A Conversation with CSCA Executive Director Matthew McClain

Matt Cundill  0:01  
This is from plains to peaks counselors speak, a podcast from the Colorado School Counselor Association. Hello

Anna Gisetti  0:08  
everyone, and welcome to the first ever episode of from plains to peaks counselors speak, I'm your host. Ana gazzetti, a school counselor at a middle school in Lakewood, Colorado, which is a suburb of Denver on the west side of town, close to the mountains. Just in case you don't know where Lakewood is. The purpose of this podcast, which is a brain child of the Colorado School Counselor Association from plains to peaks, is to provide a space for all things school counselor, our hope is to make connections with folks around our state and beyond, provide some education, provoke some thought, engage in meaningful conversations from our point of view, and to bring some levity to our ever challenging yet very rewarding work in the field of education. For our inaugural episode, I am so excited to have with me today, the person who is responsible for my involvement on the board, he works tirelessly to support not only school counselors as individuals and humans, but the field of school counseling as a whole, a top champion and advocate. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome today. Matthew McLean, Executive Director of CSCA, you

Matthew McClain  1:28  
are so kind. Holy cow, I don't even know what to say after that. But anyway, I'm the elementary counselor currently working at Baker Elementary in Fort Morgan, out on the eastern plains. I have worked at intermediate grades, five and six and high school, and now I'm living in elementary world.

Anna Gisetti  1:47  
Ah, and kudos to you for elementary world. I could I did it for a little bit of time, Matthew, and had to go back to my my adolescent peeps at the middle school level. So, so delighted to have you with us. I wanted us to be able to get to know our school counselors on the human level, not just professionally. So Matthew, with that, would you share with us a little bit about who you are? Like, how did you fall in? Well, some people fall in. Some people like, work their way into the field of education and school counseling, but tell us

Matthew McClain  2:24  
I got a degree in psychology, which, as you know, is an illustrious degree, which we you can do, not much of anything. So I worked in telecommunications for a few years, and then decided I wanted to get my masters, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to do school counseling, school psych special ed. Those three interested me, so I did a bit of research, and fortunately, knew some people in education, and so I did some shadowing to kind of see where it was. And although Special Ed is interesting, and although school psych is interesting, what really drew me to school counseling was being able to work with all students, not just a few, but with all and I think that that's the part that really, really pulled me in. So I did that. And right before I graduated and finished my program, I got a job out here in front Morgan, and I've been here since 2005 school year. It's been a great experience. When I started this program, we had a six month old, and we now have three children, and two of them are 15, and one of them is 19. Family

Anna Gisetti  3:32  
Guy doing the program with kids. Again, there's like such resilience to speak about in that so that's that's wild. We honor all the time our social workers and psychs and anyone who works in sped or these special these specialty spaces because of what they do. And yet I really honor the wanting to to work with all students, which is something that the Ask A ethical guidelines talk about quite often is that we're not just here for for a part of the population, but we're here to serve all the students. And it's just super noble. Matthew and I love that. Tell us how long and in what ways have you been a part of the Colorado School Counselor Association? I started

Matthew McClain  4:16  
in 2005 but with the CSCA, I knew right away in my program, they talked quite a bit about joining state and national organizations. So I joined CSCA and I joined ASCA, but then in 2007 ASCA was in Denver, and so I was like, it's right here. I'm gonna go. So I went and oh my gosh, was it a great experience, and how incredibly overwhelming and emotional to walk into this grand hall, and every person in there does what you do like they get me very cool. And I was like, these sessions are great. I love this. I'm gonna go again. So in 2008 it was in Atlanta. I. I knew people there, so I was like, I'll go stay with friends. I'll go to the conference. It'll be a good time. So I went and being the nerd that I am, I was staying to the very end of the session, at the end of the day, and the very few people that I knew that were there were they had left early and had gone to do stuff. So I was just kind of standing in the lobby, and this group of people that were real loud came walking by, and they were like, Hey, aren't you from Colorado? And I said, I am. They said, come have dinner with us. And it was members of the CSCA board. And so we went to pity Pat's porch and had some delicious southern food. Then we went to the Ask a social event. And then the next day, I was walking through the exhibit hall, and the current president at the time, Tracy Thompson, Walsh, comes up and says, Hey, since you hung out with us, don't you want to join the board? And I was like, Well, what would I do? She goes, we'll figure it out. And so that was in the summer. And also in the summer, I went to I said, Yes, and so we went to our Leadership Development Institute that summer. I got indoctrinated into CSCA. So that was summer of 2008 I have served as elementary VP. I served as conference chair, President. So that would include President, elect president. Past president, I have been the PR chair, and then the position opened up and I applied, and was so honored to be able to become the executive director at the end. It was the late fall, 2017

Anna Gisetti  6:42  
Wow. So you have really worked with the association in a number of ways, on a number of different committees, and there's just so much wealth of experience there, which I think just speaks to once again, like your understanding, not only of the field, because you've been doing this for a while, but also of the demands of school counselors and what is needed and how the association can serve school counselors in our state. So big question for you, what do you think are some of the challenges facing school counselors today, although

Matthew McClain  7:17  
there are numerous, I think the biggest one right now is just lack of people to fill positions. I mean, I'm aware of quite a few districts across the state that have openings and have had openings all year, and so that pipeline is not producing as it once did, and in conversations with other school counselors around the country, the majority, there are a few isolated places, but the majority are in the same position where they're looking for school counselors to fill positions. And so although that is sad for our profession, it's really sad for the students who don't have someone there to help them and guide them and talk to them and support them and advocate for them. That pieces is where I feel like there's a big gap. And so, you know, we're doing all that we can to try to support that. CDE has temporary educator eligibility licenses for folks that are either in or starting their school counseling programs. And so we have been working with Counselor Educators around the state to try to figure out how to best support those folks, because not only when you're a baby counselor, but like, if you're not even, like, just starting a program, you don't know what you don't know and and so we want to be able to provide as much support as we can, to just bring them into our profession with mentorship and support and information and professional development and all that kind of stuff, to be able to make sure that they are doing what they can the

Anna Gisetti  8:52  
best way they can. You like it's, it's almost as if I paid you to do segues for me, because you talked about Conference, which is so the Colorado conference y'all is like, one of the best out there. People come from other states. I'm going to brag on us for a little bit, because people come from other states, and they're like, Wow, this is one of the best conferences we've ever attended. Ask is awesome? States have their own conferences, and they're beautiful things, but like you just spoke to you, made connections with people who reached out to you, invited you, and now you're here and have been involved in the board for so long. You also just mentioned some of the other things that the association can do to support school counselors in our state. Spend a little bit time talking about that in a little bit more detail, like, how does CSEA support school counselors in our state? Couple

Matthew McClain  9:48  
years ago, we moved to a board of directors model versus having presidents, vice presidents, and region reps. And so those region reps were elected from parts around the state. 812, regions that we had developed. There was an elementary, middle, high school and post secondary VP, there were presidents and so all those real important pieces. But it had worked for a long time, but had ceased to work. I had put out the call for people to run for positions, and not one, not a singular person ran for a position, and that was a wake up call to me, when I talked to the leadership and said, hey, no one's running. We need to figure out what needs to happen. And so we had a very, very detailed conversation at our board meeting. Is the middle of the year, January. Said, here's what's happening other states, including ask, I have moved to a board of directors, Is this our time? The board was not divided, but they were also not like, hey, yeah, let's do that. Immediately. They said, let's check into this further. And so put together an ad hoc committee who did some research, and they talked to other states who had recently moved, and did our own kind of deep dive into what we needed to do and what this would look like. Brought that back in the spring to the rest of the board, and they said, Yes, we'd like to move forward based on the information you've given us. Then we spent time looking at our own internal documents, bylaws, constitution, all those things and what that change would look like in order to make that big shift. I say all that to give a little bit of background, because now we had a board of directors of nine, board of directors, a chair and assistant chair. So a total of 11 elected folks. And so those folks, we then looked at our own 12 regions, and said, Is this really what we should be doing still. And so we looked at the Colorado Department of Education's website, and they have identified eight regions around the state, and they have listed districts and schools all within their website. And we thought, hey, why don't we follow suit? And that way it's already there. And so we took the board seats and assigned them to a region. And so it's still a work in progress, because this is still pretty new for us, but assigned them to a region. But Anna, you might say, hey, but you have 11 folks and eight regions. How does that work? Okay, I'm glad you asked. We took the Denver Metro region and split it to north south, and took two of those positions, so that would be nine. So that's nine people. Then we have an assistant chair and chair, which comprises the 11. And so those super passionate people are really wanting to make sure that we are meeting the needs of counselors from around the state. And so I know that soon, hopefully by the time people hear this, or shortly after, they'll be getting an email from us that has information about like, Who is the person from our region that's representing me, because we want people to know that we are wanting to have voices from around the state, so that when we are advocating, doing whatever we can to support that. We have those voices from around the state as well, and so then we have those folks, but then we also have our committee folks,

Matt Cundill  13:15  
from planes to peaks, Councilor speak continues. Would you

Matthew McClain  13:18  
like to hear about our committees? Or do you want

Anna Gisetti  13:21  
that to be later? We later? No, I would love to hear about them. So

Matthew McClain  13:25  
you already mentioned how amazing our conference is, and so our conference committee is phenomenal at putting that together, and they're very intentional about ensuring that we have a wide variety of topics that are meeting the needs of our school counselors, because it's not a singular focus. Yes, there might be a theme for the conference. However, the different breakouts are meeting the needs of elementary, middle, high district leaders. But we also have operations, which is our daily, day to day stuff that our operations team looks at membership and secretary, Financial Officer, that type of thing. They really look at the day to day work of our association. So our conference committee is chaired by Janelle winters, and part of that is our exhibits chair, who looks at all the people that are exhibitors and sponsors that type of thing. That is Renee Colley and so Amy Prouty is our current chair for operations autumn. Copy hands is our secretary. Our financial officer is Chris Lindsey, and can be Crabb is our membership chair. So then with that, we have other committees. I just started talking about the advocacy Advocacy Committee, which is co chaired like Kelsey Roston and Katie Brown. Within that committee, people are like, Oh, that's like, legislative stuff. That's not my jam. I can't do anything with that. Well, there are many levels of i. Interest and ways to get involved. If you are a grammar Nazi and want to go in and look at all the different things they have legislation that needs to be looked at through the eyes of a school counselor. And so if you want to look through a proposed legislative document and look at those things through the eyes of the school counselor, you can do that. You don't have to testify other people. They're like, throw me on the stand. I'll be happy to talk to those people. So there's such a variety of ways to get involved. There. We have our diversity, equity and inclusion committee, and how you got Hayes, she chairs that, and it is great, because they are constantly looking at ways that we as an organization are ensuring that we are making sure that we are representing, but also being the voice for either minority or marginalized populations, whatever that is, but they are that voice, ensuring that we are continuing to do that, even though we as a profession do that regularly and almost automatically. It's great to have that focus for that specific committee. We have a newer committee, the ASCO national model implementation support committee. That's a mouthful. I don't know how to shorten that right now, but it's relatively new, really supporting schools and districts on the ASCO national model and how to really implement a comprehensive program, and if, as they move through that process, even supporting them applying for ramp and as a state organization, being able to recognize and applaud the work that a comprehensive program has been put in place, we have our professional development committee, which is co chaired by Courtney Allen, and also Colleen stable and ski our Social Media Marketing chair is Mattie Francis. Under that is our newsletter and social media Jessica Zimmerman. And we have our webmaster, Bethany Lee. We have our ethics committee, which is co chaired by Christina jokovic and Michelle Zinser. So like I could talk on and on, but like all these different committees are working tirelessly and passionately on all those different areas to support school counselors and our work across the state, but

Anna Gisetti  17:32  
every time I hear about all the work that is available, all the supports that are available, it's mind blowing, because there's a lot out there, and I feel like a lot of people don't know what all we do and what all we have to offer. So I really appreciate you taking the time to walk through that. If someone was like, that is my jam, maybe advocacy is my jam. Or ethics, like I'm really interested in that, or in professional development, whatever the case may be, how can a person reach out to us to get involved. If

Matthew McClain  18:02  
they go to our website, Colorado School counselor.org, and up at the top, there's an about us, and if you hover over that, it says, meet the board. You can scroll through there and see all the committee chairs. There's a little link to their email. If that seems complicated, you can go to your email and just email info at Colorado School counselor.org and that'll get funneled to the right person. It is phenomenal being involved with the board, because it's other just like minded, passionate, fun people, and you don't have to be anything special to be on the board, other than just being willing to advocate and work as a volunteer to support our profession. The people that are on this board end up becoming very good friends. And I've had monumental birthdays. People from the board came to those monumental birthdays because they support you as a person. That's the other piece. That's That's great. And I you know, and I don't know if we are special in the field of education, that we really connect human to human more or differently than others, but I feel like we do a really good job with that.

Anna Gisetti  19:15  
I 100% agree with you on that, and I'm so glad that you said that, because one of my questions for you is, how can people get involved? And I love that you provided the links. So if they are interested in getting involved with any of the committees or accessing support, either way, they can go to the website and email anyone really, and we'll get you to the right person. You can go to info at coloradoschool counselor.org and I really want to echo the why of getting involved in the board, because I don't feel like you have to be like super outspoken. We have a whole mix of introverts and extroverts. We have spaces for everybody, and there's always work to be done as. So I just want to share a little story. When I was a baby counselor, just starting in the field a while ago, and I went to conference, which is a pivotal space. So I went to conference, and I see these people the at that point, it was region reps, and so they were introducing them across the stage during lunch. And I was like, Oh my gosh. Like, how can I ever get to be one of those people like you were literally up on a pedestal because you were up on a riser walk. You all were, like, walking across and and then there was this guy in a bow tie, Matthew McLean, who I, you know, learned was involved with this thing. But I was always like, Who's this bow tie guy? Really? I thought like, that would be cool someday. But y'all were like, so seemingly beyond reach, or like it just seemed like a pipe dream that I could ever do something like that, or that I would ever be at that level. And now here I am. Thanks to you, Matthew for pushing a little bit and making sure that I stretched my limits so you might have stretched your limits with baking today, professionally and personally, I was stretching my limits and thinking like, why not me? And so if any of you are out there thinking like, Oh, I'd be a total imposter, and you know, what talents do I have? Please, please, please work through that. Put that aside. There is a space for everyone. I love that you talked about representation across the state, because we are so passionate about wanting to do work for everybody. I took a pause from school counseling and was traveling around the state educating different districts on school safety things. And we'd hear all the time like our policy seems to be kind of led by if, if Denver falls, everybody else gets a band aid, and that's not necessarily what the people on the eastern plains or in our rural mountain areas need. And so I just that's one of the things that I adore about this is, yes, I work on the front range in a metropolitan area, but we are so, so focused on making sure that everybody's voice, like we work for all students in our jobs, and this association really works to work for all school counselors in our state. So I just wanted to get passionate about that for a hot minute.

Matthew McClain  22:12  
I love that if people want to get involved, and I love that you talked about the fact that it might seem unreachable, but it isn't, and people can do whatever they desire to do, reaching out to us and seeing what they can do. And it was a big shift for me when I joined the board, because I loved my kids and I loved who I that I worked for them and all the things that I did. But then once I joined this board, it was a little bit of a shift that I was now focused on the profession and school counselors and that type of thing. And when that made that shift, yes, it supported them, which in turn, supports kids. So it's eventually getting there, but it's just a little bit of a shift. And so any type of leadership at your state organization, whether it's in our state or other states, that's the big shift. So that's been a big change.

Anna Gisetti  23:08  
You and I had talked about, oh, how can I get involved in the board in this way or that way? But it wasn't until I think I was a couple years into my current position, and, no, it was the first year in my current position, and and I had seen our evaluation, and one of the indicators was getting involved at the local or state leadership positions. And so then this opportunity just popped up. And I was like, Why? Why not me? Like, if, if it's going to be a piece of my evaluation, and I don't know if it's a piece of everybody's but I was like, oh, that's that's kind of cool to push a person professionally. And so the pieces just came together. So whatever it is that makes you want to get involved, do it like your voice is needed, your voice is wanted. We really value where people are and what people have to say. And so I just I love that. Matthew, thanks. I know, because I'm a part of the board that the Colorado School Counselor Association has a partnership with the school counselor Mental Health Initiative, which we call Shmi, and they're housed with the Denver seminary, and they are doing a project collecting some data for us. And so I'm wondering if you would be able to speak a little bit to that project and then tell people how they could access the survey.

Matthew McClain  24:33  
As we know, data is super important, and collecting data, and so we want to make sure that we are we as a CSCA board are meeting the needs of council counselors from across the state. We have this wonderful opportunity to partner with this research group. They're really wanting to better understand experiences of school counselors across the state, their lived experiences all that kind of stuff, and so they started last year gathering some information in our. Sample size was pretty small, and so we tried again this year, and we've had some folks trickling in, and it's been great because we're able to collect that information, and it's a survey, and there's also an opportunity to be part of a focus group. So if you go to our website, I've said it before, Colorado School counselor.org, you'll see our beautiful banner across the top. And if you scroll down about halfway, you will see, under latest news, it says 2024, school counselor, role, identity, role and identity. So if you click on that, it takes you to the survey. There's a QR code. So if you want to scan it with your phone and take it on the go, you can click on it on the website itself. But really that's going to help us, who, in turn, will help all of the counts school counselors across the state, so that we can meet needs through professional development or whatever that looks like. It just is really going to help us to look at our data and do whatever we can to support

Anna Gisetti  25:55  
and in that way, just to piggyback. Then we also, like we ask school counselors to be through, ask a national model be data driven, right? And so we are going to collect the data, see what the needs are, and then that will inform our programming that we will then assess from time to time, yes, yes, absolutely right. Phenomenal. What a phenomenal way to run a program or an organization or an association, it's just, it's it's good and structured. And so we need your voice. Folks, if you would go to colorado.org, look at Shmi, access the survey, give your voice. And then if you are interested in getting involved, or just have some questions about, like, what would that look like? What are commitments to being a part of of the association in any kind of way. Please feel free to reach out to us. Matthew, I have a very important question for you, what was your high school mascot? Viking? Oh, Vikings, okay, okay. And what state were you in when you went to high school? Florida? Florida? Vikings? Well, that's interesting. Okay, Vikings in Florida. Cool. My high school mascot was a kangaroo, black and orange, because those were our colors, kangaroo and so follow up question, who would win in a battle between Vikings and kangaroos?

Matthew McClain  27:16  
That's a tough one, because have you seen some of those videos of gurus getting real, like that tail holds them up, and those feet they hit, yeah, and that's a tough one. I mean, the Vikings have the horn helmet so that could get someone, but that would be a battle to see,

Anna Gisetti  27:39  
all right, and I imagine, like the Vikings, like you probably weren't allowed to take them to school, but like, you had shields and axes and things like that. Yeah,

Matthew McClain  27:46  
I think back now, and it was like the the logo was the profile of the Viking with a horned helmet. And, like, I feel like braids down the side, you know, with a long mustache.

Anna Gisetti  28:01  
Okay, so we just whip those braids around and catch a kangaroo in the eye. Yeah. Maybe that could happen, yeah, because they're short little arms when I mean they Jab Right. Yeah, Jabby, jabs. Okay, all right. Well, yeah, we'll have to stay tuned and think about that one. Vikings versus kangaroos. Y'all Matthew, thank you so much for being here and chatting with us today. Once again, so honored. I love what you have to say. I love your passion for the field. I love how long you've been involved. But just know that, like I said, an A a top champion, a plus supporter of us as humans and in the field, it takes the time to get to know everyone he works with on the human level, and that's just outstanding. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you, you

Matthew McClain  28:46  
and thank you for taking on this huge project of planes to peaks are amazing podcast. I'm so excited to see where it goes.

Matt Cundill  28:56  
You've been listening to from planes to peaks counselors speak, a podcast from the Colorado School Counselor Association for more resources, including frequently asked questions and professional development, go to coloradoschool counselor.org

Unknown Speaker  29:11  
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