Manage

At the Jesse Owens School, our school counseling program utilizes organizational tools and assessments designed to guide, steer, and help us build our comprehensive school counseling program for maximum results.  We begin by focusing on the beliefs we hold to be successful school counselors. As the Jesse Owens school counselors, we conduct introspection with ourselves and acquire an understanding of how we feel or the beliefs we hold to be aware of our own biases and limitations that could affect our ability to do this work in an equitable manner for all of our students. 

  We also examine our ability to promote social justice and reflect on our personal beliefs. Most importantly, we, as Jesse Owens school counselors, know and promote the 7 mindsets of professional school counselors.  

  Next, we ensure that our school counseling program vision statement aligns with our school and district vision statement, describing what we hope to see for our student population over the next 5 to 15 years.   

  Consequently, there are 2 annual reports we utilize that are designed to ensure that our school counseling programs are assessed for effectiveness and to inform decisions related to program improvement. The 2 reports are the classroom and group mindset & behavior reports, and the closing the gap results report. These help create a more informed approach to addressing student needs and to more focused and effective activities and interventions. As a result of these reports, we can collect 3 types of data: mindsets & behaviors, participation, and outcome data. Building a culture of assessment and reporting with our stakeholders further demonstrates how the school counseling program and school counselor are essential to the school's academic goals.

  After we formulated a vision statement, we then created a mission statement that guides in the direction of our school counseling program vision.  Our school counseling mission gave our program a purpose or focus. It is aligned with our school and district's mission statements and emphasizes the benefits for all students of having a school counseling program. 

  Arguably, the most critical component of managing our school counseling program is data collection, analyzing, and reviwing, and reflecting on the outcomes. After we gather data such as school data, participation data, mindset & behaviors data, and outcome data, we conduct an annual data review to identify our school commonalities such as achievement gaps, attendance concerns, and discipline concerns. With this data, our efforts are driven to create annual student outcome goals. Along with data managing, we use calendars to keep all abreast of our school counselors' activities and intervention efforts. This method of informing stakeholders builds trust and collaboration throughout our school.

  Furthermore, our school counseling program's efforts to effectively plan lessons, instruction, and activities, and address the closing the gap action plans to determine needed improvements regarding participation, mindsets & behaviors, and outcome data.

  Another important part of our school counseling program here at Jesse Owens is the use of our time calculator. Within our school counseling program, Jesse Owens school counselors model the ASCA professional standards for school counselors by spendning 80 % of our time on direct and indirect services to our students, and the remaining 20 % of our time managing our school counseling program and providing school support and leadership services.  This gives everyone a clear picture of how our time is spent on school counseling activities and non-school counseling activities. 

  Along with our use of the time calculator, at Jesse Owens, our school counseling program also utilizes an advisory council. This council is a diverse representative group of stakeholders to review and advise on the work and actions of the school counseling program. As such, I would like to take this opportunity to use this communication to invite parents and stakeholders of our school to consider volunterring for our advisory council to help make us more transparent and better. If you are interested, our advisory council meets on the last Wednesday of each September and each May at the Jesse Owens South Building in room 212 at 4:30 p.m. All are welcome and invited.

ASCA National Model. (2019). A Framework for School Counseling Program. ( 4th ed.).  Alexandria, VA: Author.