September Counselor Newsletter
Mrs. Pentico
WELCOME SOLON INTERMEDIATE FAMILIES!!
I can't tell you how great it is to have students back in the building. While there are many new procedures and practices in place to keep everyone safe, our students have really adapted quite well and exceeded all expectations. We know that with this change can come some additional anxiety or stress for kids and if you or your child would like to talk about how we can help support them, please reach out to me.
It's great to be back and better together!
About me: Mrs. Pentico
This is my second year serving in the role of school counselor at both Solon Intermediate and Solon Middle School. It is my 9th year working in the district. My role at both schools is to serve a support for students, teachers and families in the areas of r personal/social emotional, academics and career exploration. My husband, Todd, and I have 3 children. Makenzie is in her 2nd year of college, Parker is a junior at SHS and Peyton is a freshman at SHS. We enjoy supporting our kids in their extracurricular activities, which keeps us pretty busy. When not cheering them on, we love to take advantage of the beautiful Lake Macbride area and take our dogs out for a swim and walk. Please feel free to reach out to me if you have questions or concerns at 319-624-3401x1503 or hpentico@solon.k12.ia.us. I look forward to working with your children and supporting them in a successful year.
When will your child see me?
I will be working with your children in their classrooms to deliver guidance lessons that will begin next week. Our first lesson will be talking about what a school counselor does, how to let me know you would like to meet, and confidentiality. Our classroom lessons will focus on delivery of curriculum based on Second Step lessons that emphasize the five core social emotional competencies from CASEL : self awareness, self management, social awareness, relationship skills and responsible decision making. Units of study in our second step curriculum are empathy and respect, listening with attention, being assertive, predicting feelings, taking others' perspectives, accepting differences, disagreeing respectfully, responding with compassion, managing strong emotions, calming down, managing anxiety and handling putdowns. We will begin with empathy and respect in 4th and 5th grade.
Students may also request to see me to help with emotion identification and management, conflict resolution, friendship development or just to check in.
In a typical year, we would also have small groups that would focus on specific skill development based on students need. However, due to mitigation procedures we are still determining if that will be possible this year.
I am at the Intermediate building on Tuesday and Thursday and the middle school on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Should a student need to get in contact with me when I am at the middle school, our teachers all can reach me by cell phone.
CLOSEGAP and DESSA
As mentioned above, the social emotional competencies are delivered through support in teachers morning meetings and in classroom guidance lessons. Social emotional competencies are learned skills that can be taught and learned by students and therefore, we have implemented assessment tools to identify areas of student need. Last year we implemented the DESSA tool that is a tool designed for teachers to observe and assess students on these specific skill areas. We are working as a counseling team to set those assessment dates and get those out to families on our assessment calendar. Our first assessment for the DESSA will not occur until October, so that teachers have the opportunity to observe students in their classrooms. We will also be implementing a self check in system utilizing an app called Closegap. Students will be able to checkin daily to self evaluate their emotions and rate them. Based on their ratings, strategies for manage emotions will be provided and students will also have the option to request to speak to an adult. As always, parents have the options to opt out of having their child participate in either of these assessment. Both of these tools provide valuable data points in guiding and assessing the effectiveness of the interventions we have in place.
Coming Soon: Counseling website
I am making the finishing touches of my counseling website and hope to have it out by the next newsletter to provide additional resources for families.
Mrs. Pentico
Solon Intermediate and Middle School
School Counselor
Email: hpentico@solon.k12.ia.us
Phone: 319-624-3401