Well, it's August 1, 2020 and that means there's only one thing on every school counselor's mind. What in the world are we going to do to support our students as we reopen school? First, let me explain that when I say "reopen," I mean starting the school year - whether that's virtual, hybrid, or fully in person. No matter how students rejoin our school community, we will need to be ready as school counselors to support them and their families in navigating school during a pandemic.

We're all coming back different. Not everyone is traumatized - some kids have had a great time at home, some kids are excited to come back to school, some kids are dreading the restart of the school year. Some kids had loss, some did not. No matter what, everyone is different. As counselors, I think we need to be cautious about going in to the school year assuming that all are traumatized. Let's find out how our students are really doing first.

How are you as a school counselor or school counseling department a part of the school's back to school transition support. If you are not able to hold "meet the teacher" nights, 9th grade orientations, or Kindergarten parent nights - what can you do instead. I think this is an area where we will grow and develop as a school community. Our new ideas might allow for more participation than traditional evening events and we might decide to keep them moving forward. Plan some type of back to school transition support for all students, not just new students or the first grade level for your building (K,6,9 etc). 

If you are going back to school in person - consider how you are communicating safety measures with students and families. Psychological safety is just as important as physical safety in welcoming our students. If students feel unsafe at school, their ability to learn and grow is negatively impacted.

We can't know how students are doing until we make a connection with them. There are two types of relationships we will need to consider: teacher-student relationship and counselor-student relationship. For teachers, they are likely feeling completely overwhelmed by the logistics of teaching in a pandemic and are nervous about all the missed instruction that students experienced in the spring. Check on your teachers. They may not be OK. Work with your administrator to create a plan for supporting the social emotional well being of your staff. Once you've supported your staff then ask how you can support teachers in creating opportunities for relationship building in their classroom. For some teachers, they will begin the year in virtual environments. This is a new challenge for everyone! They may need some support. Here is a great article from Cult of Pedagogy that might help. 

After students have started their days with their teachers, we will need to make sure that we have opportunities to build counselor-student relationships. This is particularly tricky if you are in a virtual environment. Like all aspects of a comprehensive school counseling program, we have to think about core opportunities for connection with all students. Core counseling instruction might look different this year. I anticipate that it might be harder to get time during instruction to teach lessons. You might need to get creative to incorporate social emotional learning into academics. You might need to ask to be a guest reader or have a quick drop in during class meetings instead of a full lesson. Conversely, you might be asked to be on the specials rotation to provide coverage for teachers. Make a plan for how you will have (virtual or in person) face time with every class/student on your caseload.

Some kids are not OK. For a variety of reasons, their world has been turned upside down and they need more help. Questions to consider:

• Does your school have a referral process for staff and families to refer students for more support from the school counselor? How might this process need to change?
• Does your school have a referral process for students to self refer? How might this process need to change?
  
• Does your school do any data based problem solving to proactively identify students who might need additional support? 
  
• Have you sought the perspective and voice of your stakeholder groups? Have you ensured that marginalized voices have been heard?
• Has your school considered the impact of the Black Lives Matter social movement on your staff and students of color? Have you allowed for time to discuss, process, and consider how you will go about school differently as a result? 

If there was ever a year that you cannot wing it, this is it. Make a plan. Take the time to make a comprehensive counseling plan. I personally use the ASCA National Model but I know that's not everyone's jam. To get started, I suggest:

• Create SMART goals
• Make a Core Lesson Scope and Sequence for the Year
• Keep a detailed calendar

I double pinky promise that if you do these two things, you will see a positive impact on your ability to be proactive and productive with your comprehensive school counseling program. Here are some tips. 

Hey counselor - you got this. You can do it. 

Happy National School Counseling Week! I hope your school, family, and administration are showing you all the love and support you deserve. Here's what I've done in my schools and some funny memes to brighten your day. I'm celebrating by being sick - eh, you can't win 'em all. 

I want to share with you this amazing idea that my colleague, Caroline Cockman, had - school counseling week BINGO! Love it. Here's the email she sent to her staff:

Isn't that a great idea?! I'll post the BINGO board below (may not be visible on mobile) and make sure you follow her on twitter.  What are you doing this National School Counseling Week? 

Social emotional learning is making a big move right now in education. For counselors, we're nodding our heads and (perhaps) whisper-shouting "I told you so." Hey, let's just appreciate that we were ahead of the game. Where I work, schools are being required to include social emotional learning components in their school improvement plans and several districts in my area are hiring social emotional learning central services staff. I'm thrilled that this whole child approach is getting the spotlight.

At the same time, there's a lot of pressure for counselors to do this right. We may be one of the only people in the building with deep knowledge of social emotional learning best practices. I use the analogy of technology in the classrooms. When we started getting more computers, smart boards, and then iPads (I'm old, don't remind me), the entire staff turned and looked at the technology teacher. Great, they thought, our students can learn technology from that person and I can keep on with my usual. Now, we wouldn't dream of only one person in the building teaching technology as a separate entity from core instruction. I think the same will happen with SEL. It's a heavy lift for counselors right now but eventually we can build the capacity of our whole staff to not just teach SEL but to incorporate social emotional learning into the curriculum as a whole. 

CASEL, the collaborative for academic, social, and emotional learning, are the gurus on SEL right now. I look to them first when I am working on SEL. They look at SEL implementation in four parts:

• SEL lessons with explicit instruction: counselors teach these in their curriculum but teachers do too! When a teacher introduces a project based learning activity to students, they often go over expected behaviors and organizational strategies. That's explicit step-by-step instruction.
• Teaching practices that create positive conditions that support social and emotional development in students: students have to feel emotional and socially safe at school in order to learn social and emotional skills. Culturally responsive instruction is going to be a huge part of this. Schoolwide expectations and tier one practices like PBIS are in this tier as well.
• Integration of instruction and practice of SEL in the academic curriculum: This is more than teaching expected behaviors. This involves actually incorporating SEL competencies into instruction in a meaningful way.
• Policies and organizational structures: When we have policies and structures in place that support SEL as a clear priority for the school they are much more likely to happen.

CASEL has identified 5 core competencies for social emotional learning. They have a great handout that breaks down all of the competencies into skills. What I love about the skills highlighted by CASEL is their broad application. Students must actually have these skills in order to be successful in academics. This isn't fluff. It isn't something nice to "add on." 

I recently led a professional development for a full staff on social emotional learning. Social Emotional Learning is something that all educators can quickly understand and apply if they are given the opportunity to personally reflect and reflect on their classroom practices. After completing a culturally responsive classroom checklist and discussing the components of SEL, the teachers worked in cross grade level teams to complete a "cheat sheet" for each of the competencies. In this activity, the staff answered:

• What competencies/skills are listed under the core competency?
  
• Why it matters - why do students need to have this skills to be successful?
  
• Students will - a list of observable behaviors for students at each grade level.
  
• Teachers will - a list of observable strategies that teachers can implement. This is a great resource for ideas.

Overall it went really well and I think the staff walked away with new learning and reflection. If you'd like to snag the entire presentation and materials, you can find it here. 

How do you keep all your amazing comprehensive counseling plans together. I've always used the ASCA national model  because that's what my district uses and it is a requirement for our counselors. However, some people aren't there yet with the national model but still want to stay organized and share with their stake holders a plan for the year. If this is you - I've got a solution. I've created a set of digital organizers that will allow you to plan for and share your year with your administration, teachers, and parents. 

We've talked about program goals before and your school probably has some type of school improvement plan with goals. If you're not ready to create SMART goals based on school wide data, you can create a goal around data that you choose. For instance, your SMART goal could measure reduced anxiety for students around end of grade testing. Think about what your big ideas are for the year, and make a plan to get there. In my state, we have to write a professional development plan yearly for ourselves which include SMART goals. In this organizer, you can share your goals for the year with your stakeholders. At the bottom of the page, you can share a short descriptor of your class schedule and topics. 

Why It Matters:

• Your stakeholders know that you work with students on purpose and not just whoever might show up in your office. 
• Your stakeholders can quickly see that your work aligns with the work of the school as a whole. You are a valuable asset to learning.
• Your stakeholders can see what types of topics you will cover in your lessons so that they can ask follow up questions if needed. 

A scope and sequence document plans what will be taught and in what sequence. Ideally, you will also outline what data you will collect to ensure that the lessons are effective. By laying our your classroom lessons and small groups before the year starts, you will know that you have a series of lessons that make sense, are effective, and serve a purpose. No more rummaging through books the night before (or morning of) a new lesson. Yes, this does take a lot of work at first but in the end, you will really and truly thank yourself later. 

Why It Matters

• Your stakeholders will know that you make a plan for what your students will learn each year.
• Parents can see the amazing proactive support the counselor provides so that time with the counselor is no longer stigmatized.
• You know what you're going to do - no more rushing around last minute. 

Does your school seem to think you have a lot of extra time in your day? Do you rush around and feel like you got nothing done. You've heard me harp on using your calendar for productivity before so if you're a regular reader, this is nothing new. In this template, you can create multiple copies of the calendar page and use to display your calendar on your door so people know where to find you. Or you can actually write in your calendar (either digitally or paper/pencil) with all the details you need to keep it together. Finally, it's OK to use the calendar as a glimpse of time when you are meeting with your principal or other stakeholders to show them a "typical" week in your counseling program. Just try not to laugh too hard when you say typical. 

Why It Matters:

• Repeat after me: You are not a pin ball to be bounced around the school at everyone's demand. You have a plan. You have a calendar. You will achieve what you set out to do this year. 

Now that you've created these gorgeous plans for your school counseling program - how will you share it? 

• Post as a PDF on your counseling website
• Print and place in a portfolio in your front office
• Share with your principal and staff
• Post on a bulletin board
• Include a link in the PTA newsletter

You can download a copy  of my example document. This has every single page so if you want to recreate the tables and pages, please do! To get your very own editable plan, head over to Teachers Pay Teachers. 

How do you stay organized for the year? I would *love* to hear your tips. Please comment or send me an email. 

Best laid plans, right? Sometimes being a school counselor feels like 3 steps forward and 2 steps back. Your brain is full of ideas and ways that you can support your students but the many demands on your time, extra duties, and never ending fires to put out can leave you feeling like you're not even sure where you spent your energy. What if I told you that there exists something that can help with that? Something you've heard of before but may have dismissed as "too much?" I believe that the  ASCA National Model is the real problem solver for school counselors. That's why I'm so excited to speak at NCSCA's Summer Academy about taking a realistic approach to the National Model.

Here's some of the problems we will be solving: 

• No one gets what I do!
• So. Many. Extra. Duties. 
• I spend so much time planning.
• Things just sneak up on me.
• I plan to _______ but then...
• Too many fires!
• The school does not see the counselor as integral to the work of the school.
• I run around all day.
• I try to respond to all the deamands.
• Everyone thinks I have so much availability.
• I end the year wondering if I did anything well.
• I have a walkie talkie.

​Sound familiar?!?! Can I get a high five?

Guess what? Instead of these being these being the reasons your can't do the ASCA National Model - these are the problems that you can solve with the model. I know! This is some good stuff.  So here are the goods: My presentation AND the super,amazing, awesome handouts I created to support your work. And guess what? We never even say the word template. 

​So what's your plan for problem solving? I gotta say, I think this is gonna be your year :)