School counseling in charter schools: School leader's perceptions of counselor role, programming, and qualifications

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2016-12-07

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Abstract

There are presently more than 6,000 public charter schools nationwide which operate under public tax dollars and frequently with a mission to serve low-income and marginalized student populations. Unfortunately, to date there has been no explicit research conducted on school counseling programming within these schools. As the current body of literature and ethics in the field advocate that best school counselor practice is the implementation of comprehensive counseling programs in equivalence to the ASCA National Model (2012), this qualitative grounded-theory study explores the implementation of counseling programs in some public charter schools in Texas. As research suggests that the success of counseling programs depends on the school principal, the present study examines charter school leader’s perceptions of school counselor role, counseling program priorities, and charter school leader’s perceptions of counselor qualifications. Twelve charter leaders participated in the present study representing four well-established charter school systems in North Texas. Data from this qualitative study was collected from three different sources including: content analysis of collected charter school counselor job descriptions, personal interviews with participating charter school leaders, and follow-up surveys of participating charter school leaders. Multiple themes emerged which are fully explored in the study. Implications for current school counseling practices and suggestions for future research are included.

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Keywords

School counseling in charter schools, Charter school counseling, Charter schools, School counseling, Comprehensive counseling, ASCA National Model, Licensed professional counselor, School social worker, School counseling programs, Education reform, Mental health, Mental health services in schools, School based mental health, North Texas, Texas school counseling, Texas charter schools

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