It is no surprise to anyone that I love my job. I am obsessed with the role of a school counselor and in particular, the prevention and proactive efforts that an elementary school counselor can provide. I also could talk about it for hours upon hours and never get bored (and in fact try to do just at with conference and graduate program presentations when I can).
Unfortunately, part of school counseling (a large part) is done behind closed doors due to protection of confidentiality. So part of our job gets to be communicating what we do to our communities, colleagues and administrators.
Each year, I publish an annual report to showcase how many students were impacted by the school counseling program. Here is a snapshot of the first page so far this year.
I collect this data this throughout the school year by tracking all of my student and parent contacts into one Excel spreadsheet…..then it’s easy to pull information and visuals to share with staff. I have tweaked and edited this spreadsheet to fit my needs but so many folks have asked for a copy, I uploaded it on Teachers Pay Teachers for others to use for their own programs!
In my beginning years as a professional school counselor, I used this time tracking data to advocate for counseling support to grow to meet the needs of more students. I’ve also used it to show what activities produce academic and behavioral growth versus maintaining “feel good” check ins with students.
Although most see the need for school counseling and mental health support in our current state of affairs, when I first began my career in 2007, budgets were tight and school counselors were often on the chopping block of staff cuts. I was a bit relentless in letting stakeholders in my district know how important school counseling programs can be to impact student learning and growth!
Let me know if you have any questions on this resource! Or if you already use it, I would love to hear how it’s helped you and your program!
