President's Letter: Goals Guided by You

I want to express my gratitude to each and every school counselor in New Jersey! We are coming into a fresh new school year, after probably the most difficult one that we have collectively experienced. NJSCA is here to support you, your school and district with the initiatives you may have. It is important that you know NJSCA is the state organization for all school counselors, school counseling administrators and school counseling educators in New Jersey. The work we do represents your voice, so please be sure to share your thoughts, needs and ideas with me or any executive board member.

In late July, we met at Rider University in Lawrenceville for our Summer Leadership Development Institute (pictured above). Our sitting executive board met many new school counseling leaders from across the state. On the first day we had a great time getting to know each other, held an executive board meeting, learned about the work of our Legislative/Advocacy Committee and the BIPOC Affinity Group. In the afternoon, we reviewed the great work these two groups have completed and the path they will take this year.

The second day, we reintroduced ourselves as additional school counseling leaders joined us. We worked on our goals for this year, took time to do some leadership training with Dr. Gene Kutcher, dean of the Norm Brodsky College of Business at Rider (pictured at right), and enjoyed some self-care with Janine Tarlecki, owner of Ascend Hot Fitness of Hillsborough and Franklin Park. Janine led us in Yoga Nidra, healing with singing bowls. What a wonderful experience of group self-care we shared that morning for stress relief and deep rest.

The goals we developed will focus our work this year. Here are the goals with a short description that we set for NJSCA with input from all the school counseling leaders that day:

1. Membership – provide members with what they need and increase membership
2. Professional Development – increase offerings based on needs of school counselors throughout the state
3. Mentoring – Provide support to new school counselors in a variety of ways
4. BIPOC Affinity Group – continue with the outstanding work begun in 2021–2022
5. Legislative/Advocacy Work – continue with the collaborative relationships that have been established to move school counselor legislation

Please know that as your president this year, I may preside over our organization, but each and every school counselor in our state will guide the work we do – we are an organization that represents you and takes very seriously that we exist for the betterment of our students by providing what school counselors need and want. Your voice matters. Please feel free to reach out to me or any executive board member at any time. Become the school counseling leader/advocate you have always wanted to be – share your ideas, thoughts, time and talents to strengthen your state organization. Should you want to have a hand in guiding our goals this year, send me an email and we will connect you with the committee chair for the area of interest you want to connect with.

It is our hope to grow our membership this year, have greater participation at our fall and spring conferences, bi-monthly webinars and representation at the ASCA National Conference in Atlanta, Georgia in July 2023.

Looking forward to serving you this year as the NJSCA President.

Contact Cindy Povall, NJSCA president, at cindypovall@gmail.com.


Amy Lombardo, Cindy Povall, Carl Palmer, Jason Sabino, Jennifer Correnti and Jessica Smedley at ASCA Conference in Austin, Tex.


In Austin for the ASCA Conference, in the Sunday Room at Moonshine: (L, front to back) Amy Lombardo, Cindy Povall and Jessica Smedley, (R, front to back) Jason Sabino, Carl Palmer and Jennifer Correnti