Day 16 of the 21 Day Daily Data Challenge

It's Day 16 and it is supposed to be my "2 for 1 day."  The day I meet with my principal and assistant principal to share what I have learned about our school's data from Day 15.  It is also the day I choose a goal.

So it's here.  No meeting.  Well okay, I had a meeting, but my administrator was so busy trying to tie up loose ends from a day of teacher final evaluations that I knew this really was not the best time. I decided when you do not have 100% attention from anyone with whom you wish to share your thoughts and ideas, and yet you try to share them anyway, I think you de-value what you have to say. If you continue to try to share when someone is obviously trying to multi-task, I think it communicates that what you have to say is not important enough; that it does not require the full attention of your listener.  With that personal reflection, I gracefully departed saying something about how much work they had to do and how I could wait until a better time.  So, I requested a time to meet when the deadline to finish evaluations was not looming. The answer I got shows interest, but not much promise.  I will go with it for now.

Sharing and Goals
The thing is, I am really fortunate that I have an administration that trusts me and has faith in what I plan and do.  At this point as excited as I am about the possibilities, I feel a certain satisfaction just from sharing these ideas here with all of you.   So here are some of the things I plan to share with my administration as soon as I get an opportunity.  These are my a few of my ideas for next year.
1) Create and implement a School Counseling Advisory Council
2) Address the numerous D's and F's with: teacher surveys for specific areas of concern, small group  and possibly classroom instruction, student contracts, student time analysis, and parent/teacher conferences/contracts
3) Parent Night to address student study habits and use of time
4) Parent Night to address Positive Behavior Matrix, what it means and how it can be used a home
5) Continue to address ODR (office discipline referrals each quarter) with small group counseling and improved self-monitoring of individuals and some sort of weekly electronic check in  with parents and teachers.

 But what about now, for the end of this school year?  What is my goal?  The question Trish Hatch asked her audience both times I heard her speak was, "What are you already doing in your program that you can possibly use to meet the identified problem?" and   "What do you need to put in place?" My answer to what am I already doing are my behavior groups.  I have 3 groups I run for students who have received 4 or more referrals to the office.  The second question is, "What do I need to put in place?"  I need a specific behavioral curriculum, I have been doing piece meal lessons, and I need
pre and post tests.  I  recently received Zones of Regulation, but have not used it yet.  There may not be a lot I can do with it in 3 weeks, but I would like to see the kind of impact it can have. So, I will use these 3 weeks to survey and introduce some of the basic skills presented in this book.  Success or not, it will be good practice and certainly will inform the creation of my pre and post tests and possibly these groups for the next school year.  Whatever I learn from this last minute goal, will help me as I learn to be a more data driven School Counselor.

Day 17 
Tomorrow's challenge is to create an action plan.  The forms on the ASCA website will be helpful when we are creating our action plans. Look in the left column under RAMP application templates for useful forms.

Be sure to stop by the Exploring School Counseling Facebook page to share your experiences.  If you are not familiar with the 21 Day Daily Data Challenge you can read more about it HERE.

Thanks for stopping by!  I can't wait to get started on my plan!