The MASFAA Early Awareness and Outreach Committee members are looking forward to a particularly busy spring this year. On March 10 three committee members along with the state’s National Training for Counselors and Mentors (NT4CM) Coordinator attended the 2010 Leadership Forum for School Counselors at the State House in Boston. The purpose of this program is to give guidance counselors an opportunity to meet with their legislators and inform them of the needs of students that are currently not being met. There is currently legislation before the House Ways and Means Committee to create an advisory committee that will investigate and study a development and implementation process for six-year career planning standards to be coordinated by guidance staff for grades 6 to 12. The guidance community hopes that creation of a formal career planning program will allow them to be more available to students and not be used so often in unrelated areas like lunchroom duty and substitute teaching. It is expected this legislation will move quickly as there is no cost associated with it.

Committee members have also been presenting modules of the NT4CM program as part of a WebEx series that began on February 26 and ended March 11. In addition, committee volunteers will be presenting these modules at the annual Massachusetts School Counselors Association (MASCA) conference in Danvers on April 13.

Finally, we are preparing for our first ever spring Carnival of Learning to be held at South Lawrence East Middle School on May 5. We already have commitments from several volunteer presenters. The committee recently sent a request for assistance to the MASFAA community. We are need of school supplies, college t-shirts and volunteers to help the day of the event. Interested members should contact one of our co-chairs, Bonnie Quinn or Tanya Tanaro.