Search results

School counselors and school psychologists are charged with supporting the holistic development of students with disabilities. They often collaborate with educational enterprise to improve educational outcomes and implementation of special education services to support student success and postsecondary transitions. However, historically underserved students, particularly Black girls with disabilities, have unique challenges that impact their overall success and preparedness for postsecondary educational opportunities. As such, the purpose of this chapter is to examine these challenges and provide strategies for school counselors and school psychologists to promote college and career readiness among Black girls with disabilities.

President Obama’s policies, while broad in scope, offer some specific attention to college and career readiness (CCR) and are necessary for urban youth to realize their career potentials. However, by primarily defining CCR in terms of academic achievement, many of the previously mentioned policies ignore the varied college access skills needed to ensure successful preparation for, enrollment in, and graduation from postsecondary institutions.

This chapter explores the current definition of CCR represented in the Obama administration’s policies, while also expanding the definition to include missing policy pieces related to college access.

The underutilization of school counselors and classroom teachers as college access facilitators who can expand CCR for urban schools is addressed. The paper discusses recent Obama administration initiatives and recommendations for urban schools and higher education institutions.

The administration initiatives and recommendations recently put in place by the Obama administration for urban schools and higher education institutions, if integrated within urban schools, may facilitate the realization of one of President Obama’s educational reform goals of ensuring that every student graduates from high school well prepared for college and a career.

School counselors are committed to serving students' social-emotional, postsecondary, and academic needs while they navigate primary and secondary school (American School Counselor Association, 2019). Much has been said about the ways in which school counselors can impact postsecondary outcomes and social emotional health. It is important that we also address the ways school counselors can impact positive academic outcomes as it is intertwined in postsecondary options and success. For Black males, academic success has traditionally been met with systemic barriers (i.e., school-to-prison pipeline, lower graduation rates, lower incomes, higher unemployment rates, and lower college going rates (National Center for Edcuation Statisitics, 2019a, 2019b, 2020a, 2020b) and low expectations. School counselors are charged to be leaders and change agents for social justice and equity in our schools by the American School Counselor Association (ASCA, 2019) and can impact systemic change. This chapter will explore ways in which school counselors can impact positive academic outcomes for Black males. School counselors as change agents and advocates are positioned to make a real impact for Black male academic success. The authors will also provide some recommendations and best practices for elementary, middle, and high school counselors as they work with students, teachers, and families from an anti-deficit model as outlined by Harper (2012).

While the literature on twice exceptionality is growing, it often focuses on twice exceptionality generally, overlooking within group differences that may create unique experiences for students. As such, there is a need to explicitly detail these differences to push the knowledge base forward. This chapter focuses on the unique needs and experiences of twice exceptional (2E) Black boys as they navigate K-12 schools. Further, this chapter details the ways in which school counselors may respond to their needs through comprehensive, antiracist school counseling practices. Finally, implications for policy and research are discussed.

In this chapter, the authors discuss how school counselors may create a college-going environment for African American males in middle school. The authors use Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) Ecological Systems Theory to explain how environmental influences impact African American males’ college trajectory, both positively and negatively. Moreover, they use Ecological Systems Theory to discuss how multiple stakeholders (e.g., school counselors and parents) and various structured activities that align with the Eight Components of College and Career Readiness (NOSCA, 2010) may promote college preparation among Black male middle school students. The authors also present two case vignettes as examples of how school counselors may assist African American males for postsecondary options. In closing, the chapter concludes with implications for educational policy, research, and practice.

Professional school counselors have been in the public schools since the early 1900s. Fueled by the industrial revolution, the vocational guidance movement spawned the creation of high school guidance counseling programs. In 1907, Jesse B. Davis created one of the first vocational guidance programs at Central High School in Detroit, Michigan (Schmidt, 2014). In 1908, Frank Parsons, the father of vocational guidance, founded the Vocations Bureau that eventually became part of the Division of Education at Harvard University. These early efforts helped students develop vocationally, morally, and intellectually, and it would take nearly 70 years for children with exceptionalities to be similarly served in the public schools.

The purpose of this chapter is to explain the role of counselors in assisting students with exceptionalities. This will be examined by better understanding the counseling history, defining the terms of exceptionalities and transdisciplinary collaboration, and showcasing the many benefits of individual, group, and brain-based interventions.

In this chapter, we explore group counseling interventions for Black males and explain the Achieving Success Everyday (ASE) group model for racial and mathematical development. We use critical race theory (CRT) as a framework to analyze school counseling (SC) and mathematics literature that focuses on Black male students to inform the reconceptualization of the ASE group model for school counselors. We examine the programs and interventions that have been published with Black male participants in school settings within the SC literature. We also examine programs and interventions that have been specially designed to improve Black males' mathematics skills. We specifically focus on gathering findings that provide successful outcomes for Black males in public schools. We examine literature that reflects the role school counselors (SCs) take when supporting Black male students' academic, social, emotional, college, and career identity development. We believe uncovering ideas to capture Black males' experiences in school settings could shed light on how to foster Black excellence. Gaining an understanding of programs and interventions for Black male students through a CRT lens could inform future research, policy, and practice in SC while combating ongoing racism that continues to persist.

There has been a substantial increase in research concerning the identification and support of twice exceptional students. However, much of the scientific and theoretical literature exclude the experiences and perspectives of twice exceptional African American students. This chapter focuses specifically on the experiences and needs of twice exceptional African American students, including those challenges around identification and navigating the school environment. In this chapter, the authors also discuss how school counselors may use a group counseling intervention to help twice exceptional African American students achieve healthy identities (i.e., race, giftedness, disability) needed to achieve their educational goals.

Focus group discussions were utilized to explore factors that facilitated the academic success of Kenyan high school students in spite of their adversities. These identified factors were instrumental in creating personal development modules that Kenyan school counselors implemented as a pilot intervention for enhancing academic resilience. While more research is needed on the most effective delivery styles for the modules, the intervention resulted in improved skills that support academic resilience. There is a need to continue to explore resiliency with respect to academic performance in Kenya. Educators, students, parents and policy makers will benefit from uncovering models of resiliency based on the contextual realities that the youth face on a daily basis.