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My name is Chantel Chiu.  I am currently a graduate student at Angelo State University pursuing my graduate degree in Guidance and Counseling.  In the future, I hope to use my degree to become a school guidance counselor at the secondary level.  I am currently a special education science teacher at a large high school in Texas.

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My name is Chantel Chiu.  I am currently a graduate student at Angelo State University pursuing my graduate degree in Guidance and Counseling.  In the future, I hope to use my degree to become a school guidance counselor at the secondary level.  I am currently a special education science teacher at a large high school in Texas.

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Option 1: Interviewing a Counseling Professional

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Option 1: Interviewing a Counseling Professional

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To complete option 1, I interviewed Robin Baggerman.  Mrs. Baggerman in a high school counselor at the same high school where I work.  She was also my mentor counselor during my practicum in the Spring semester.  Mrs.  Baggerman noted the following as legal and ethical issues in her job:
1. Counselors must maintain the privacy of students with regards to FERPA.  FERPA stands for the Federal Education Rights and Privacy Act.  Counselors must make certain that they keep student information private while at the same time communicating educational needs and issues with parents.
2.  Counselors have the command to report issues of neglect and abuse when students report such problems to counselors.  Counselors are mandatory reporters and must report abuse to child services if a child is being abused at school or by a parent.
3. Counselors must help maintain IEPs and 504 regulations.  IEPS and 504s are designed to assist students with disabilities.  Sometimes counselors must step in when a teacher is not complying with IEP or 504 paperwork.  Counselors are also required members of the ARD and 504 committee meetings for students with disabilities.
4.  Counselors must meet legal guidelines set by the state for graduation requirements.  Counselors must carefully review student transcripts to make certain that students comply with graduation requirements.  Sometimes this may mean that students do not graduate with their peer group if they are lacking certain requirements.
5. Counselors must respond to bullying in the school setting. The new David's Law that legislatures passed in Texas requires Texas counselors to respond to any bullying that occurs either inside or outside the school building that may influence a student during the school day. Counselors are required to present anti-bullying curriculum to students and counsel both the victim and the bully in any reported harassment situations even if the harassment only occurred one time (R. Baggerman, personal communication, June 8, 2018).

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School counselors face pressure to provide more mental health services to students in response to a rise in school shootings across the nation. Counselors are required to monitor and report student emotional distress to parents or appropriate authorities. In the following article, lawmakers seek to provide additional funding for mental health services in schools.

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To help create safer schools in the wake of a Florida school shooting last month, several Democratic senators want Congress to give more money to an Every Student Succeeds Act program in order to fund more counselors, trauma-informed classroom management, and mental-health services for schools.

In a letter to top Senators on the Senate appropriations committee, which is led by Mississippi Republican Sen. Thad Cochran, the Democrats said the Student Support and Academic Enrichment grants-which are a part of Title IV in ESSA-should be funded at "the highest possible level" for fiscal 2018. They didn't specify what they thought would be appropriate funding, but right now, that grant program is authorized for $1.6 billion under ESSA. It's getting $400 million in current federal spending.

"While funding for school safety cannot replace meaningful, strong gun safety reforms, as our nation faces these crises, we must answer the call of parents, educators, and students to provide schools and educators with the resources they need to meet these challenges and keep their students safe and healthy," reads a portion of the letter, which was headlined by Sens. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Cory Booker of New Jersey, and Bill Nelson of Florida.

Title IV was designed by ESSA's authors to be a versatile grant program, since it can also support things like educational technology, the arts, and Advanced Placement course fees. Districts ultimately decide how to spend the money.

President Donald Trump has sought to eliminate Title IV in his last two budget proposals, for fiscal 2018, which Congress has yet to finalize and in fiscal 2019. However, in their proposed education funding bills for fiscal 2018, the House sought a $100 million increase for the program up to $500 million, while the Senate sought a $50 million increase.

In the wake of the school shooting in Parkland, Fla., last month, the National School Boards Association and the National Association of Secondary School Principals have also pushed for Congress to boost Title IV funding.

"The Student Support and Academic Enrichment Grant would provide support consistent with the administration's goals and-we strongly believe-accelerate communities toward those goals far more than an investment solely in physical security," NASSP said in a statement.

Republicans in Congress seem more focused on the STOP School Violence Act, which could authorize up to $100 million more annually for school safety measures, depending on whether you're looking at the House or Senate version. Meanwhile, the head of the Senate education committee, Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, has proposed tweaking ESSA to encourage states to spend more on mental-health services and counseling under Title II-which funds professional development for educators-as well as Title IV.

Read the full letter below:

Photo: Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., pictured when he was the mayor of Newark in 2013, was one of three Democratic senators to headline a letter to the Senate appropriations committee in early March asking for additional funding for school safety measures under the Every Student Succeeds Act.

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Democrats Seek More Money for Mental Health Services, Counseling in Schools

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To help create safer schools in the wake of a Florida school shooting last month, several Democratic senators want Congress to give more money to an Every Student Succeeds Act program in order to fund more counselors, trauma-informed classroom management, and mental-health services for schools.

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School professionals are charged with maintaining student privacy in the digital age.  With an increase in apps, online courses, and cell phone use in schools, counselors and teachers must work to maintain student privacy online as well as in person. Counselors may need to safeguard student privacy by presenting curriculum designed to keep students safe online. This curriculum could include ways to keep personal information safe while online, safe ways to chat on apps, and cyberbullying safety. The following article presents issues surrounding student safety online.

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Dive Brief:

Schools are in part responsible for navigating the 20-year old Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which protects children under 13 online but can be tricky to comply with, according to EdSurge.

Schools and districts want to offer students abundant opportunities to learn using technology, but experts say they should monitor applications that students use by understanding COPPA compliance, revealing information to parents, and getting parental consent when necessary (one district sends home a consent letter that lists all the applications the students will use). They can also ask vendors and other districts for help.

Justin Bathon, a lawyer and associate professor of educational leadership at the University of Kentucky, says that administrators should take a "top-down" approach where they choose technology rather than traditional practices where teachers have done so, warning that teachers will have to plan ahead and get approval if they want to use a different application in class.

Dive Insight:

One recent study indicated that the majority of the 5,855 most popular free children's apps are potentially in violation of COPPA, mainly because they don't adequately prevent tracking and behavioral advertising.

That report suggests that even those that get approval through a safe harbor program and are supposed to "create privacy practices that go above and beyond COPPA's minimum requirements" aren't much better at protecting students, and in some cases are worse.

A 2014 California law protecting student privacy that has been copied in other states clears up the various types of advertising, profiling and tracking that could be a problem for schools, according to Girard Kelly, director for privacy review at Common Sense, who says that educators often don't fully understand these threats to privacy.

Monica Bolger a senior fellow with the Future of Privacy Forum, a group that studies privacy in education technology and a leading expert in privacy breeches at schools, has expressed concern that personalized learning specifically presents opportunities for privacy to be breached. She has also documented the history of the education application InBloom, a failed company whose data collection raised early, loud concerns about student privacy online and prompted legislation.

Top image credit: Getty Images

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Student privacy must remain top-of-mind for schools amid influx of tech, apps

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Schools are in part responsible for navigating the 20-year old Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which protects children under 13 online but can be tricky to comply with, according to EdSurge.

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I am would like to pick bullying prevention and David's Law as my legal and and ethical Issue in school counseling.  David's
Law has changed the way that schools respond to bullying during the past school year. Prior to David's Law, schools viewed bullying as harassment that occurred over a period of time. Now schools and counselors must respond to harassment even if it only occurs one time.  Counselors must also respond to bullying that occurs inside or outside of the school day if it impacts a student's success at school.  By preventing bullying and responding to bullying, counselors may help improve student mental health and prevent violent acts at school.

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Cornell, D., & Huang, F. (2014). School counselor use of peer nomination to identify victims of bullying.  Professional School Counseling, 18(1), 191-205.

David’s Law. (2018).  David’s Legacy Foundation.  Retrieved from http://www.davidslegacy.org/davids-law/

Paterson, J. (2018). Student privacy must remain top-of-mind for schools amid influx of tech, apps. Education Dive.  Retrieved from https://www.educationdive.com/news/student-privacy-must-remain-top-of-mind-for-schools-amid-influx-of-tech-ap/523324/

Ujifusa, A. (2018).  Democrats seek more money for mental health services, counseling in schools. Education Week.  Retrieved from http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2018/03/democratic_senators_funding_boost_mental_health_counseling_schools.html?qs=counseling

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This article describes one process that counselors might use to identify victims of bullying in the school setting.  In this article, the authors describe a peer nomination process to identify acts of bullying in schools.  Counselors can use peer nominations to identify and then respond to school bullying.

Cornell, D., & Huang, F. (2014). School counselor use of peer nomination to identify victims of bullying. Professional School Counseling, 18(1), 191-205.

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School bullying is a common issue faced by many school counselors in our current school climate.  With mental health awareness and school violence on the rise, school counselors are charged with addressing school bullying by both preventing it and responding to incidents when they occur.  Under Texas’ new David’s Law, schools and counselors must “address cyberbullying that occurs off-campus” (David’s Legacy Foundation, 2018) as well as on campus.  Schools must report bullying to parents, provide for anonymous reporting by students, and expel students who commit serious acts of bullying such as encouraging suicide (David’s Legacy Foundation, 2018).  Schools can also expel students for sending indecent photos to other students and encouraging school violence (David’s Legacy Foundation, 2018).

Anonymous reporting of bullying is often an excellent way for students to describe bullying concerns.  Anonymous reporting by students can take the form of student nominations and anonymous text or hotline numbers.   Such types of reporting can “help provide school counselors with a list of students who might be victims of bullying (Cornell & Huang, 2014, p. 193).   Counselors can then investigate students on these lists to see if they need help or counseling services.  Using anonymous lists allows students to avoid “ridicule or retaliation by their peers” (Cornell & Huang, 2014, p. 193) and alleviates the fear of directly talking to an adult.

No matter how school personal identify bullying incidents, counselors must respond to both victims and perpetrators of school bullying.   School bullying can lead to “anxiety, psychosomatic symptoms, social withdrawal, and, in some cases, provocative and aggressive behavior” (Cornell & Huang, 2014, p. 191).  Bullying can also lead to anxiety, low-attendance, increase high school dropout rates, poor academic performance, and even suicide (Cornell & Huang, 2014).   By creating anti-bullying curricula and responding promptly to reported bullying, counselors can address these problems, help foster greater student success, and hopefully reduced school violence.

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When searching the internet for school bullying and counselors response to bullying, I found a website detailing the new bullying law called David's Law.  This website has additional website links to the actual legal codes under Texas law.  It also has articles about how to incorporate anti-bullying efforts in schools and classrooms.

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This law allows schools to combat and prevent cyberbullying by empowering them to investigate and address off-campus cyber-assisted bullying if it materially affects the school environment. "David's Law" requires school districts to include cyberbullying in their district bullying policies and notify a child's parents if he or she is a victim or alleged aggressor of bullying. It allows for schools to collaborate with law enforcement when serious or life-threatening cyberbullying situations arise. "David's Law" gives parents and courts new tools to protect cyberbullying victims and strengthens options for schools and prosecutors in dealing with some of the most egregious forms of cyberbullying, such as suicide baiting. In recognition of bullying as a mental health issue, "David's Law" also encourages schools to invest in counseling and rehabilitation services for both victims and aggressors of bullying.

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This law allows schools to combat and prevent cyberbullying by empowering them to investigate and address off-campus cyber-assisted bullying if it materially affects the school environment. "David's Law" requires school districts to include cyberbullying in their district bullying policies and notify a child's parents if he or she is a victim or alleged aggressor of bullying.