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Article: How school counselors make a world of difference

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Article: How school counselors make a world of difference

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Effectiveness of School Counseling Programs Article

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Article selection

Stakeholders may question the role of a school counselor.  School improvement plans (SIP) include developing a positive learning environment. Positive learning environments can increase a student’s attendance and decrease discipline referrals.  School counselors help to facilitate this environment by creating, conducting, assessing, and modifying programs that enrich and aid in students’ social-emotional development. I chose this article because it explains how school counselors facilitate a positive learning environment.

Article summarization

School counselors are highly trained individuals in areas of student learning, development, and counseling.  School counselors use their knowledge to inform students of academic and career opportunities and to aid in developmental and social-emotional occurrences.  The article, How school counselors make a world of difference, first explains the three areas school counselors focus on.  These areas are social and emotional development, academic development, and career and college development (O’Connor, 2018).  Some of the lessons involving the three developments above are in the classroom while others are not (O’Connor, 2018).  For example, a school counselor may work with a small group of students or one-on-one with various academic, social-emotional, and/or career and college situations.  Next the article explains how school counselors improve a school’s positive environment by closing achievement gaps, providing small grouping counseling, and positive behaviors to apply (O’Connor, 2018).  Finally, the article explains how to increase a school counselor’s effectiveness.  One way to increase effectiveness is to maintain a manageable caseload of 250 students per counselor (O’Connor, 2018).  Another way to increase effectiveness is to limit administrative duties such as lunch duty because these take away from essential school counselor roles (O’Connor, 2018).

Article information vs. real-world observations

The article, How school counselors make a world of difference, has agreements and contradictions to what I have observed at the schools in which I have worked.  One of the contradictions I have observed is school counselors have many more than 250 students on their caseload.  This has had a noticeable negative impact on the school’s positive environment in the urban school.  Increased caseloads has also impacted the school counselor’s ability to help students with anxiety, depression, etc. in nonurban schools because the (school counselors) are unable to meet with all students in need.  However, school counselors at each school I have worked in have tirelessly cooperated with and supported teachers through student interventions.

References

O’Connor, P. (2018). How school counselors make a world of difference. Phi Delta Kappan,

99(7), 35–39. https://doi.org/10.1177/0031721718767858

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I believe every student has the right to feel safe and belong at school.

I believe every student should be treated with respect and understanding.

I believe every student should have access to resources to help them be successful.

I believe all students can achieve individual benchmarks using a positive attitude and personal abilities.

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I believe one of my roles as a school counselor is to advocate for each student to achieve their highest level of success.  I could help students to create personal SMART goals and develop a plan to attain their goals.  I could also check in and teach students how to monitor their own successes and how to modify when something is not working.  A few behavior standards subcategories that could help a student’s resilience during this journey is learning strategies and self-management skills (American School Counselor Association, 2019).  I could teach students ways that aid in memory, like anagrams, patterns, etc.   I could also model how to focus on the small gains and explain how they will add up to larger gains in the future.

References

American School Counselor Association (2019). The ASCA national model: A framework for

school counseling programs (4th ed.). Alexandria, VA: American School Counselor Association

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In order to create a successful school program, I would analyze a school’s student data, consult and collaborate with administration, teachers, and students to identify a need in the student population.  Then I would use the Mindset & Behaviors action plan to address, write, and revise student outcome goals.  The  action plan would explain the standards being addressed, align competencies, and assign roles to stakeholders.  The program would be conducted through direct or indirect student services as determined by consultation, collaboration, and data.  Data would be collected and analyzed throughout the program to track student progress and modify the program if needed.  Stakeholders would be informed of the program’s progress and student achievements through the school newsletter and/or website.

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From time to time counselors should assess their competency of the ASCA School Counselor Professional Standards and Competencies in behaviors and mindsets.  This self-assessment can guide counselors in becoming more consistent and effective when helping students and teachers.

Overview of Results

School counselors use the ASCA School Counselor Professional Standards and Competencies to self-assess behaviors and mindsets in order to create a professional development plan (American School Counselor Association, 2019). I transferred to Walden's school counseling masters program from the marriage and family counseling masters program.  I felt confident about most of the categories due to my 17 years experience teaching and knowledge from the other masters program.  Overall I gave myself mainly 4s and 5s along with a few 3s and 2s.

I need to review various theories such as developmental and learning theories.  I felt least confident about administrative conference templates because I have never completed one. Also, I am not as confident about explaining the school counselor roles to administration because even though we have learned about the roles of a school counselor, I have not experienced the actual duties of one.  I learn best by seeing but the information becomes permanent when doing.

Improvement

An annual administrative conference takes place within the first two months of school with the supervising administrator after the school counselor has assessed the school data to develop a plan of action to help students succeed in the current year (American School Counselor Association).   I believe I could become more confident with administrative conference templates through practice and consultation with seasoned school counselors.  Another way I could improve is to research the various theories school counselors use when helping students, communicating with stakeholders, etc.

References

American School Counselor Association (2019). The ASCA national model: A framework for school counseling programs (4th ed.). Alexandria, VA: American School Counselor Association

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You have completed the study.

During the Implicit Association Test (IAT) you just completed:

Your responses suggested little or no automatic association between Female and Male with Career and Family.

Disclaimer: These IAT results are provided for educational purposes only. The results may fluctuate and should not be used to make important decisions. The results are influenced by variables related to the test (e.g., the words or images used to represent categories) and the person (e.g., being tired, what you were thinking about before the IAT).

How does the IAT work?

The IAT measures associations between concepts (e.g., Family and Career) and evaluations (e.g., Female, Male). People are quicker to respond when items that are more closely related in their mind share the same button. For example, an implicit preference for Family relative to Career means that you are faster to sort words when 'Family' and 'Female' share a button relative to when 'Career' and 'Female' share a button.

Studies that summarize data across many people find that the IAT predicts discrimination in hiring, education, healthcare, and law enforcement. However, taking an IAT once (like you just did) is not likely to predict your future behavior well.

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You have completed the study.

During the Implicit Association Test (IAT) you just completed:

Your responses suggested a slight automatic preference for European Americans over African Americans.

Disclaimer: These IAT results are provided for educational purposes only. The results may fluctuate and should not be used to make important decisions. The results are influenced by variables related to the test (e.g., the words or images used to represent categories) and the person (e.g., being tired, what you were thinking about before the IAT).

How does the IAT work?

The IAT measures associations between concepts (e.g., European Americans and African Americans) and evaluations (e.g., Good, Bad). People are quicker to respond when items that are more closely related in their mind share the same button. For example, an implicit preference for European Americans relative to African Americans means that you are faster to sort words when 'European Americans' and 'Good' share a button relative to when 'African Americans' and 'Good' share a button.

Studies that summarize data across many people find that the IAT predicts discrimination in hiring, education, healthcare, and law enforcement. However, taking an IAT once (like you just did) is not likely to predict your future behavior well.

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I completed two tests on the Harvard Implicit Association Tests.  The first test was Female and Male with Career and Family.  I was not surprised by the results of little to no association between male and female with career and family.  I grew up in a household where both parents worked.  However, my mom also did nearly all of the cooking and cleaning as well.  I remember thinking how unfair it was for my mom to work all day and then come home to do almost all of the cooking and cleaning while my dad watched television.  My mom always seemed so tired.  I knew I wanted my marriage to be a more equal disbursement of household chores and career.

The second test was the European Americans vs. African Americans.  I was slightly surprised by my results.  I had a slight automatic preference for European Americans over African Americans.  I grew up in a fairly segregated city in the 80’s and 90’s.  My elementary school had only a few people of color in my grade level.  My secondary schools had more diversity but still consisted of mainly white students.  Most of my friends were white, but I had several friends of color as well.  Most of my teaching experience has been in urban Title 1 schools with nearly half of the student population being African American.  I used to make a concerted effort to call on all students equally regardless of race or gender.  I currently work in a predominately white middle school.  I have noticed recently that I have not been calling on students equally.  My goal is to focus on calling on all students in the classroom more equally in the future.

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References
K-12 disparity facts and Statistics. UNCF. (2020, March 20). Retrieved April 24, 2022, from https://uncf.org/pages/k-12-disparity-facts-and-stats#:~:text=There%20is%20a%20clear%20lack,18%20percent%20teachers%20of%20color.

Schaeffer, K. (2021, December 14). America's public school teachers are far less racially and ethnically diverse than their students. Pew Research Center. Retrieved April 24, 2022, from https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/12/10/americas-public-school-teachers-are-far-less-racially-and-ethnically-diverse-than-their-students/

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Reference
Southern Poverty Law Center. (n.d.). Using photographs to teach social justice: Legal action: The Supreme Court. Learning for Justice. Retrieved April 24, 2022, from https://www.learningforjustice.org/classroom-resources/lessons/using-photographs-to-teach-social-justice-legal-action-the-supreme