Back to School!
Like School Counselors Ever Take a Break...
Stress Free Start to the Year
Tips of the Trade
Preventative vs. Reactive School Counseling
1. Calendaring-A wise person once told me, "If you don't plan your life, someone else will." This applies to calendaring for your school counseling program. By allotting time for known activities (counselor's corner, SAT/ACT test waiver distribution, Financial Aid Night, etc.) it is less likely that you will be given additional duties outside the duties that you consider to be primary for counseling.
2. Delegation-At most schools, you are not the only counselor. So, when appropriate, know when to delegate tasks to office aides or your co-counselors. It is good for counselors to be cross-trained in other grade levels or in the event the standard counselor isn't available. Also, delegation causes the counseling team to become more unified through common service. Remember, team stands for "together everyone achieves more".
3. Identifying-At our school, we are constantly running reports to determine which of our students are most in need of various things. For example, we determine who has yet to pass the FCAT and Alg I EOC, students who are on free/reduced lunch and entitled to college application fee waivers, and students who may be eligible for various scholarships. By pre-identifying at-risk students or high achieving students, many measures can be taken to provide support and opportunities rather than waiting until an issue surfaces.