by Mark H. Sklarow, Executive Director, IECA

June 30th marks the close of our Fiscal Year and IECA’s 34th serving as the principal voice of the profession of independent educational consulting. We entered the year committed to helping our members thrive, and exploring ways to strengthen the profession, promote the value of the work we do, and enhance the services offered by the Association to students, families, schools, and our member consultants. And while it was a difficult year for some, with many parts of the country suffering a deep economic recession, we have continued to move forward together.

Some of our progress occurred right here as we greatly expanded our efforts in electronic communication and social networking sites. This blog saw more than 200 original posts and over 150 comments. There are readers who come to our blog from our Web site, while others read it on Facebook, and well over 200 subscribers choose to receive it via e-mail. I have spoken to reporters as well as school and program heads, and college vice presidents that mention things they read on our blog. We have 300 followers on Twitter, more than 600 views on our Flickr photostream, 162 IECA members connecting on our LinkedIn group, and 900 fans (and growing) on Facebook. We have worked to assist members to master this new world of communication and will continue and even expand that effort in the coming year.

Of course all this attention to new media is meant to provide two key benefits: increased communication between and among IECA and its publics (consultants, school reps and the general public) but also to encourage more visits to the IECA Web site. In the past year the number of unique visitors increased 14%. More than 28,000 people searched the “find a consultant” feature of the Web site alone. Our goal to connect families to members is working and we intend to increase that effort in the coming year. A central core piece of our mission is to change the public’s sense of educational consulting from “what is a consultant?” to “I need a consultant, and I’ll only look to IECA as the assurance I need of competence.”

This past year we completed two member surveys: one that focused on the field of consulting to help us better understand where things stand, so we can better respond to future needs; and the second one that focused on educational needs of members to help guide our committees and shape future initiatives. A major development came from a survey that we did not conduct. An independent national study showed a far larger percentage of “high achieving students’ than anyone had ever imagined were working with educational consultants (26%). Such widespread use of consultants can have a major impact on the actions of college admission officers and IECA has been reaching out to them in unprecedented ways.

While a number of educational organizations saw membership decline this past year, IECA continued its moderate growth with a 5% increase in members. Our conferences in North Carolina and Toronto were extremely successful as local host committees (made up for the first time with school representatives as well as consultants) worked to raise the academic content (the new Master Classes and Point/Counterpoint sessions, for example), and we also introduced an active Conference Central that included a bookstore (and author book signings), networking cyber-lounge, and much more, designed to increase networking and sharing.

IECA’s signature training programs: the Summer Training Institute continues to ‘sell out’ as does the Transitioning to Private Practice Seminar which IECA runs in partnership with NACAC. The first ever certificate program in independent educational consulting is now being offered by U.C. Irvine in a program jointly designed and taught by the university and IECA and its members. We have been working more closely with our association colleagues at SSATB, NAIS, NATSAP, and more. We manned a booth for the first-time ever at LDA this past year and are committed to extending our efforts into the LD and therapeutic communities in the year ahead. Internally, our new Affinity groups have expanded to involve dozens of members in planning and leadership roles.

The Board of Directors, working with a new Long-Range Plan, found members articulating their priorities for the coming year: educate the public so they are more aware of the role of independent educational consulting, ensure that the public identifies IECA as the ‘gold standard’ of the profession, increase outreach to affiliated professional communities, emphasize ethics, and enhance education. These will form the basis of the work that the IECA office staff, Board, and volunteers will highlight for the Association’s coming 35th year.

The staff feels honored to work on behalf of our members and in promoting this important field. We are excited by what the coming years have in store.

by Mark Sklarow, Executive Director, IECA

I admit to being a person who is rarely satisfied with the way things are. I believe in the need to change and that includes both personal change and actions to ensure that the Independent Educational Consultants Association continues to move forward, developing new approaches, new programs and new initiatives so that we are always meeting member needs. Allow me to illustrate using just one example. Following an IECA Summer Training Institute in Claremont, California, I sat down with Sue DePra and Steve Antonoff to review the participant evaluations. They were off the charts with virtually every attendee giving the Summer Institute nearly perfect scores, and comments from most attendees that it was among the best training sessions they had ever attended. The three of us then spent the next two hours re-writing the curriculum, developing new interactive elements, implementing ‘labs’ and strengthening the program further. The result was taking a great training program and making it remarkable.

Now as I reflect back on 2009, I feel great about the excellent work of staff, Board and committee leadership, and volunteer members who combined to make it a great year. We advanced dramatically in our efforts to use social networking to promote IECA and the profession, and to improve communications. We initiated new program in learning disabilities and adopted our new Standards of Excellence. We implemented significant changes during our conference: from Speed Meetings to Conference Central and from point/counterpoint sessions to master classes. Participation among colleges has never been higher, and despite the economic downturn our membership is up, conference participation is up, and our training workshops were larger than ever.

But as I look ahead, I know what I want to achieve in the coming year for IECA and for my own work as Executive Director: to take IECA from a great organization to a remarkable one. Looking at the success of America’s most lauded associations, I hope we use their example to become an exceptional force for our members. To become ‘remarkable,’ I think Board, staff and volunteers need to meet these expectations:

• Member Service—we exist as an association for one reason: to meet the needs of our membership. That commitment to member service should always be the top priority.

• Align all services, conferences, and activities with IECA’s mission. That mission, unchanged in 30 years, is to help professional consultants to serve the interests of students and families in their educational decision-making.

• Seek feedback and input from members and our related constituencies. In the next several weeks, members will be asked to complete a strategic planning survey and a survey from the Education & Training Committee. These will set our priorities over the next several years. We have now begun to involve schools, colleges, and programs in conference planning and regularly seek their advice on programming.

• Be willing to fail. As we look to be innovative, creative, and dynamic, we must be willing to accept that success require risk-taking and that means we will fail from time to time. Such failure is inevitable and will lead to new successes.

• A nimble, flexible, national office that is able to meet changes in the marketplace and ensure that such changes are quickly and capably brought to our members to help them succeed in their own work.

• Building alliances with not-for-profit and for-profit companies, institutions, and organizations that will help us further our mission and better serve clients and students.

I look forward to hearing ideas from our members, colleagues, and families on how we can best serve each to make 2010 and IECA remarkable in the year ahead. Join us in this effort: volunteer, get involved in committees, affinity groups, or other efforts, and above all, offer your ideas on what IECA should be doing.

by Mark Sklarow, Executive Director, Independent Educational Consultants Association

A few facts to put on the table:

(1) As a group, professional educational consultants skew a bit older than the general public.

(2) Most consultants, before entering the field were covered by a group health policy in a school, college, or other agency.

(3) Paying for health insurance as an individual is among the most expensive costs independent businessmen and women face.

(4) Putting together items 1, 2, and 3 suggests that the availability and affordability of health insurance is a major obstacle for those seeking to transition into independent educational consulting.

Indeed, group health insurance is the first and most urgent request we get from IECA members when we ask about services. A number of circumstances make it difficult, including: how spread out members are geographically; the average age of our members makes us less attractive to insurers; and of course the size of the organization, while growing is—on a state-by-state basis—insufficient to gain the interest and attention of insurers (insurance coverage is almost always determined on a state or regional basis).

All of this suggests that educational consultants, like many small businesspersons, would be tuned in to the current debate about the future of health care in America. While I will not wade into the specific proposals (how many are there now, six or seven?) or the outlandish claims being made, I do want to outline a few key items that we should look for in any new plan, specific to what would assist our membership:

(1) A plan should allow independent businesspeople to join together, through cooperatives or other means, to seek health coverage at group rates. Imagine the benefit if all independent professionals and businesspeople in, say, Baltimore could form a cooperative, 10,000 strong, and invite bids from three or four health insurance companies. There seems little doubt that such a plan would reduce premiums for all. Such a plan would allow IECA to cover its employees at a greatly reduced cost—if we could join together with other small non-profit organizations.

(2) Legislation should protect those changing jobs or careers (from a school counselor to an educational consultant, for example) from being denied health insurance because of pre-existing conditions.

(3) Legislation should protect those diagnosed with an illness from any threat of being dropped by their health insurance company. As our membership ages, the ability to maintain adequate levels of health coverage is essential.

(4) On behalf of the families and students we serve, I would love to see equity between coverage for physical illnesses and psychological illnesses. There is no excuse in modern times for covering mental illness less than physical ailments.

I will be watching:  tonight as the President outlines his plan and as the Republican leadership responds; and I’ll be watching in the days ahead. Hopefully a plan will emerge with bipartisan support that assures the four basic principles I outlined above to serve IECA members and educational consultants.

by Mark Sklarow, IECA Executive Director

The PLAN for Thursday was for the Executive Board to meet through the morning, and then break for lunch and some fresh air. We’d plan to re-group by 1:30 or so, work until 5:30 and break until dinner.

The REALITY of the day was a meeting that started at 9:00 a.m. and worked straight through 7:00 p.m., missing dinner reservations and finally breaking as the marathon session gave way to a quick sandwich in the hotel bar.

The work of the Board, as always, included an examination of ethics, membership outreach, member services, education, training, conferences, leadership development, finances, the operations at the national office and our communications plan.

Yet the most interesting and exciting part of the day certainly put the “important” ahead of the “urgent” (see my blog of 8/19).  The IECA officers spent considerable time looking not just at the Association, but the entire profession of educational consulting, including professional training, continuing education, developing the first-ever certificate program specifically in independent educational consulting by UC-Irvine in coordination with IECA, professional ethics, and our belief that IECA must maintain its status as the leading voice and trendsetter in the field.

Every IECA member would have been pleased and every school and college reassured by our assertion of total commitment to professional competence, ethical and educational knowledge, and student-centric approach that we believe must remain central to the work of every consultant.

Next week you’ll hear from IECA President Diane Geller on some of the specific recommendations that grew from the meeting, that continues today.

Among the many benefits an educational consultant brings to a student in their school or college search is direct knowledge from having visited scores of campuses, conducting evaluative visits. Such visits give Independent Educational Consultant Association members an eye-witness, ear-to-the-ground, personal way of understanding what makes a campus tick: its social and academic balance, the relationship between faculty and students, emotional support or sense of competition among classmates, the campus-wide support for the arts, the political climate, religious tolerance, acceptance of and offerings to students with learning disabilities, relationship with the local community, among hundreds of other factors.

Only by walking through a campus, reading the student paper, scanning the bulletin boards, talking with students, observing the dining hall, can you begin to get a real feel for a school that no guidebook, Web site or blog (even this one) can accurately describe. That’s why many IECA members can count 200 or more campus visits among their background work to better serve clients and families. Of course, every consultant supplements these tours with student surveys, books, conversations with IECA colleagues and much more. But nothing replaces the value of walking in the path of a student.

This is the primary reason we commit so many resources to making our campus tours a central part of what we offer our members. Members often tell us of the great value in touring campuses with other educational consultants: sharing insights, raising questions, etc.

As we look ahead to our fall conference in Charlotte, North Carolina, we know that our Special Needs and Schools committees will soon be announcing special campus tours. The college tours are now set and include campus visits and presentations at:

Monday November 9:
High Point University, Elon University and Wake Forest University;

Tuesday November 10:
Davidson College, UNC-Charlotte and Queens University of Charlotte;

Wednesday November 11:
Wingate University and the IECA conference kicks off at 1:00 p.m.

Registration for these tours begins in August, along with the IECA Conference registration.Details on the school and special needs tours will be announced soon.

Posted by Mark Sklarow, IECA Executive Director

Many IECA College Consultants have been intrigued by Naviance and became particularly interested when Naviance offered deep discounts and special features exclusively to IECA members. Unfortunately there was no way for members to “try it out” and see what Naviance could do for their practice, until now. We’ll soon be announcing the ability of IECA members to try Naviance for a one week period, in order to get a sense what it can do.

We’ll be announcing shortly that Naviance has agreed to allow IECA members a seven day trial in order to see for  yourself what the counseling office software package can do.  Information on how to apply for the Naviance trial will be distributed from our Member Services office this week, along with new information about how members and schools can accept credit card payments at IECA’s negotiated discounts and how everyone can gain from discounted FedEx shipping.