Overview of the 6th Edition
Legal & Historical Context
Introduction: School counselors, administrators, school board members, and other stakeholders are introduced to the Texas Model as a tool to help them create, validate, or improve their own campus or district school counseling programs. The Texas Model’s purpose and history are explained, statutory requirements underpinning program necessities are identified, and the philosophical ideas behind the Texas Model are addressed in this section.
School Counselor Identity
Section I describes 10 school counselor responsibilities or domains necessary for the implementation of comprehensive school counseling programs in Texas. The 10 school counselor domains first reflect responsibilities articulated in state statutes (2 TEC §§33.006-33.007) and are then augmented by professionally recognized legal, ethical, and practical standards. Each domain is further explicated through related standards that provide more detailed behavioral expectations. Information about school counselor characteristics, education and training, and a model job description are also included.
Implementation Tools
Section II describes the cycle of planning, designing, implementing, evaluating, and enhancing a new district or campus school counseling program, or revamping an existing one. It leads the reader through recommended activities such as leadership team identification, existing program assessment, new program design elements, implementation timeline, and program evaluation.
Intentional Design
Section III describes foundational program components that communicate program purpose and philosophy through its mission statement and definition, rationale for the program, and assumptions of conditions necessary for successful program implementation. How-to ideas are provided to assist districts and campuses in writing their foundational components.
Counselor Role in Action
Section IV defines and describes the four service delivery components of guidance curriculum, responsive services, individual student planning, and system support (2 TEC §33.005) through which school counseling services are provided to students, parents, school personnel, and other invested stakeholders. New information in this Texas Model includes a comparison of comprehensive school counseling services to the Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) model. Moreover, descriptive school counseling program roles of school counselors, teachers, parents, and administrators are provided. Additionally, how-to strategies are once again provided for each of the four components, with special attention to the use of data in planning and evaluating the effectiveness of interventions and overall program success.
Whole Child Learning
Section V presents the scope and sequence of the newly revised and recommended state guidance curriculum reflecting four content areas of interpersonal effectiveness, intrapersonal effectiveness, personal health and safety, and post-secondary education and career readiness. Each content area is further organized into student competencies with grade-level specific goals and competency indicators to assist school counselors with the planning and assessment of activities. Attention is given to both the new character education TEKS and other newly mandated related topics.