Coffee with the Counselors: School Counseling PR

*Image from School Counselor Connection

Well, it is now October, and the image above might perfectly express how you are feeling now that the hustle and bustle of the year has really started.  Or, maybe you are still perfectly in control.  I saw a picture of a school counselor's desk the other day that made me laugh because it reminded me I need to clean my own! Between the pre/post surveys, DUKE TIP applications, lesson plans, behavior referrals, my own "to do" list, and small group permission slips, there is not a lot of empty space where I can work.  However, cleaning is low on my priority list when I think of all the other direct service activities I want to get done while kids are in the building.

Teachers are feeling the same way, so  I decided to try out an idea I had heard about from another school counselor this year- a meet and greet time with teachers to discuss student concerns.  My co-counselor, Nicole, and I  named our event "Coffee with the Counselors." It seemed like a great way to connect with my classroom teachers and get information on student referrals now that they have worked with their classes for over a month.  Nicole, made this lovely invitation...she's awesome!

We decided to have half of the grade levels come in the morning before school started since we were offering Dunkin' Doughnuts coffee, juice, water, and goodies to eat.  The other half of the grade levels have planning before lunch so we invited them for the first 20 minutes of their planning time (this invitation went to that group).

I set out a binder that had a page for each grade level so they (or I) could write down student names, concerns, and any other notes that would be helpful when discussing student referrals. It ended up being a pretty successful event, although the grade levels who came during planning had better attendance than those who were scheduled before school (we will schedule it on a different morning next year, NOT Monday!).  All of these positive interactions with staff help promote the school counseling program, and I will definitely try this again next year!

I have also been working on school counseling PR in other ways.  This past week, I presented to the elementary school principals about the ASCA National Model along with my fantastic school counselor colleague Amanda Allen.  It was a great experience, and we will do two more rounds as we present to middle school and high school principals over the next two weeks.  Also, I am scheduled to present my 2014-2015 school goals to my staff next Wednesday and have created a Prezi to organize my thoughts. You may remember I did the same thing last year and talked about it in my blog post here.

Finally, I have been helping to organize the school counselors in my PLC as we work on taking the next steps to RAMP and completing more ASCA paperwork this year.  We will be completing the annual calendar, Closing the Gap Action Plans, Smart Goal Worksheets, and Management Agreement as our minimum documentation for 2014-2015, and I could not be more excited!  We had a kick-off event for professional development, and I was able to present the following PowerPoint presentation to my colleagues. I also had the pleasure of presenting this same information to my Harnett County colleagues last week to promote the National Model.  I hope this presentation will be helpful to my blogger friends as well.  Make sure to check out the hyperlinks within the presentation to see how I collect some of my data and share it with my stakeholders throughout the year.  There are also links to the ASCA templates for National Model documentation.

                     Enjoy and  Happy Counseling! ~ Angela