News

Challenge Grant Update

January 2, 2012

 

 

OACAC
• Facilitated (by covering registration, membership, transportation) for 76 urban and rural school counselors and access advisors to four Fall Articulation Workshop sites (Southeast Ohio to Columbus, Dayton to Cincinnati, Toledo to Lima, and Cleveland to Akron) .
• Planning thirteen ½ day “drive-in” (regional) workshops on topics of interest to counselors. One was held this summer for Columbus City School counselors (110) and the next two on Oct. 28 (NE Ohio – 26 attended at Lorain Community College) and Nov. 10 (Southern Ohio – approximately 50 attended at Shawnee State University). Committees have been formed to develop the remaining ten workshops with a target time frame of April 16 through 27. The NE Ohio dates are January 18th (Auburn Career Center, Concord, OH) and March 2nd (John Carroll University). For the other regions, specific dates and locations are not confirmed but will be communicated when available through the four different listserves available to us.

OCAN
• School Counselor Track provided at August 10 OCAN Advisor Training in Columbus. Approximately 36 counselors attended “on scholarship” and were provided with a school counselor resource binder.
• The GoToMeeting /GoToWebinar license has been purchased. OCAN has hosted several meetings on behalf of our partners and other challenge grant recipients. Three monthly webinars have been held and recorded (and are posted on the OCAN website). The most recent one, an Ask An Admissions Counselor panelist discussion of the State of College Admissions in Ohio 2011 has been viewed (to date) by 83 registrants .
• Professional Development events of interest to school counselors and access advisors have been posted to the OCAN website. Resources (presentation slides and documents) have also been uploaded to the website. Our “mini-portal” development is an ongoing initiative.

OCAN/OASFAA
• All 50 (+) counselor scholarship slots have been filled for the one day school counselor track at the December conference. Additional resources will also be provided to them at time as well.

OASFAA
• New counselor database within the OASFAA website is being utilized for communication purposes.
• “Enhanced Dual Track” sessions at four OASFAA December Counselor Workshops have been developed to better serve the needs of beginning/limited experience counselors.
• A comprehensive resource binder has been printed for dissemination at the December counselor workshops (1200 copies). The materials are also posted on the OASFAA website.
• The January 13th OASFAA regional meetings have been planned to include topics of interest to school counselors. They will be promoted immediately following the December counselor workshops and one of them will be streamed live to other areas of the state.

OSCA
• A full day preconference on college advising was held at the All Ohio Counselor Conference, based on the National Office of School Counselor Advocacy’s resources. An evening session was held and facilitated by OACAC members. A separate college advising track was developed and ran throughout the conference. It included two ½ day sessions presented by Bob Bardwell, former president of the New England ACAC and current ASCA candidate for president.
• An additional six to seven regional PD events have been confirmed between Feb. 27 and Mar. 6 throughout Ohio utilizing two of the NOSCA training modules (entitled “Counselor Leadership for Collaborative Increasing College and Career Success”).

ALL
• All four partners’ membership databases are being accessed to better promote each planned activity through active communication.
• All four partners’ events are being promoted through, and resources from them uploaded to, the OCAN website.
• A comprehensive membership counselor database, that includes all four partners’ data, is in the process of being developed.

OTHER
• Site visits to all other challenge grant recipients to discuss training needs have been completed. Summaries of each meeting have been submitted.
• Contacts/meetings have been held with the following organizations regarding the topics listed:
o OBR – Office of Articulation and Transfer (Paula Compton). Webinar planned for this winter.
o ODE – Office of Economic Education (Pat Huston-Holm/ Scott Ebright/ Carolyn George) – session scheduled for ACT Conference in January. Counselor participation sought for Economic Education Summit being held in downtown Columbus on March 6-7.
o AVID – (Lee Felts) session tentatively scheduled for ACT Conference.
o Foundation for Appalachian Ohio – (Megan Wanyczk) - counselor recognition funding
o KnowledgeWorks – (Lisa Duty) – counselor credentialing/”badging” process
o College Board (National Office of School Counselor Advocacy) – (April Bell)