This study is a reflection of the efforts made by faculty members of the Nocona, Texas High School, with the aid of two outside evaluating committees, to set up a workable and practical plan for executing personnel problems and policies in the school. The major portion of this investigation centers around the evaluations made of the guidance service in 1940 and 1942 and the re-evaluation made in 1947.

The Virginia Board of Education mandated that, by the Fall of 1989, all public elementary schools in the Commonwealth should establish elementary school guidance programs and employ an elementary school guidance counselor for every 500 students. Since that time, eight years have passed, and a review of successful programs was in order. The purpose of this research was to describe exemplary elementary school guidance practices and programs in Southwest Virginia. Based on the recommendations of three counselor educators from Virginia Tech, three elementary school divisions were identified for inclusion in the study. Rural, urban and suburban school divisions were chosen, so that the results would reflect a broader spectrum of exemplary elementary school guidance practices and programs. Specific school sites were selected by the school superintendent or guidance supervisor. During the Spring of 1997, the process of collecting data began. School counselors were asked to complete a questionnaire. Next, the researcher conducted site visits to each school, during which time ten structured interviews took place with those people who had interactions with the elementary school guidance program. While on the site, documents related to the elementary school guidance program were reviewed. Research results were presented in case study fashion. The most frequently cited examples of exemplary elementary school guidance practices and programs were summarized. Results showed that rural, urban, and suburban elementary school guidance programs had striking commonalities. All three elementary school guidance programs reported strengths in fifteen areas, which were grouped into three categories: (1) focus on student development and achievement, (2) staff collaboration, and (3) focus on parents and volunteers. A detailed description and discussion of each exemplary elementary school guidance practice and program concluded the study. / Ph. D.

The purposes of this study are: (1) to discover the most prominent needs of the freshmen students at North Texas State College, (2) to find the extent to which the guidance program aids college freshmen in developing into normal and socially adjusted individuals, and (3) to evaluate the present guidance program at North Texas State College.

An attempt will be made to answer these questions: (1) Why is a guidance program necessary? (2) What steps are being taken to accomplish the objectives set forth? (3) What is considered the best method of instituting a guidance program? In answering these questions a study of the guidance programs in a few of the leading cities and states of the United States has been taken into consideration. The best possible method or combination of methods will be recommended. This method will be compared with the program of guidance now in operation in the Waco High School, Waco, Texas.

Of the 1190 four-year high schools of Texas there are 941 with an enrollment of 250 or less. This group of schools is missing many opportunities to guide the youth they graduate into effective and wholesome living by means of an integrated guidance program. It is the purpose of this study to develop a program which, if incorporated into the curricula of these schools, should result in an integration of guidance into the many phases of the school's activities and increase the school's usefulness to the student.

The Western Boone County Community School Corporation, Thorntown, Indiana, in opening a new high school is concerned with instituting a guidance and counseling service to meet the needs of its students effectively. In instituting these services, it seems imperative to survey the people served in the guidance and counseling program, namely, the students, parents, teachers, administrators, and Board of Education, to discover the relative importance these publics ascribe to the various activities a counselor should be involved with in the school. Its usefulness will depend upon the extent to which the program will use the survey's results in conjunction with the expertise of the school counselor. The writer is certain that the guidance and counseling administrator will find the study an excellent device for finding the concerns of the different people involved as a step in the final construction of the comprehensive guidance and counseling program for the new high school.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether or not the introduction of a regular librarian-centered reading guidance program as an integral part of the entire school program would improve the reading attitudes and habits of elementary school students and increase the reading achievement scores on a standardized test of elementary school students. In addition, the reading attitudes of students were compared with reading achievement scores to assess any relationship between the two.

This study described undergraduate guidance and counseling training programs in the United States in terms of the number of programs available, their growth trends, and the degrees and courses offered. Selected characteristics of the participants' programs were compared. A model curriculum was developed for training guidance and counseling personnel at the undergraduate level.

While current accountability regimes in U.S. public education focus on the job performance of individual school professionals, research in industrial/organizational psychology has established the importance of system-wide factors for organizational outcomes. The purpose of this study was to identify school-wide factors that predict guidance program readiness in New York State high schools. This nonexperimental, quantitative study was based on a survey sample of 97 guidance counselors in New York State. Multivariariate analyses of variance showed that two school-wide independent variables-urbanization of school location and counselor-student ratio-predict scores on guidance program readiness, measured using the American School Counselor Association Readiness Survey. This instrument assesses program readiness on seven subscales-community support, leadership, guidance curriculum, staff/time use, counselor's beliefs and attitudes, counselor's skills, district resources-and overall program readiness. Because prior research shows that this instrument predicts guidance program effectiveness, the findings of the present research have important implications for school reform debates. Specifically, it would appear that school-wide factors significantly influence guidance program outcomes, calling into question the adequacy of accountability systems based on the job performance of individual guidance counselors and other education professionals. This research contributes to a growing body of evidence in support of the whole system paradigm of school reform, which seeks to improve both individual and system outcomes through system transformation.