- Revised, Gatehouse Bullying Scale, and School Counseling Program

Evaluation Survey. I will definitely explore and utilize these instruments, since career

development, bully prevention and program evaluation are all basic topics in every school, and

these are empirically proved valid and reliable accountability analysis tools.

According to Brown & Trusty (2005), school counselor leadership roles also include

participation in school and district committee, becoming member of school leadership team,

providing service on other school and student committees, and so on. I so agree with the authors

that school counselors should take these opportunities to influence education movement and

advocate school counseling program.

Other than the facets I mentioned above, in which I plan to apply findings from these

articles, I also intend to integrate the holistic view of leadership in my function. In this view of

leadership, challenges, activities and skills appropriate to each context are presented, so that I

can identify areas to change and develop program accordingly. Moreover, I will be able to

monitor and evaluate my capability to conduct the program.

Reflection

The articles I read stressed the crucial role that leadership plays in improving school

counseling program’s accountability. According to counselor education program, accountability

is a professional obligation for school counselor, which also reflects their identity through

reporting effectiveness in service and grogram. With the purpose to become effective leaders in

school counseling program with high accountability, school counselors have to learn from


successful role models in terms of their habits, values, skills and characteristics. Additionally,

school counselors need to constantly monitor their professional development towards and

evaluate their capabilities in meeting the goal.

Recommendation

Organization

Processes and tools identified by the ASCA National Model (ASCA, 2005) in organizing

school counseling services include:

Agreements developed with and approved by administrators for each school year

addressing how the school counseling program is organized and what goals will be

accomplished.

Advisory councils include: students, parents/guardians, teachers, counselors,

administrators and community members to review school counseling program goals

and results and to make recommendations.

The use of student data to effect systemic change within the school system so every

student receives the benefit of the school counseling program action plans for

prevention and intervention services defining the desired student competencies and

achievement results.

Allotment of the professional school counselor's time in direct service with students

as recommended in the ASCA National Model.

The use of annual and weekly calendars to keep students, parents/guardians,

teachers, administrators, and community stakeholders informed and to encourage

active participation in the school counseling program (p. 2)

Ideally, all of these processes and tools are applied in organizing of school counseling


service; however, based on the information I gathered from school counselor-in-service and

discussion with classmates, it seems to be really hard for schools to completely follow the

guidance. Learning from the articles I read, I think no matter what stays in the way of utilizing

all the tools, school counselors should be leaders in organization of school counseling service. It

is not only because they work directly with all students, but also they are trained to identify,

collect, and analyze data that shows accountability for the school counseling program. To be

more specific, school counselors should insure that the organization is evidence-based and

practical, instead of just unreasonably and solely applying recommendations from standards.

Moreover, school counselors should be working on gaining support and collaboration from

school staff, parents, and community, which enhances the effectiveness of their service.

Even though counseling services in elementary, middle, and high schools different in

emphasis and tasks, the empirical obligation of school counseling is to help students live better

and learn better at school; therefore, I think school counselors should advocate their professional

role and students’ needs. Inadequacy in budget, unsupportive principal, or other barriers should

not be reasons for giving up the enthusiasm to change. The reality may be cruel, but there is

always hope to change as long as people don't give up.

Delivery

The Delivery component of school counseling service includes services to students,

parents/guardians, school staff and the community through school guidance curriculum,

individual student planning, and responsive services which consist of individual or group

counseling, consultation with parents, teachers and other educators, referrals to other school

support services or community resources, peer helping, psycho-education, intervention and

advocacy at the systemic level (ASCA, 2005). Schools vary in time and effort allotment in these


delivery services, for example, high schools usually do more individual planning than other

elementary and middle school, elementary and middle school provide more guidance curriculum

and responsive service than high school, or schools at the same grade level distribute services

differently due to their demographic variety. All in all, delivery services in each school should

meet local community, the school, and the students’ needs.

Evaluation

In terms of evaluation of school counseling services appropriate for high school students, I

think school counselors should conduct evaluation more often and in a progressive manner. Due

to the relatively larger number of student population at high school, evaluation becomes tougher

to conduct; therefore, evaluation of counseling services in high school doesn’t have to

incorporate a large number of students or cover a long time-span, which makes it easier to collect

and analyze data. For instance, school counselors can target a specific student population

(students who are academically at risk, or those who are in grief), and record progress they make

every time receiving counseling service. I sincerely hope school counselors realize the value of

progressive evaluation and spare time to introspect the effectiveness of their service. On the

other hand, however, the evaluation results don't speak for everything, which means school

counselors should not totally rely on the results to evaluate the effectiveness and value of their

work. There are plenty of affecting factors inside and outside of school that may interfere with

accountability, therefore, counselors should pay more attention to analyze and identify

interfering factors.


References

American School Counselor Association (2005). The ASCA National Model: A framework for

school counseling programs, 2nd ed. Alexandria, VA: Author.

Brott, P. E. (2006). Counselor Education Accountability: Training the Effective Professional

School Counselor, Professional School Counseling, 10, 179-188.

Brown, D., Trusty, J. (2005). Designing and leading comprehensive school counseling

programs: Promoting student competency and meeting student needs. Belmont, CA:

Brooks/Cole.

Council for the Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs. (2001). The

2001 standards. Retrieved from http://www.cacrep.org/2001Standards.html

Dollarhide, C. T. (2003). School Counselors as Program Leaders: Applying Leadership Context

to School Counseling, Professional School Counseling, 6, 304-308.

Engels,D.W., & Associates. (2004). The professional counselor: Portfolio, competencies,

performance guidelines, and assessment (3rd ed.). Alexandria,VA: American Counseling

Association.

Sink, C. A. (2009). School Counselors as Accountability Leaders: Another Call for Action.

Professional School Counseling, 13, 68-74.

http://www.cacrep.org/2001Standards.html

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