Terese Jurgensen - Iowa Department of Education

Welcome to the School Counselor Update 2020-2021! We are excited to offer this resource in support of school counselors across the State of Iowa. When you receive this update, please be sure to share with any new school counselors in your school. If this is a new position for you this school year, please visit the School Counseling web page at the Iowa Department of Education and sign up. 

As we enter this new and challenging school year, I would like to share we are here to support your work. The Return to Learn, SEBH Google Site offers many positive resources to support school counselors and all school staff members. 

As we return to learn, there may be questions and issues regarding virtual learning, that schools may be facing for the first time. A great resource for legal issues, including confidentiality (FERPA) is found on the department's website, titled, Legal Resources, Another resource counselors may reference in regards to  Confidentiality,  is found through the American School Counselors Association. 

Finally, I would like to announce that October is Bully Prevention Month! To highlight this important month, please look for new resources on the Foundations of  Bullying/Harassment Prevention and Intervention as well as Cyber-bullying Prevention.  The department has been partnering the past several months in collaboration with Area Education Agencies, school administrators, UNI's Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP) and Dr. Chad Rose from the University of Missouri's Bully Prevention Lab to make these resources available. We will be releasing more information on these professional learning platforms soon. 

Thank you for your work, your amazing care and concern for students, families and staff! Please do not hesitate to reach out to me, Terese Jurgensen, with any topics you will like to see addressed in this year’s newsletter or any needs you may have.

Jake Welchans - Iowa Department of Education

The Clearinghouse for Work-Based Learning is looking to make connections between business partners and Iowa students again this school year. Bring relevance to the content you teach by connecting students with authentic projects. Sort projects by keyword, academic domain, location, business involvement, age group, and district. Communicating and connecting digitally with partners can open doors and remove geographic limitations. Reach out to Jake Welchans for more information.

Kristy Volesky - Iowa Department of Education

The Iowa Intermediary Network is here to support you to ensure students continue to have high quality career connections. We support our local school districts with career exploration through job shadows, student industry tours and connections to local internship opportunities. We also assist our school districts with ICAP components. The current health crisis has prompted us to move our opportunities to virtual experiences and the Intermediaries are preparing high quality virtual opportunities for students and educators. The Iowa Intermediary Network is collaborating to bring high quality virtual opportunities to students across the state through virtual events tied to CTE Standards and will support regional needs of our school partners.

Connect with your local Intermediary Coordinator to inquire about work-based learning opportunities. Don’t know who your Intermediary contact is? Visit  Iowa Intermediary Network to connect.

Katy Blatnick-Gagne - Iowa Department of Education

As the new school year continues, the Department of Education, Bureau of CTE is excited to continue working with counselors across the state on career and academic planning initiatives and professional development.

Over a two week period, ICAP sponsored “Diving Deeper with Individual Career & Academic Planning (ICAP)” virtual training sessions. Participants explored the foundation facets of career development and successful ICAP implementation, practiced Meaningful Career Conversations (MMC), learned more about incorporating work-based learning and working with the Iowa Intermediary Network, and how to incorporate PWRful (Powerful) opportunities into a school’s ICAP practices with national speaker Lauren Jones of Aperture, LLC: The Space Where Light Enters. All participants received recordings of the presentations and the slide decks which were packed with resources.

Any school team or individual that participated in the training can also request an additional work session with Lauren Jones. Please reach out to Dr. Katy Blatnick-Gagne at  if you are interested in this opportunity.

Christina M. Sibaouih - 
Division Administrator, Community Engagement

Iowa's first statewide application week is happening September 20 - 26! Iowa College Aid has more information and details on this event. 

Course to College is serving 170 schools this year, with 54 of those opting to be a partner site which requires a higher level of involvement. We also saw a major increase in new schools registering this year, with 52 buildings that are participating in the program for the first time.

Nominations for student leaders to assist students with completing steps toward college enrollment are due September 30th. Student leader nominees should be highly motivated, college-intending seniors who will serve as peer mentors, assisting counselors with event promotion related to college applications, FAFSA completion, and scholarships. The position increases the schools’ capacity to reach more students by sending reminders to classmates and reaching out via social media, posters, and school events. High Schools must register as partner sites with Iowa College Aid’s Course to College program to be eligible. Student Leaders earn a living allowance stipend of $2,266, and an education award of $1,311 upon completion of 300 hours within the academic year. Please contact Rohey Sallah or (515) 725-3446 with any questions.
Registration is open for all 2020-2021 Iowa College & Career Readiness Academy courses! These professional development classes can be taken for graduate credit, license renewal credit, or no credit at all (free!). Find the full course calendar, registration links, and additional information above, or contact Megan Sibbel with any questions.

Sheryl Cline, President

The new year has begun for most schools by now, I hope that it has gotten off to a good start. Iowa School Counseling Association will be hosting virtual “meet-ups” with level-specific groups (Elementary, Middle School, High School, & K-12). These meet-ups will be member-only.

To sign up to become an ISCA member, please go to Join ISCA. Our website has also been updated to include current resources on returning to school, addressing social justice issues, and Social Emotional Learning (SEL) tools. If you have a resource you would like us to share, or are looking for a resource, please let us know in the Return-to-Learn section of our website.

The ISCA board is looking forward to our School Counselor's Virtual Conference this November 1st - 3rd, 2020. Registration opened up on Monday, September 14th. We have discounted rates to account for the virtual setting. The conference is loaded with outstanding presenters including keynotes from Dr. Trish Hatch and Houston Kraft. This conference will be recorded with ample opportunity for you to dive into outstanding content and supports during a time that is convenient for you! 

Natalie Wilson

This summer I was able to attend an ASCA@Home session called “Trauma-Informed Multi-Tiered Strategies in Transition Back to School” by Dr. Jennifer Betters-Bubon. This information is more important than ever as we work toward helping our buildings and staff become trauma-informed. Please listen to Dr. Nadine Burke Harris as she offers suggestions for parents and students.

Focus your Tier 1 activities including Resilience Surveys and use of evidence-based SEL Curriculum. Tier 2 & 3 activities involve immediate check-ins with students not engaged in remote learning and consultation/collaboration with families. Consider the Compassion Education Toolkit to increase trauma-informed practices.

Betters-Bubon introduces us to the concept of post-traumatic growth. Listen to this video engaging us in the process of finding personal strength, appreciation, or meaning from growing through trauma.

Take care elementary counselors!
Natalie Wilson

Sue Schirmer - Heartland AEA 

Greetings!!!
As you look for professional learning opportunities, keep in contact with your AEA School Counseling consultant. They are your best source for local Professional Learning. Of course, your state professional organization, ISCA, is always working to bring you the best in professional learning. Stay connected!!!

One thing you and/or your administrator might think about is the National Leadership Conference by Hatching Results. This conference will be virtual this year and will be held February 10th and 11th, 2021. This is a “must attend” if you are a school counselor focusing on your leadership skills or if you are an administrator wanting to learn more about the role and function of the school counselor and how you might utilize the school counseling program to increase student success.

David Ford - Director

Welcome back, Iowa School Counselors! This promises to be a unique year and AEA PREP is here to support your efforts to ensure all students graduate ready to pursue postsecondary opportunities! We published a few new resources in the spring and have updated them for the Class of 2021. There is also updated data available on the PREP Dashboards (password required), PREP Trendlines, and the Postsecondary Readiness Reports.

Among the updated resources, please find on our website the updated Postsecondary Transition Resource with links to various sites related to Postsecondary transitions, including financial aid, applications, admissions, NCAA eligibility, and other relevant links. In addition, we have updated the ‘Supporting the Class of 2021’, a 1-page framework to support your efforts to increase post secondary enrollment. Please check for these resources at AEA Prep website or contact your AEA PREP Lead for more information, or send to questions@aeaprep.org

Ending on a good note here - as of this writing, Iowa ranks third in the nation in year-over-year FAFSA Completion, meaning that we are very close to where we were at this point last year. Your efforts to support FAFSA Completion during the school closures in the spring have resulted in just a 1% decline overall. Nationally, FAFSA completion dropped by over 4 times that rate. Thank you for your hard work in helping Iowa’s Class of 2020 and their families with this important task! A big thank you to our friends at Iowa College Aid for their tireless commitment to this project!

Brittania Morey - Director of Communications

ICAN is dedicated to continuing to serve school counselors and students this school year, both virtually and in-person. While ICAN centers remain closed our team of advisors and all of our services are still available to schools and students.

ICAN has transitioned all of our in-person community presentations this fall to virtual seminars. We have increased our live streams to Facebook and are offering specialized topic presentations in this format as well. ICAN advisors go live on Facebook for specialized Q&A Sessions on Tuesdays and Thursday afternoons - and these are recorded and available on both the ICAN website and  FaceBook ICAN Succeed Videos. We are hoping to return to in-person events in the spring but will continue to monitor the conditions of the pandemic.

As financial aid season approaches, ICAN is committed to our FAFSA Ready Iowa initiative in helping students apply for financial aid. Virtual appointments for FAFSA completion are available, and ICAN will be working with schools to offer in-person events when possible with social distancing and safety guidelines followed. The ICAN Davenport and Hiawatha Centers will be offering a limited number of in-person appointments beginning in October. These will be limited and no walk-ins will be allowed. Both virtual and in-person appointments can be scheduled at Schedule an Appointment with ICAN.

ICAN is full of resources for students and school counselors that can be shared virtually - check out ICAN School Counselors, ICAN Materials, and ICAN Videos.

ICAN is continuing to evolve our services to meet the new challenges of virtual learning and is here to support school counselors in any way we can. If you have a challenge or want to talk about your options in meeting the needs of your students surrounding Career and College Readiness, contact us at ICAN Succeed and we are happy to work with you.