High School Counselor Week

NAACP urges Black athletes to avoid Florida public universities over anti-DEI policies
NPR – March 12, 2024
Black college athletes should rethink any decision to attend public colleges and universities in Florida, the NAACP advised in an extraordinary letter issued in response to efforts by Gov. Ron DeSantis to weaken diversity, equity and inclusion efforts statewide. The letter, authored by the NAACP’s top two officials and addressed to Charlie Baker, the head of the NCAA, comes on the heels of last week’s announcement by the University of Florida that it would eliminate the school’s diversity, equity and inclusion staff in order to come into compliance with an anti-DEI law signed last year by DeSantis.

Why Old Arguments for Earning a Diploma Don’t Resonate With My Students — and Which Ones Will
EdSurge – March 6, 2024
Graduating high school is often viewed as a significant milestone for students, but as of late, many are leaving feeling more anxious and less prepared for the world in front of them.

Title IX rules still behind. When will they be finalized?
K-12 Dive – March 8, 2024
The U.S. Department of Education continues to lag on finalizing two key Title IX proposals anxiously awaited by district leaders for over three years — and now policy experts say it’s likely the department will finalize both this spring, after the department’s latest self-imposed deadline of March. The broader Title IX proposal released in June 2022 would protect LGBTQ+ students under the federal anti-discrimination law for the first time. It would also change Title IX implementation in a way that public education experts say make it more practical for schools, including shortening investigation and resolution timelines. The second proposal, released nearly a year later in April 2023, would create a framework for transgender students’ participation on sports teams aligning with their gender identities.

Navigating the “Second Look: A Parent’s Guide to “Accepted Student Day”
Post – March 6, 2024
College Advice & Timely Tips with Lee Bierer

How thoughtful post-secondary planning can raise expectations for students in special education
KQED (CA) – March 11, 2024
On a Tuesday evening in 2019, about 80 parents and students gathered in Archer High School for a night of post-secondary education planning. They reviewed statistics, heard school counselor recommendations and spoke with college representatives. It’s a common enough scene…but this one had a twist: it was designed specifically for students with disabilities and their families. Erin Kilpatrick, the high school counselor who organized the event, has seen throughout her career that low expectations at the high school level often mean that students with disabilities and their families are unprepared for post-secondary education opportunities. One of her concerns is when a student with disabilities becomes siloed onto an IEP diploma track. Unlike a general education high school diploma, which students with an IEP are eligible to obtain, an IEP diploma does not fulfill requirements to join the military or get accepted into a two- or four-year colleges and universities. Parents may not know this and school systems may not always push students with disabilities towards a general education diploma. It is also important that students and parents know that they can advocate for or request honors, advanced placement, gifted and dual enrollment classes. They should also be mindful about the changes to legal protections when a student transitions from a K-12 education to post-secondary education options, so the post-secondary planning night also included presentations from representatives of disability support offices at three colleges.

Parent Poll: It’s the Economy — Not Culture Wars — Worrying Them & Cell Phones OK
The 74 – March 12, 2024
Parents from across the political spectrum support providing public funds directly to families for resources like tutoring, internet access and mental health care, according to a survey released today by the National Parents Union. An overwhelming majority also report that despite concerns about social media, they value their kids’ access to cell phones at school. The results come from a survey that polled 1,506 parents of K-12 public school students conducted by the National Parents Union between Feb. 6-8.

Teenagers often know when their parents are having money problems − and that knowledge is linked to mental health challenges, new research finds
The Conversation – March 8, 2024
When parents try to shield their kids from financial hardship, they may be doing them a favor: Teens’ views about their families’ economic challenges are connected to their mental health and behavior. That’s the main finding of a study into household income and child development that I recently conducted with my colleagues. Most studies on this issue rely heavily on caregiver reports – that is, what adults say about their kids. Fewer researchers have asked young people themselves. Our study set out to fill that gap.

Student Reporting Labs speaks with the U.S. surgeon general on youth mental health
PBS News Hour – March 12, 2024
The new season of PBS NewsHour’s Student Reporting Labs video and audio podcast “On Our Minds” is underway. In this episode of the series that focuses on mental health challenges among young people, Bree Campbell and James Kim speak with U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy.

4 Tips to Complete College Applications on Time
U.S. News & World Report – March 12, 2024
With multiple components and deadlines, the college application process can be daunting for some students. Since prospective students are often juggling college applications alongside high school classes and activities, experts say it’s easy to fall behind or procrastinate. Here are four tips that experts say students can follow to complete their college applications on time.

How Is the ‘College Is a Scam’ Narrative Influencing Who Chooses to Go to Campus?
EdSurge – March 12, 2024
The value of college is something that people used to pretty much agree on. In 2013, a little over a decade ago, the number of young people who thought a college degree was very important was 74 percent, according to a Gallup poll. By 2019 that had fallen to just 41 percent. So what is happening here? Of course there are many factors, but in this same period of time there have been a growing number of messages in popular culture giving highly skeptical views of college. The danger, these experts say, is that some people who would benefit from college are being dissuaded from giving higher education serious consideration. And getting the word out may end up involving not just a new message about the value of a college, but using different messengers.

How To Build A Strategic College List In 5 Steps
Forbes – March 12, 2024
In navigating the multifaceted landscape of college admissions, it’s critical to form of a list of schools that is in harmony with your academic and personal objectives. Focus on strategies that transcend the allure of name recognition and instead concentrate on a true alignment with individual aspirations and potential for development. Here are five steps to crafting a strategic college list.

The Most Confusing, Chaotic College Admissions Season in Years
Wall Street Journal (via MSN) – March 12, 2024
Schools opened their application seasons while still digesting the June Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action, which restricted how schools could consider race in admissions and left applicants unsure what to disclose about themselves. Uncertainty over test-optional admissions policies has compounded the stress. Some guidance counselors and families have become skeptical that applicants who opt not to include SAT and ACT scores won’t be penalized for that. The worst problem by far, though, is the trouble with the new federal financial-aid application.

FAFSA submissions from high school seniors are down 38%
K-12 Dive – March 7, 2024
The dropping submissions rates come after the U.S. Department of Education made the FAFSA available about three months later than usual in order to streamline the form. The FAFSA hangups this cycle may harm the bottom lines of colleges that enroll high shares of low-income and minority students, according to a new report, because the delayed FAFSA transmission is forcing institutions to postpone their offers until at least late March or April.

Louisiana Stops Requiring FAFSA Completion in High School
Inside Higher Ed – March 11, 2024
Some state officials say the policy was burdensome and promoted college-going over more vocational paths. Critics of the change fear it will impede college attainment for needy students.

Students With an Undocumented Parent Still Can’t Fill Out the FAFSA Form
Reason – March 11, 2024
While students can technically submit the form if their parent doesn’t have a social security number, the submitted form would be lacking key information colleges—and the government—need to estimate families’ expected costs to send their child to college. While the website promises a fix to the form sometime during the ‘first half of March,’ as of March 11th, the problem persists. Despite technical issues, the Education Department has not extended the June 30 deadline for submitting the form.

Should entrepreneurship skills be a curriculum requirement?
K-12 Dive – March 6, 2024
The Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship is pushing for the passage of a proposed bipartisan reauthorization of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, which currently allows students to have access to work-based learning programs like apprenticeships, leadership development activities, adult mentoring and entrepreneurial skills training. The global nonprofit is also calling for entrepreneurship programs to be required by federal law, rather than just permitted, in workforce development efforts. Entrepreneurship programs cut across industries and should be viewed as a key part of career-readiness.