The Florida School Counselor Association invites all members to vote for the 2020 Board of Directors. We have five vacancies to fill. Each FSCA member shall vote once and can select up to five candidates. Voting will take place from March 16th to April 16th. Elected board members will be announced in April 2020 and will assume office on July 1, 2020. The link to cast your vote is located at the bottom of this page.
Clifford Mack. I’ve served as a school counselor since 2007 and Graduate Adjunct Professor in School Counseling since 2011. Obtained my Ph.D. in Counseling for the purpose of studying and researching the craft of School Counseling, specifically focusing on metacognition, self-regulation, and student success skills. Presented at numerous regional, state, and national conferences. I’ve previously served as an FSCA Regional Vice President (South Florida). I view my role as an educator and practitioner as a calling. Based on my calling, I’ve committed my career to serve, shepherding and supporting secondary students and graduate students’ success. Having the opportunity to serve on the FSCA Board would be a continuation and extension of my calling and be member of the vanguard of school counseling in Florida public, private, and charter schools. Serving on the FSCA Board provides a platform to listen to our members, shape policy, sanction best practices and promote our craft. It would be an honor and pleasure to return to the FSCA Governing Board. My mission and purpose will be to serve the FSCA members, advance and advocate for solutions to improve and enhance the practice of school counseling in Florida.
Jeannie Maddox. It has been a privilege as a practicing school counselor to work with the Florida School Counselor Association over the past four years as a convention committee member, a member of the board, and currently as Governing Chair. In this position, I have been blessed with leadership opportunities that have allowed me to meet school counselors and school counselor leaders from around the state and around the country. Although we live in different geographical areas with an enormous range of school sizes and diverse student populations, we share common challenges regarding our profession and the passion to do what is best for students. These encounters have re-energized me professionally and given me the opportunity to hear how other state associations are addressing the shared challenges of our profession. This past year, I am proud to have led the board in developing a three-year strategic plan focusing on advocacy not just at the state level, but at the school and district levels as well. While we continue to work as an association to enlist legislative support for our bill, which would mandate 80% of a school counselor’s time is spent in direct and indirect services to students, I want to empower school counselors with the knowledge and tools to advocate for the profession in their own school and district. My passion is school counseling. Serving these past 3 years as a member of the Board of Directors for the Florida School Counselor Association has been some of the most rewarding of my career. I am eager to continue offering my time and passion to the school counselors and the school counseling profession as a member of the Board of Directors.
Robert Pincus. With years of experience as a school counselor and now as a counselor educator at Liberty University, I train future school counselors to help PK-12 students. One of the important points I teach is the importance of the ASCA National Model and advocating for their professional identity as school counselors. Therefore, I am running for the FSCA Governing Board to continue advocating for the outstanding school counselors in our state. I have been an advocate for school counselors in Florida since 2011, including speaking to the Florida State Senate Education Committee this session regarding the Stoneman Douglas law about adding an amendment ensuring school counselors spend 80 percent of their time serving students. I am currently researching school counselors’ and administrators’ perceptions of our school counselors’ ability to help students with mental health issues to further advocate for lower caseloads. I am also advocating for school counselor educators to present to administrators in their districts explaining the ASCA National Model to school building administrators; including appropriate and inappropriate duties, the importance of a 1:250 counselor/student ratio, and spending 80 percent of the time serving our students. FSCA must continue to advocate with school administrators that school counselors can positively affect the students’ social-emotional, academic, and career issues that prevent schools from earning higher state grades. School counselors performing their ASCA-supported appropriate duties can greatly assist students with issues in their lives and help schools’ overall state grades. If elected I will be an ardent supporter of school counselors in the state of Florida. I will work together with our executive director and others on the Governing Board to represent school counselors in Tallahassee. I hope to advocate for additional school counselors using monies from the Stoneman Douglas law to increase the presence of needed school counselors in schools.
Cindy Topdemir. I am running for the FSCA Governing Board because of my desire to advocate for our profession at the state level. I have been involved in the FSCA board for the past few years and hope to continue to do so. I have been a Regional Vice President and a Governing Board Member. During my years in leadership in FSCA, I have been a member of the Convention committee, I have coordinated the graduate students’ poster presentations, and I have chaired the Emerging Leaders Program. I am currently still involved in all these and hope to continue doing so if re-elected. My experience and passion for school counseling make me a great candidate for this position. Since 2011 I have been the School Counseling Program Coordinator at the University of South Florida. I am in touch with what is going on in school counseling in the state of Florida because of my position. I am in contact regularly with the district School Counseling Supervisors in west-central Florida and visit schools in the surrounding counties at least once a week. In recent years I have presented and published in the areas of school counselor accountability, school counselor consultation, group counseling, the school counselor’s role, microaggressions, and culturally responsive school counseling. Previously I was a school counselor in Pasco County for 14 years and was involved in leadership activities there as well. During this time, I helped write the curriculum used by the district, I supervised practicum students and interns and conducted research and training on school counselors’ accountability practices. These experiences led me to want to train and mentor school counselors and made me realize how important it is to advocate for our profession and our students! I hope to continue advocating for you and our profession as a FSCA board member! I would appreciate your vote!
