Date of Award

8-2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Degree Discipline

Education Leadership

Abstract

Preparing students to contribute to society is essential for every high school in the nation. Texas House Bill 5 (House Bill 5, 2013) sought to create a framework for achieving college and career readiness for Texas public schools. Counselors were the frontline mentors who had essential roles in implementing House Bill 5. However, the performance of graduation and curricular changes mandated by House Bill 5 increased the responsibilities of counselors and challenged how the policy implementation affected students' college and career readiness. Numerous challenges and issues emerged within the school districts executing House Bill 5.

The success of House Bill 5 dramatically depended on how well the counselors daily implemented the policy. Counselors' understanding, knowledge, and attitudes about the procedure and assessing their actions as "street-level" policymakers (Mansfield, 2013, p. 2) helped determine the plan's ability to prepare students for post-secondary options. Suppose a counselor does not adequately understand House Bill 5 or lacks the necessary skills and support systems to implement the policy appropriately? In that case, it may result in a haphazard plan that fails to capture students' interests.

This qualitative study examined counselors’ self-efficacy in implementing House Bill 5 policy at the district level for student college and career readiness preparation. The perceived self-efficacy theory introduced by Bandura (1977) was the integrative theoretical framework used in this research. This study was designed to explore the following research questions:

1. To what extent are high school counselors aware of, knowledgeable about, and understand the school district's policy for implementing House Bill 5?

2. How do high school counselors introduce and promote the school district’s House Bill 5 graduation requirements and endorsement offerings to students?

3. To what extent do high school counselors effectively communicate with parents and students about pathway options, endorsement selection processes, and courses that align with each endorsement?

4. What constraints do high school counselors face in implementing House Bill 5 with lower socio-economic students in urban school districts?

Keywords: House Bill, college and career readiness, counselor self-efficacy

Committee Chair/Advisor

Patricia Hoffman-Miller

Committee Member

L.S. Spencer

Committee Member

Beverly Sande

Committee Member

Bernadine Duncan

Publisher

Prairie View A&M University

Rights

© 2021 Prairie View A & M University

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Date of Digitization

10/11/2024

Contributing Institution

John B Coleman Library

City of Publication

Prairie View

MIME Type

Application/PDF

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