7 Things "To Do" to Close Out Your School Year

My “get finished with school get started with summer to do list” is longer than my arm and I am not making much progress.  I'm procrastinating and writing this blog post to share some of the things I think are important for any School Counselor who is interested in building a data driven school counseling program to consider as she or he closes out their school year.

1)  Data Scavenger Hunt! 

I don’t know about your school district, but in mine they purge the system during the summer, making it impossible to retrieve data from the recently ended school year. So get out there and locate the data that is already being generated each and every day and is just sitting in your school district’s computer system waiting for you to find it.  This is the BASIC data School Counselors need to get and review BEFORE they begin to form any plans for the new school year.  This is the data that reveals your students’ needs and identifies where you should focus your efforts.  It is data you will use to compare the growth students have made because of the programming you have provided.  So find it!  Organize it! (I like a 3 ring binder) Disaggregate it!  SET GOALS!

Data to look for:

Attendance/tardy Reports

Reports listing students with D’s and F’s on their report cards

Reports listing students with poor conduct grades

Drop-out prevention/ at risk student listing, my district calls it the Early Warning System

School Climate Surveys

Discipline Referral Reports

Suspension Reports

Here are some editable colorful binder covers for your Data Notebook if you are interested in creating a one stop spot for all your data.

2)  Create a Curriculum Calendar
A curriculum calendar is a great tool to validate the importance of the School Counselor's role in providing services to ALL students to the administration and faculty of your school.  In her book The Use of Data in School Counseling, Trish Hatch says a well planned and filled out calendar supports and protects the School Counselor's time. "An open calendar lends itself to being filled with non-counseling responsibilities as it may appear there is nothing more valuable scheduled."

Based on the data you have analyzed, you now know the type of lessons needed school wide in your classroom counseling curriculum.  Some lessons will be specifically indicated by the data. Others will be presented because it is determined these are skills all students should know.  Create a calendar that shows core counseling lesson themes by grade level, ASCA Mindsets and Behaviors, curriculum, number of students to be served, and expected delivery dates.  Be sure to use the column on the right side of the form below to list yearly, quarterly, monthly and weekly events in which you are involved or responsible.  With this kind of planning Administration can see how data needs are being addressed by the School Counselor. Click HERE for a sample of my personal core counseling curriculum plan and HERE for a blank template.

3)  Be a Part of Planning Your School's Yearly Calendar

Don't wait until the start of the new school year to get your programming on your school's yearly calendar. It may too late by then.  Use your counseling core curriculum calendar and add your special events to your school’s year long calendar for the 2015-2016 school year now.  In addition to including special weeks, days, or activities you provide, sponsor, or participate in like Red Ribbon Week, Career Week, Holiday Food and Toy Drive, club meetings, Parent Nights, and puberty education, be sure to include your professional obligations.  It is important for PLC and district meetings, professional workshops and conferences, and School Leadership meetings to be noted on the calendar.

Annual planning helps you, and your administration, to see potential conflicts and gets your programs on the calendar early. This not only helps to avoid conflicts, but it gives you the luxury of planning your events when and where you want without having to settle, or make do, with left over dates and campus facilities.  Perhaps it will even give your administrator a chance to think about all you have planned for the coming school year. And maybe, over the summer, as they create duty schedules and consider non-counseling related activities, they will begin to understand the important work you do with students.

4)  Survey your teachers

This is not about what teachers think you should be teaching or doing, but a chance to get feed-back on the services you have offered this school year.  It’s about perceptions and it takes a thick skin to ask teachers what they think of your services, but sometimes that is an important reality check for some of us. It was for me last year and really helped me to be aware of some areas where I needed to step up my game. It even provided data on how well my faculty understood my job and where they needed more assistance from me in things like Problem Solving Team, 504 plans and reporting to Child Services.

 Here is a link to the Google form I created to survey my teachers last year.  If you would like to use my form, please remember to first make a copy and rename the form before using it or making any additions or deletions.  Otherwise your data will be co-mingled with mine and that will not help either of us.  For instructions on copying and renaming a form go HERE and scroll to slides 30 and 31.

5)  Establish an Annual Agreement

The ASCA website has a great template that lets has you establish the goals for your school counseling program and put them in a form, the Annual Agreement. This form is best completed after reviewing the data you’ve collected and is not only useful for showing your Administration the needs of the school as indicated by the data, but how you plan to spend your time to meet those needs. What a great proactive way to tie data and program needs to your skills as a School Counselor. For a copy of the Annual Agreement go HERE.

6)  Order supplies, books, or materials for next year

Now that you have set goals based on your data, it is easier to know what you are going to be teaching in classroom counseling and small groups.  Take inventory of your materials and decide what  you will need to successfully implement the program you have planned for your students.  Need new resources for teaching study skills, determining learning styles, or teaching conflict resolution skills?  Now is the time to get what you need and have the opportunity to familiarize yourself with your new resources.

7)  Stop procrastinating!
Clean up your office, file that mountain of papers, and go start some serious self care!  Enjoy your summer!  Do the things you love with the people you love.  Get some rest and renew you mind and spirit.  You deserve it!

Well that's it.  I've done the data scavenger hunt, created my curriculum calendar, and surveyed my teachers.  Next week when the students are gone I will be able order my materials and sit down with my Principal to work on our Annual Agreement and the School's Yearly Calendar.  And maybe, just maybe I will file the mountain of papers on my desk before I leave.

What's on your "to do" list?  I hope my list helps focus your ideas on how to begin to build a data-driven school counseling program in your school.

Have a wonderful SUMMER!

Day 21 of the 21 Day Daily Data Challenge

DAY 21!!!  Woo hoo!  We made it!  I have to say it hasn't been easy, but the accountability of posting my data journey each day has kept me going.  Today is about sharing your outcome.  What did you measure and what does your data show in terms of student growth or improvement?  Maybe you increased study skills or student attendance or decreased discipline referrals or student tardies.  Whatever you measured, whatever you did, NOW is the time to create a flashlight package and shine the light on what you have accomplished.  NOW is the time to get out there and BRAG, yes BRAG, about the effectiveness of your School Counseling program!  NOW is the time to politely let your administration know how students are different because of what you as a School Counselor have done.  Tell your administration, and faculty, if you have the chance, "Look at the improvement our students made in this area in which I did this program.  Just think of how I can impact these other areas (name them off because you know your data) with more of my time focused on School Counseling related duties."  And that's how the miracle begins!

The Flashlight Package

The flashlight package is the way you share your program results to demonstrate the success of your efforts. But how do you present the flashlight package and what should it look like?  In chapter 11 of her book, The Use of Data in School Counseling, Trish Hatch gives us an outline.  She suggests creating a PowerPoint presentation no longer that 10 minutes containing the information listed below.  

1) Name of presentation, school, and School Counselor

2) ASCA standards addressed

3) Identified need and lesson/intervention to address it

4) Relevant research

5) Process data, the who, what, when, and how of this activity  (if intentional guidance specify target and selection criteria)

6) Sample graphs of pre/post test data (perception data)

7) Show how achievement related data are linked to perception data and the targeted achievement indicator

8) Graphs of Achievement data related to the activity

9) Summarize main points of lesson

10) Next steps or improvement planned

11) Thank you slide to acknowledge contributions of teachers and staff who support the School Counselor

As I stated in previous posts, I am behind on my 21 Day Daily Data Challenge because I decided to measure my work with a group of students I am already seeing.  Because of this, my "flashlight package" is not ready to share.  However, when I complete my group in 2 weeks, I will post my experiences with Day 20 and 21.  

What I've Learned

The 21 Day Daily Data Challenge has been a significant growth experience for me.  I have learned about my personal strengths and weaknesses in analyzing data.  I have also learned much more about my school than I ever imagined.  By uncovering details revealed in the data,  I now  have clear goals to address previously unknown needs at my school.  I am forever grateful to Dr. Trish Hatch whose inspirational keynote speeches and her book, The Use of Data in School Counseling, have propelled me along this path. I have learned much but have also come to realize how much more there is to learn.  I was unconsciously unskilled. I am now consciously unskilled and working hard to build my skills so I can reach the level of consciously skilled.  I think unconsciously skilled is quite a distance in my future, but it is something to which I aspire.

If you would like to learn more about the 21 Day Daily Data Challenge you can read about it HERE and follow my journey each day.  If you have been participating and have comments or results to share I would really LOVE to see them. Please share them on the Exploring School Counseling Facebook page.

Review this Challenge

Please do me a huge favor and share your comments below regarding the 21 Day Daily Data Challenge.  I would love to  know how I can improve this challenge.  I am also curious to hear about your experiences!  Did you start, get part of the way through, run into difficulty of just give out of energy?  Was the data hard to get?  Did you lack the skills to analyze it effectively? Were you unable to make sense of it all?  Was the challenge too long?  Would fewer days have been better?  If you started then stopped please share what happened.  If wanted to start but didn't, what got in your way?  What would have made this challenge doable for you? 

My goal in issuing this challenge was threefold.  First, to force myself to get in the data and take a really close look at the needs of my school.  Secondly, to help others who may not have had data training in their Master's program (like me!) to get involved with what is currently happening in our profession.  And third, to encourage my School  Counselor colleagues, who are doing a lot of non-counselor duties, to begin to take the steps needed to show, with data, the difference School Counselors can make.

We must become data driven to prove the effectiveness of our school counseling programs and the value we offer our schools in terms of services to students.  Like it or not, the data is what validates everything we say and do.  It is the bottom line for which every legislator, administrator, and taxpayer is looking.  So show them!  Show them how students are different because of what School Counselors do!

Day 20 of the 21 Day Daily Data Challenge

Today is the day we evaluate our program. It's time to review, reflect, and revise.  Take the time to honestly assess how you feel your class or group responded to your lesson.  What went well?  What didn't?  What would you do differently if you were to do this program again?  Were you able to communicate the knowledge, skills, and attitudes you wanted your students to learn? Were the curriculum, lesson, or activity as effective as you thought they would be?  Did your lesson reflect the competencies you had chosen for your students?  How were your pre/ post test surveys? Did the students understand the questions?  Did your questions reflect the content of your lesson well? Were there problems with wording you would change for next time or was your pre/post test just right?  What about the data?  Are you able to show improvement? An increase or decrease?  Did you measure what you thought you  measured? So much to think about in order to  evaluate our efforts to create the best possible school counseling program for our students.

A day late...
Today was the day I actually began the implementation of my action plan. It did not go as smoothly as I hoped, actually it almost didn't happen at all. It seemed as if every negative force in the universe was bearing down on my school today and conspiring to keep me from doing my group.  But, those boys. Those hard to handle, kind of prickly, sometimes annoying boys from my group were waiting for me on the steps of my portable when I finally arrived 15 minutes late.  They were not bothered by my lateness but were eager to get started.  They took right to the Zones of Regulation lesson and I feel that although we were late getting started they were hooked from the beginning.  They were familiar with the color coded behavior systems from their classrooms and immediately tried to equate the colors with good vs. bad behavior.  The seemed genuinely intrigued by the idea that different feelings went in different zones and loved the game where they matched the feelings to the zone.

I know I said 3 lessons, but I must have been out of my mind!   Zones of Regulations is such an awesome comprehensive program there is no way to do that.  Since we only have 2 1/2 weeks of school left I am going to see if their teachers will let them come more often and see just how far we can go.

DAY 21
Wow! It's almost here! I can't believe I have been living and breathing data for the last 20 days!  Day 21 is about sharing your outcome.  Trish Hatch talks about the flashlight approach and gives us a structure for creating a PowerPoint to share our results.  But she also reminds us to share it wherever and with whomever we can.  Sometimes we don't get to present to our faculty, we get 5 minutes with the Prinicpal during cafeteria duty.  Getting our results out there and showing how students are different because of what School Counselors do is our goal.  Results that show how valuable School Counselors can be when they are given the time and opportunity to do what School Counselors do best is what it's all about!

If want to know more about the 21 Day Daily Data Challenge, you can read about it HERE.  Please check out the Exploring School Counseling Facebook page and share your data experiences there.

Day 19 of the 21 Day Daily Data Challenge

Today was the day to implement your intervention! I hope many of you have been able to stay with the schedule and reach the implementation point with me.  Unfortunately, I am now off a day because I am using a group I have already been seeing and they meet on Friday's.  So tomorrow I will be implementing my action plan. And, because my group is going to last for 3 sessions, my Days 20 and 21 will not be sequential with the daily challenges.  But that was something I anticipated and I will continue to share my progress in the 21 Day Daily Data Challenge.

DAY 20
So if you are on track with the Daily Data Challenges and implemented your action plan today, tomorrow is the day you will review your data, reflect on your action plan, and make any revisions necessary to improve your plan for the future.  You will be able to see and say how students are different because of what School Counselors do!

If you are interested in learning more about the 21 Day Daily Data Challenge you can read about it HERE.  Please share your data adventures on the Exploring School Counseling Facebook page or just stop by and like the page and check out what's happening there.

Day 18 of the 21 Day Daily Data Challenge

As the day gets closer to implementing my data-driven intervention, I get more excited!  I can't wait to see how my students respond!

If you are participating in the 21 Day Daily Data Challenge, it is time to make your preparations to implement your action plan. Begin by setting your start date, sending home permission slips if needed (here is a sample of the one I use) and giving your pre-test. In my district I only have to send a permission home for small group sessions. And since I am going to measure something I am already doing, (small group for behavior) as Trish Hatch suggested, that part is covered. What I am missing is the pre-test.  Due to scheduling conflicts both today and tomorrow, I will not  be able to give the pre-test until the beginning of  our group on Friday.


DAY 19
Implementation day for your action plan!  Get ready!

Read more about the 21 Day Daily Data Challenge HERE and follow Exploring School Counseling on Facebook to share your data experiences.


Thoughts to Share
I keep wondering, will the data I collect from this intervention show an impact?  If it does,will I be able to duplicate my success?  But, what if my intervention does not indicate success?  What if the students make no gains in their attitudes, skills, and knowledge? What if the whole intervention is a disaster?  To be honest, I will definitely be disappointed, but I truly think I will be okay with that outcome as well.  I have always told my own children, especially in their teen and college years, you learn just as much from your mistakes and what doesn't work as you do from your successes.  If you don't give up and have a pity party, or get embarrassed because things didn't go as you had hoped or expected, doesn't that provide just as much information?  Isn't knowing what doesn't work and what not to do just as valuable?  

As a School Counselor, for too many years, I have operated on what was cute and convenient and not really looked at what would provide the greatest impact to my students.  I am truly excited to see the results of my data-driven action plan. One way or another, whatever the results, I will have a better idea about what is most beneficial to my students.  And really, I think that's all any School Counselor wants.

Day 17 of the 21 Day Daily Data Challenge

If you've been following along on the 21 Day Daily Data Challenge you've gathered, analyzed, and disaggregated your school data, chosen a goal and now you are ready to write your action plan.  I feel like such a data geek!  As I was sharing with my School Psychologist today about all that I had done I was positively giddy!  I know, giddy about data.  You're thinking, "That woman needs summer vacation, and soon!  She has lost her mind!"  But I'm telling you, when you start looking at all your data pieces and you see how all those data pieces begin to fit together, and how they impact each other, it is truly an exciting thing!

The Action Plan
I am going to utilize the ASCA form for a small group action plan.

As I stated yesterday, I will be using the behavior groups I already have in place.  With this action plan I will be using the ASCA  Mindset: Self confidence and the ability to succeed and the Behaviors: Demonstrate self-discipline and self-control and Demonstrate effective coping skills when faced with a problem. The outline of sessions will be distilled from the book Zones of Regulation. My process data identifies 9 boys from 3rd-5th grade.  Multiple choice surveys will be taken prior to the first group session and at the final session for the collecting of pre/post test data to measure perception data. Our outcome data will be seen at the end of the school year when we review our 4th quarter discipline referrals and student weekly classroom behavior reports.  This group will begin on Friday and will meet for a total of 3 sessions.

In order to start this group on Friday, I need to finish organizing my group lessons and think about the questions for my pre/post test. Permission slips are in place and students need to be prepared for the new focus in group for our remaining sessions.  I really am excited to see how this goes and am looking forward to sharing all that happens, good or bad.  We have a saying at our house, "All learning is valuable."  So even if I totally bomb this, I will share and reflect and maybe someone else will learn from my mistakes as well.

Day 18
This is the day to choose your start date, send permissions and do your pre-test.  Get ready!  It's almost time to start!

If you would like to know more about the 21 Day Daily Data Challenge please read more about it HERE.  You can also follow Exploring School Counseling on Facebook and share your own comments and experiences.

We're nearing the end of the 21 Day Daily Data Challenge.  I hope you have been enlightened by what you have learned.

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!