From the TCA Wellness Committee
Celebrate American Heart Month with these stress busting techniques
What have you done lately to manage the stress in your life? According to the American Heart Association, about 80% of heart disease can be prevented with education and action. One of the most impactful ways you can help your heart is by taking time to manage the stress in your life. Try these quick tips to feel better and lower your risk of heart disease at the same time!
- Take a deep breath. Even just one breath can help trigger the relaxation response in your body and reduce stress.
- Get moving. Set a reminder every hour to get up and walk around or do some simple stretches.
- Nix the vices. Alcohol and caffeine might feel like they are helping in the short term, but they can compound the effects of stress on the body and negatively impact sleep quality.
- Connect to find calm. Hug a pet, call a friend, or help someone out. Connecting with others and finding ways to help are powerful tools to combat stress.
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Primary Elections:
Tuesday, March 8
This is your first chance to help decide who will hold office in Texas.
Check out the non-partisan
League of Women Voters Guide
to learn about the candidates in your communities. It is an easy to use, customized, non-partisan resource.
Be informed on the public policies you support, find out where the candidates stand, and vote on March 8, 2018.
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Join us in Galveston!
Register on site!
Expand your toolkit, learn best practices, and network with the most amazing professional school counselors! Large meeting rooms, diverse program topics, and fabulous keynote speakers are the hallmarks of this year’s conference.
Join us on February18-20, 2018 for the largest Professional School Counselor Conference in Texas.
Single day registration for Monday only available on site!
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Complimentary Administrator Registration Included
Does your supervisor really know what you do to help students? Here’s a chance for administrators to earn free CE hours and learn best practices for school counseling programs.
Invite your principal, assistant principal, superintendent, or deputy superintendent to attend this conference with you at no additional cost. What a great opportunity to engage your campus and district administrators as partners!
On-site registration is available, so bring your administrator!
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Can’t make it to Galveston?
Choose our
LiveStream option
and the conference will come to you! Registration for LiveStream closes Friday, February 16!
For just $175, you can enjoy conference programs on Monday and Tuesday from the comfort of your home or office.
LiveStream
includes both General Sessions as well as 5 additional programs. Check out the programs and
register today
!
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FinAid Chat for Educators
Wednesday, February 14 at 11 AM, join us on Twitter for a discussion of tips and tools to help students with financial aid, even after the FAFSA deadline.
Follow the hashtag
#TXFinAid
from 11 AM-Noon as we discuss verification, loans, scholarships, and more with partners from across Texas. TXOC Leader Fellow Chansi Shope leads us through the discussion!
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Long Range Plan for Public Education
SBOE Stakeholder Meetings
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T
he State Board of Education, with assistance from an 18-member steering committee, plans to adopt goals for the public education system through the year 2030.
To gather information about these topics, the board is hosting
nine meetings
around the state and will soon release an online survey.
It is essential that school counseling be included in the long-range plan for public education!
If school counseling is not included in the Long Range Plan, it will be very difficult to promote policies that support the work that you do, that will reduce student to counselor ratios and that will reduce non-counseling duties assigned to school counselors.
Please be a voice for your profession in your community.
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Make sure school counseling is represented! Register below:
Feb. 16
– 9-11 a.m., Rio Grande Valley, location to be determined.
Find out more.
Feb. 28
– 6:30-8:30 p.m. at the Region 16 Education Service Center’s Panhandle Conference Center located at 5800 Bell St. in Amarillo.
Register
Advance registration for the community meetings is encouraged but not required.
Share this information with your colleagues, students, and families and encourage them to participate as well.
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TEA Survey on Special Education Corrective Action Draft Plan
The Texas Education Agency (TEA) has made available an
online survey
to solicit feedback on its draft corrective action plan for special education. The survey is open to anyone wishing to provide input on the draft plan.
The online survey is one part of TEA’s ongoing outreach effort to hear from special education students, families, educators, advocacy groups, district and school officials, and all others seeking to provide input on the plan. The survey takes approximately 15 to 20 minutes to complete. To fully understand and effectively respond to the questions in the survey, participants are encouraged to first
read TEA’s proposed corrective action plan
.
TEA will be accepting an initial round of public comments on the draft plan through Feb. 18. Following this initial round of public comments and stakeholder engagement, a revised draft plan will be available on or around March 1. Additional public comment will be accepted through March 31.
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Order Now!
The
Texas Model for Comprehensive School Counseling Programs,
5th Edition
The 5th Edition of the
Texas Model for Comprehensive School Counseling Programs
order form is live!
With new organization, competencies, domains, strategies and tools, the 5th Edition of the
Texas Model for Comprehensive School Counseling Programs
has been updated to reflect best practices and statutory requirements for school counseling programs.
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Coalition for Public Schools Community Meetings
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The
Coalition for Public Schools
is hosting community meetings around the state to build support for their work in advance of the 86
th
Legislative Session.
The Coalition for Public Schools is comprised of religious, child advocacy, and education organizations representing more than 3,000,000 Texans statewide.The Coalition opposes the expenditure of public funds to pay for tuition vouchers, tax credits, and other types of vouchers and believes vouchers are a political distraction from the state’s top priority: providing high quality neighborhood public schools that meet the educational needs of every Texas child.
- CORSICANA, TEXAS | FEBRUARY 13, 2018 | St. John’s Episcopal Church, 101 N. 14th St. | 11:45 am Register
- MESQUITE, TEXAS | FEBRUARY 13, 2018 | Family Cathedral of Praise, 790 Windbell Circle | 6 pm Register
- FORT WORTH, TEXAS | FEBRUARY 14, 2018 | The Effie Center, 6011 W. Bailey Boswell Road | 11:45 am Register
- ODESSA, TEXAS | FEBRUARY 15, 2018 | West Texas Food Bank, 411 S. Pagewood Ave. | 11:45 am Register
- MIDLAND, TEXAS | FEBRUARY 16, 2018 | First Presbyterian Church, 800 West Texas St. | 7:45-9 am | "Coffee and Conversation" | Contact Christine Foreman for event information, 432.638.5671
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Thank You EEF Donors!
Donations and dividends provide the dollars that fund the Educational Endowment Fund grants that members receive three times each year! TCA especially thanks those who gave generously in 2017!
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Contenders Circle: $151-$500
Carolyn
Greer
Supporters Circle: $25-$150
Dean Aslinia
Janie Bramlett
Michael DeVoll
Laura Doran
Elise Douglas
Cyndi Doyle
Rachel Flores
Naderia Hartley
Judy Jarratt
Pam Love-White
Lisa Pearson
Carrie Proctor
Chester Robinson
James Smith
Sigrid Wood
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Scholarship Opportunity
Capital One is sponsoring a $5,000 scholarship for a service member, veteran, future service member, or dependent of our service men and women to begin or continue their education.
They are looking to award one winner who exemplifies the qualities that make our service members outstanding assets to our military and in the private sector- strong work ethic, discipline, leadership, selfless-service, and the creativity to overcome obstacles.
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To qualify for consideration for the $5,000 scholarship the student must:
- Be enrolled, or planning to enroll, in a full-time undergraduate program of study leading to a bachelor's degree at an accredited U.S. college or university in the state of Texas in the fall term of 2018.
- Plan or maintain full-time enrollment status (12 hours) for the duration of the scholarship period (1 Semester)
- Have a minimum GPA of 3.0 in their last year of education
- Be a dependent or service member, to one of the following: active duty personnel, military veteran, National Guard Reserve, Air National Guard, surviving spouses of deceased personnel in one of the previous or a ROTC cadet.
- U.S. Citizen or legal resident
Applications are being accepted February 1 through April 15, 2018.
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2018 Student Heroes Award
The
Student Heroes Award
program recognizes Texas public school students in prekindergarten through high school who voluntarily work to assist or benefit their fellow Texas students.
The State Board of Education (SBOE) Chair Donna Bahorich urged school and community members to nominate those students who voluntarily perform acts that improve their school or community.
Action of past recipients include mentoring struggling students, creating a program that provides essential supplies to children in foster care, providing stuffed animals to sick children, hosting birthday parties for students living at homeless shelters, establishing a school drumline, providing a support group for emotionally fragile students and voluntarily coaching a cheer squad that performs at Special Olympics events.
Up to 15 students – one per State Board of Education district – may receive the award each year. Anyone may nominate a Texas public-school student for the award.
Nominations will be accepted through 5 p.m. (CST) March 9.
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$2M for Collaborative Approaches to Well-Being in Rural Communities
Letters of Interest Due March 7, 2018
The Hogg Foundation for Mental Health believes mental health is not solely an individual responsibility, but also a product of community conditions, and the potential for change is greater when we focus our efforts on historically excluded or underserved populations.
To this end, we invite eligible organizations to submit a letter of interest for our new
Collaborative Approaches to Well-Being in Rural Communities
project, which will help Texas communities of 250,000 people or less inclusively and collaboratively support resilience, mental health and well-being.
The foundation will award up to five, three-year grants totaling $2 million (not to exceed $400,000 per award) to support each grantee in developing or building on a community collaborative to assess, plan and implement strategies to become a mentally healthier community.
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CALENDAR OF EVENTS 2018
February 23:
TCA Virtual Board Meeting
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