.ISCA NEWS
Professional Development Opportunities for You!
ISAC
- Wednesday, October 13th 3:30-4:30 PM Wednesday Webinar | Combat Substance Abuse with EVERFI Registration and description info can be found here.
- Tuesday, October 19th 4:15-5:15 pm ISCA Webinar “Advising College Bound Student-Athletes” – Presenter: Anthony Gliffe, College & Career Pathway Specialist at Technology Center of Dupage. Click here to Register.
- ISCA Race and Equity Training Credential – The ISCA Race and Equity Steering Committee developed this credential last year and is now offering all school counselors to participate in this powerful experience. Participants must attend all 3 full day sessions to complete the Credential.
Dates: Friday, Oct, 22nd, Nov. 5th, & Nov. 19th – 18 hours of PD Credit available for participants. $200 for ISCA Members and $300 for ISCA Non-Members. CLICK HERE TO REGISTER. Limited Seating available.
- Thursday, December 2nd 8:30 am – 3:00 pm – “Interrupting Racism: Equity and Social Justice in School Counseling, Presenters, authors, Rebecca Atkins and Alicia Oglesby! This all day session will be held at the Universal Technical Institute, Lisle, IL. Teams are encouraged to attend. CLICK HERE TO REGISTER.
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Get Ready for FAFSA Season & PaCE Framework with Free Illinois Student Assistance Commission (ISAC) Resources
ISAC
FAFSA — Mark your calendars now for ISAC’s 3rd annual FAFSA® Symposium taking place on Wednesday, Sept. 29, 2021, from 9 a.m. – 3 p.m. The event is FREE of charge and will take place virtually. Additional information is available on the FAFSA Symposium website, with registration opening on Sept. 15, 2021. As a reminder, beginning with the 2020-2021 school year, Illinois has a graduation requirement that high school seniors in Illinois public high schools file the FAFSA or, if eligible, the Alternative Application for Illinois Financial Aid in order to receive their high school diploma. Through the FAFSA Completion Initiative, ISAC is able to share data on a weekly basis via GAP Access to identify students who have not filed a financial aid application (the FAFSA or the Alternative Application for Illinois Financial Aid). For more information and to see your school’s financial aid completion rate, visit the Financial Aid Application Performance Metrics web page. ISAC’s College Changes Everything (CCE) Campaign offers schools and community-based organizations the support and resources needed to host financial aid and college application completion workshops. The ISACorps is available to help student and families navigate the college and financial aid process, including virtually via videoconferencing, text, phone, or email.
PaCE — ISAC continues to provide support to schools with the implementation of a Postsecondary and Career Expectations (PaCE) Framework. ISAC’s PaCE support offerings include the PaCE Overview presentation and the PaCE Implementation Support series. All ISAC PaCE offerings are available free of charge upon request. ISAC is also starting its fall Framework webinar series; see the PaCE webinar calendar for more information.
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Career Information
ISCA
The Illinois Association of Aggregate Producers (IAAP) has developed a new “Let’s Rock” workforce development campaign we believe will enable students to begin exploring careers working for companies whose business is primarily mining stone, sand and gravel in Illinois. It takes just a few minutes for school counselors or students to explore the “Let’s Rock” website designed to inform career seekers about a wide range of exciting and rewarding career paths in the mining industry. The videos and website are at www.letsrockillinois.com.
Contact Shawn McKinney from IAAP at shawn@iaap-aggregates.org to arrange an internship, job-shadow, or to participate in a career fair.
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.INDUSTRY NEWS
How districts can support students with disabilities amid school mask debates
K-12 Dive
Disability advocates in at least half a dozen states are filing complaints in court, arguing statewide policies prohibiting mask mandates discriminate against students with disabilities and deny those students equal access to education. Some school attorneys and special education experts agree but say as the lawsuits weave their way through the courts, there are proactive steps districts should take to address the individualized needs and safety of students with disabilities.
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Future of testing in education: Effective and equitable assessment systems
Center for American Progress
Assessments are a way for stakeholders in education to understand what students know and can do. They can take many forms, including but not limited to paper and pencil or computer-adaptive formats. However, assessments do not have to be tests in the traditional sense at all; rather, they can be carried out through teacher observations of students or portfolios of students’ work.
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What should Chicago’s new schools CEO tackle first? Parents, students, and insiders have ideas.
Chalkbeat
Jennifer Baez’s fifth grader started school at Columbus Elementary three weeks ago with a different substitute every day. The teacher was out sick with a non-COVID illness, in the middle of a national shortage of qualified substitutes. So one day, a security guard taught the class. Another, it was the PE teacher. The school didn’t communicate anything about the revolving door of adults until two weeks after classes started, Baez said.
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Concerns about child well-being during the 2020-21 school year were greatest among parents of remote learners
The Brooking Institute
Over the last 18 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers have compiled a host of metrics to describe its ongoing impact on children, who are suffering through school closures that may have immense effects on their life outcomes. Existing metrics describe students’ stymied academic progress, increasing depression, stress, and anxiety, decreasing college enrollment, and potential long-term economic setbacks. On most measures, students from economically disadvantaged and minoritized backgrounds have endured more remote learning and are suffering more than their more privileged peers.
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What school looks like when learning moves outside
Education Week
For students in Angela Ninde’s fifth grade class at Centreville Elementary School, taking their math lesson outside is a daily occurrence. On one day in early September, they moved in groups — from a lesson at picnic tables where they used dice to learn the difference between odd and even numbers, to a section of planters where they dug holes for fresh seeds and trimmed kale from their existing crops, to an area with markers and large sheets of paper where they could spread out on the ground and illustrate different ways of using multiplication to represent the same number.
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We know students are struggling with their mental health. Here’s how you can help
NPR
Most kids around the country are back in classrooms by now, but this school year isn’t quite the return-to-normalcy that everyone had hoped for. Covid-19 cases are surging again, and many school districts have already closed due to outbreaks. Others are offering remote learning options. This school year is already feeling uncertain and anxiety ridden for many students.
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How return to in-person teaching is leaving many disabled kids in limbo
KQED
The school year at Duarte Unified School District, 20 miles east of Los Angeles, started a month ago, but Brady, Ellie and Jack Fitzgibbons have yet to receive any instruction from their teachers. The 13-year-old triplets are on the autism spectrum, and their mother, Julie Fitzgibbons, didn’t feel safe sending them to school because she doubted her kids would keep their masks on all day. “They struggle with masks. They won’t be able to be in a class with 36 kids wearing masks,” Fitzgibbons said. “Communication is important for autistic kids. They can’t talk with masks.”
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The future of blended learning: What educators need to know
Education Week
The Hustisford school district in rural Wisconsin wasn’t an obvious candidate for blended learning before the pandemic. There were no immediate plans for a districtwide 1-to-1 computing initiative, and about 1 of every 3 students did not have reliable internet access at home.
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How to preserve the good parts of pandemic schooling
Education Week
Before COVID-19, a parent we’ll call “Gabrielle” woke up every day at 4 a.m. She ate breakfast, got her children ready for school, and left for work by 5:30 a.m. Her kids left only a little later, at 6 a.m., because they had to catch three different buses to get to school. Even though the school was on the other side of town, it was worth the hardship because it was so much better than the local alternative.
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Student device monitoring a threat to LGBTQI+ students, student expression — report
THE Journal
Student device monitoring disproportionately affects kids who cannot afford their own devices and, according to a new report, poses threats to student privacy (such as LGBTQI+ students who might be “outed”) and creates a significant chilling effect on student expression. According to information from a pair of new reports released today from the Center for Democracy & Technology, 81% of teachers reported the use of online monitoring software that can track students during and outside of school hours/activities.
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At least 9 states have adopted legislation around suicide prevention as districts invest in SEL
K-12 Dive
Youth suicide rates have trended upward in recent years, with a 57% increase among 10-to-24-year-olds between 2007 and 2018. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, mental health-related emergency department visits increased for children 18 and younger during the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. Compared to 2019, the percentage of mental health-related visits for children ages 5-11 increased 24%, and visits for children ages 12-17 increased by 31%.
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