We need your help...

Without your help, DCPS School Counselors will lose their jobs. Budget cuts in the District of Columbia Public Schools seriously threaten one of our greatest assets: school counselors. In the recent school budget proposals, Chancellor Rhee has eliminated DCPS school counselor positions in elementary schools which do not minimally have 600 students. In some secondary schools, school counselor positions have been eliminated in exchange for other administrative positions.

The goal of this campaign is to give DCPS students the high quality education that they deserve:

»Fund full time school counselors in ALL elementary schools regardless of size
»Preserve school counselor positions on the secondary level with a ratio of 250:1

Please join our email letter writing campaign to the DC city council to urge them to vote YES to funding full-time school counselors in all of our elementary schools and on the secondary level with a ratio of 250:1 as established by the American School Counselor Association.

Email petition...

June 6, 2008

Dear Council Members:
We urge you to reject the current DCPS budget proposals, which does not fund current school counselor positions in 
elementary schools and reduce school counselors on the secondary school level. Budget cuts to DC Public schools seriously threaten one of the greatest assets of our community, our children. Many excellent school counselors may be terminated from the elementary school level and middle and high school counselors will be reduced. Both our students and our schools will suffer as a result. 

Mayor Fenty and Chancellor Rhee have not proposed adequate funding for DC Public School elementary students to have school counselors in their elementary schools and have reduced critical school counselor positions on the secondary level for school year 2008-09. This is a travesty!

We urge you to support funding professional school counselors in ALL elementary schools, and in middle and senior high schools with a ratio of 250 students to 1 school counselor as established by the American School Counselors Association. Under Mayor Fenty and Chancellor Rhee’s comprehensive staffing model, many DCPS schools will be forced to choose between a full-time librarian and a full time school counselor or various other staffing positions. 

Every DCPS elementary school student deserves access to a school counselor. The elementary school years set the tone for developing knowledge, attitudes and skills necessary to become a healthy, competent, and confident learner. School counseling programs at the elementary school level assist staff, parents, and the community to create a caring climate and atmosphere. By providing students education, prevention and early intervention services, school counselors can help all children achieve academic success.
There is a misconception that because students are younger in elementary school, their problems are smaller. Prevention is a major part of the job of a professional school counselor. 

School counselors help ALL students deal with the day-to-day challenges and distractions to learning. School counselors work as part of a team to support student achievement, and enhance interpersonal and social growth, peace making skills and career development. School counselors also lend technical, personal and professional assistance to parents, teachers and administrators.

We do not believe it is the council’s intent to change the governance of our schools in order to reduce valuable resources that support academic achievement. We look forward to a response from each of you at your earliest convenience.

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With your help and attention we can turn this unfair and harmful Fenty jauggernaut around. He is pursuing practices and policies that will adversly affect our public school system for years to come.

This petition will be sent to the following DC Council Members:

Chairman Vincent Gray
vgray@dccouncil.us
Yvette Alexander
yalexander@dccouncil.us
Marion Barry
mbarry@dccouncil.us
Muriel Bowser
mbowser@dccouncil.us
Kwame Brown
kbrown@dccouncil.us
David Catania
dcatania@dccouncil.us
Mary Cheh
mcheh@dccouncil.us
Jack Evans
jackevans@dccouncil.us
Jim Graham
jgraham@dccouncil.us
Phil Mendelson
pmendelson@dccouncil.us
Carol Schwartz
schwartzc@dccouncil.us
Harry Thomas
hthomas@dccouncil.us
Tommy Wells
twells@dccouncil.us

Save Our Counselors and Our Schools

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This petition will be sent to the following DC Council Members: