Senate Bill No. 527
(By Senators Unger, Caldwell, Edgell and Hunter)
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[Introduced March 20, 2001; referred to the Committee on
Education.]
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A BILL to amend and reenact section eighteen-b, article five,
chapter eighteen of the code of West Virginia, one thousand
nine hundred thirty-one, as amended, relating to defining the
term "administrative activities".
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That section eighteen-b, article five, chapter eighteen of the
code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as
amended, be amended and reenacted to read as follows:
ARTICLE 5. COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION.
§18-5-18b. School counselors in public schools.
A school counselor means a professional educator who holds a
valid school counselor's certificate in accordance with article
three of chapter eighteen-a of this code.
Each county board of education, by the school year one
thousand nine hundred eighty-seven--eighty-eight, shall provide
counseling services for each pupil enrolled in the public schools
of the county.
The school counselor shall work with individual pupils and
groups of pupils in providing developmental, preventive and
remedial guidance and counseling programs to meet academic, social,
emotional and physical needs; including programs to identify and
address the problem of potential school dropouts. The school
counselor may also provide consultant services for parents,
teachers and administrators and may use outside referral services
when appropriate if no additional cost is incurred by the county
board.
The state board may adopt rules and regulations regarding the
activities of the school counselor, and the school counselor is
authorized to perform such services as are not inconsistent
therewith. Each county board of education shall develop a
comprehensive drop-out prevention program utilizing the expertise
of school counselors and any other appropriate resources available.
School counselors shall be full-time professional personnel,
shall spend at least seventy-five percent of work time in a direct counseling relationship with pupils, and shall devote no more than
one fourth of the work day to administrative activities. For the
purpose of this section only, "administrative activities" include,
but are not limited to, filing student records and forms, data
entry, preparing or distributing forms and information for
students, duplication of documents and other counseling-related
activities which are clerical in nature: Provided, That such
activities are counselor related.
Nothing herein shall prohibit a county board from exceeding
the provisions of this section.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to define the term
"administrative activities" to assure that school guidance
counselors have sufficient time to devote to direct counseling
activities with students.
Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken from
the present law, and underscoring indicates new language that would
be added.