Rethinking Educational Reform: The Inclusion of Counseling Psychologists on the Professional Development School (PDS) Leadership Teams in the PDS Schools.

Counseling psychologists have a place on professional development school (PDS) leadership teams at local schools working with universities to train teachers and improve schools. They can help team members to create healthy relationships, to function more effectively, and to develop a healthy educational environment. Two critical functions that counseling psychologists can perform in a PDS are remediation (i.e., problem resolution) and development. Semi-structured, open-ended interviews were conducted with administrators, teachers, graduate students, and teacher educators who worked in PDSs. These interviews were designed to capture perceptions of the actual and potential role of counseling psychologists in PDSs in three areas: remediation, prevention, and development. Examples of remediation activities that were cited included changing negative sterotyping, easing anxiety generated by change, and intervening in dysfunctional professional relationships. Responses from interviewees indicated that a valuable developmental function of counseling psychologists was the counselors' ability to model, facilitate, and promote better communication. The preventive function is demonstrated when counseling psychologists' explore, in advance, such issues as shifts in power and participatory decision making so that PDS faculty are more prepared to understand and function in an evolving school environment. (IAH)