The Guidance and Counseling Task Force of the California State Department of Education was charged with the task of studying the pupil personnel services available to students in California schools and of developing a plan for improving and extending those services where needed. This document is the result of more than a year of study and direct consultation with hundreds of professional and lay persons and includes their subsequent reactions to a first of a proposed plan completed in July 1973. It presents the results of the most comprehensive study of pupil personnel services ever conducted in California and the means of improving those services. Members of school district governing boards, superintendents of schools, principals, pupil personnel specialists, and concerned citizens will find in this publication significant proposals for improvement that should be useful. The four major subjects dealt with in this publication are the following: (1) results of a statewide assessment of the needs and problems of individuals and society in relation to pupil personnel services; (2) plan of the State Department of Education for improving pupil personnel services in California; (3) development of plans for improving pupil personnel services provided by offices of county superintendents of schools and school districts; and (4) promising practices and programs in California schools related to satisfying identified individual and societal needs through pupil personnel services. (Author)