Rewriting the Story: Meredith Draughn

Never intending to follow in her mother’s footsteps as an elementary school counselor, the 2023 School Counselor of the Year discovered sometimes your story doesn’t end where you think it will. 

Finalist: Keisha J. Larry Burns

Finalist: Keisha J. Larry Burns, Ed.D.
Shadow Hills Engineering & Design Magnet Academy, Palmdale, Calif.

Finalist: Joshua Nelson

Finalist: Joshua Nelson
Richard Lewis Brown Gifted and Academically Talented Academy, Jacksonville, Fla. 

Finalist: Matthew K. Shervington-Jackson

2023 School Counselor of the Year Finalist: Matthew K. Shervington-Jackson
Susquehanna High School, Glen Rock, Pa.

Finalist: Beth Ruff

2023 School Counselor of the Year Finalist: Beth Ruff Ed.D.
Powder Springs Elementary School, Powder Springs, Ga.

It's OK to Say "The S Word"

Bibliocounseling can be an effective way to teach suicide prevention classroom lessons to elementary school students.

Student-Led Suicide Prevention

At an Oregon high school, a student-led suicide prevention club offers Tier 1 interventions to help students build strength and skills needed to withstand life’s most
difficult challenges. 

Suicide Prevention and Response

When it comes to suicide loss in schools, being prepared can make a difference.

Suicide Prevention for All

Implementing proactive, Tier 1 interventions and helping students build connections can save lives.

Facilities for All

Lobbying for a gender-neutral bathroom in your school can go a long way toward ensuring a sense of belonging for all students, regardless of how they identify.

Supporting the +

What’s the + in LGBTQ+, and how can you support students exploring their gender and sexual orientation?

Transgender Elementary Students

Discussions about transgender, nonbinary and gender-expansive students typically focus on high school students, but we can’t ignore our youngest students. 

Responding to Pushback

A safe, inclusive and affirming LGBTQ+ inclusive school climate can’t occur without a persistent and concerted effort by educators.

It's Time for Out & Proud Allyship

Now, more than ever, LGBTQ+ youth need public, visible and vocal support from affirming and trusted adults in their schools and communities.

Lead Changes for LGBTQ+ Students

By using your role as a leader in the school, you can help change perceptions and policies surrounding LGBTQ+ students.

Wraparound Services in Schools: Family Intervention Services 

With today’s student mental health crisis, school-funded, family-focused services can provide help to more students.

Wraparound Services in Schools: The Decatur Student Center

Wraparound services within school buildings can help meet students’ needs during the current mental health crisis.

The School Counselor’s Role in Tier 3

Many individuals, both inside and outside the school, are involved in Tier 3 services. Collaboration is key in helping students benefit from these interventions.

Help Students Navigate Grief

The grief journey is different for everyone, but providing a safe space and listening can help all struggling students.

Culture and Student Mental Health

It is imperative for school counselors to understand students’ cultures, their perception of mental health and barriers that may hinder their access to services.

Nature Will Nurture

Can bringing nature into schools help improve students’ mental health? Research says yes.

The Lingering Pandemic Effect

Addressing students’ increasingly challenging mental health needs continues through yet another school year.
 

State-Level Impact

School counselors can provide a unique perspective on proposed DEI-related state legislation when they share how it may affect students’ lives.

Professional Development in a Complex World

To get the most out of continuing education, school counselors must align their learning experiences with program and individual needs, incorporating social justice and anti-racist practice.

Standards & Competencies from Day One

School counselor educators can use the ASCA School Counselor Professional Standards & Competencies in their courses to help graduate students build a solid foundation.

Grow as You Go

Cultivate competence through planned professional development.

Collaborative Learning

When educators work together on their professional development, students reap the benefits. 

Graduate Student Self-Advocacy

Discover a variety of strategies and tools school counselor educators can use to train graduate students in self-advocacy.

Student Success From an Early Age

By working with pre-K students, elementary school counselors can address risk factors before students start kindergarten.

Amplify Your Advocacy

Discover how Twitter can help you educate stakeholders about your role as a school counselor and the ways you help students.
 

Boost your Web Browsing Prowess

The internet provides loads of content – if you know where to look. Use these five tips to efficiently and effectively access the information you need online.  

Tech That Sticks

The COVID-19 pandemic and school shutdowns forced school counselors to become more comfortable with technology, but increasing tech usage continues post-shutdowns.

Support Teens on Their Digital Journey

Help teens stay safe online, and help parents/guardians set online boundaries with guidance and tools from TikTok.

From Happenstance to Intention

Alma Lopez, 2022 School Counselor of the Year, may have fallen into her education and career, but she’s making sure her students find a more intentional path. 

School Counseling is Relative

Spouses and siblings, parents and progeny – can you share a career without it overtaking your personal relationships as well? 

Culture of Shared Values

Student/educator relationships built on shared values can facilitate a culture of comfort, acceptance 
and connection.

Building Relationships with Parents/ Guardians

Engaging and supporting parents/guardians leads to student growth both at school and at home. 

Building Bonds

When school counselor educators and graduate students intentionally build connections with each other, both groups benefit. 

Divine Nine Connections

Establishing collaborative relationships with Black Greek letter organizations leads to improved student outcomes and community connections.

Beyond Ribbons and Rallies

It’s time to rethink our approaches to reducing student substance use and abuse and turn to effective, research-based programs. 

Educate and Protect Students

Although certain risk factors make some students more likely to develop addictive behaviors, the truth 
is all students need 
your help.

Game Over

Use MTSS to identify and support students with addictive gaming behavior.

#TikTokChallenge

From Tide pods to milk crates, bleach to Benadryl, TikTok challenges may sometimes seem innocent but can put students at risk.

Recognize and Address

When students engage in risky behaviors, the school counselor focuses on getting them the outside help they need. 

Boys and Body Image

With most discussions about body image and eating disorders focused on girls, it’s easy to overlook the issue in boys.

Innovative Interventions

As COVID-19 has led to an increase in student mental health needs, one school began exploring new software tools to better serve students.

Positive Relationships for Teens

Increase your awareness of the different types of teen dating violence to understand the warning signs and learn how best to assist students.

It Takes Two

Using your school’s MTSS program to build a strong school counselor/principal relationship helps both parties meet their professional goals.  

A Helpful Start

The free ASCA U Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Specialist training helps school counseling professionals learn to 
start tough conversations and work toward systemic change. 

MTSS and the ASCA National Model

Commit yourself to aligning your MTSS program with the ASCA National Model to better support students.
 

MTSS Team Player

School counselors are a valuable addition to an MTSS team; discover how to best use your expertise and collaborate with other team members.

Trauma-Informed MTSS

Creating a trauma-informed MTSS starts like any other program in the school –  by examining data.

Schoolwide Bullying Prevention

Student problems related to bullying are too vast and implications are too grave for school counselors to take them on without schoolwide support. 

Find Your Light

Shine a spotlight on your work to advocate for the profession – and yourself. 
 

Build Resilient Families

School counselors can play an important role in improving mental health awareness in urban communities.
 

Anxiety Overload

To successfully address anxiety, students must learn and use strategies to manage their emotions, thoughts and negative feelings as they occur.

Equity-Focused Partnerships

Partnerships focused on anti-racism and inequities produce strong school/family/community relationships.
 

Combat Compassion Fatigue

Taking care of yourself and recognizing your limitations is key to not feeling overwhelmed and burned out.

Learn, Represent, Speak Up: Support Your AAPI Students

Tech Tools to Try

The past year has led all school counselors to be creative and rely on technology, regardless of whether or not they were already tech-savvy. A few easy-to-learn, free tech tools can help. 

Movement, Music and Magic

Incorporating engaging experiences into your lesson plans is a guaranteed way to capture students’ attention. 

All in Lesson Planning

Building a lesson plan with the end goal in mind and incorporating a variety of delivery methods helps school counselors have a positive impact on student learning.  

Culturally Sustaining Classroom Management

School counselors can leverage their positions and collaboratively transform classroom management to create an equitable learning environment.

Ambiguity Tolerance

Practice embracing and modeling ambiguity tolerance to help your students learn to cope with uncertain times.  

7 Tips for a Trauma-Informed School

Developing a safe, supportive environment for all students allows them to thrive. 

Build Trauma-Informed Practices

Implementing some simple trauma-informed practices into your Tier 1 and Tier 2 work can help students deal with the current pandemic – and build a strong base for their future.

Racial Justice Starts at School

School counselors have an ethical imperative to fight racism and bias and build more inclusive schools.

Olivia Carter: Making It Work

Fueled by copious amounts of coffee and tempered in mindfulness, 2021 School Counselor of the Year Olivia Carter charts a path through this uncertain and chaotic time.

Books as Mirrors and Windows

Using children’s books by authors of color featuring characters from diverse backgrounds helps you build students’ social/emotional skills, as well as expose them to important history and sociopolitical concepts.

SEE Learning

Expanding social/emotional learning to include a focus on ethics supports students and helps grow community.

Proactive SEL

During the current pandemic, social/emotional learning is vital, yet it requires innovation to deliver.

Fostering Responsible Citizenship

As a society, we must be able to listen to – and respect – viewpoints other than our own. Our job as school counselors includes teaching our students this acceptance as well. 

Brick-Based School Counseling

Lego bricks can be a valuable tool in addressing social/emotional learning.

Time for a Gap Year?

As this year’s seniors are considering their plans for next year, indications are that more than ever are planning for a gap year. 

HBCUs: Promoting Benefits and Attendance

UNCF research shows benefits for students attending an HBCU but highlights students’ limited exposure to HBCUs during their K–12 years.

GenZ Student Trends and Needs

When it comes to postsecondary planning for Generation Z students, school counselors are dealing with a radical shift in student needs.

Cultural Competency in Postsecondary Planning

School counselors must strive to find practical solutions to postsecondary planning that benefit students, and their community, by listening and becoming more culturally aware.

Build Career Interest Early

Through a career gallery walk focusing on CTE programs, elementary school students connect learning to earning.

Applying to College During a Crisis

In uncertain times, how can school counselors help students still plan for their future? 

The Art of School Counseling

Draw on art interventions in your school counseling program to help students express thoughts, ideas and feelings.

Make School Cool

School shutdowns and social distancing have led to many challenges, but they’ve also given school counselors a nudge to try some creative ways to promote their program.

College Admissions in the COVID Era

As the college admissions landscape continues to adjust, college admission counselors embrace the unknown and the ability to be nimble.  

Child Sexual Exploitation in the Digital Age

As we head back to school and schools increasingly move classes online,  it’s vital we educate students about the possibilityof  online sexual exploitation.  

Time to Speak Up

Supporting students after racial incidents can be challenging. However, the work is vital, and it’s critically important to engage students in conversations about race. 

Stand Up, Stand Together

Now is the time for school counselors to take a stand and fight for social justice and equity for Black students.  

Hand in Hand

A school counseling program based on the ASCA National Model helps you promote social justice for all students.

Creating a Space For All

What needs to change in predominantly white institutions to ensure all students feel nurtured, protected and supported?

Change is Gonna Come

Educators are hungry for ways to make the system better and meet Black students’ needs.

A Lifelong Process

Cultural competency requires us to continually – and intentionally – examine our own thoughts and behaviors and how they affect those around us. 

Address Adverse Childhood Experiences

Schools and school counselors have a critical role in helping students who’ve suffered adverse childhood experiences.

The Healing Power of Play

With funding from a local grant, one elementary school counselor developed a valuable play space for her students to develop, heal and feel joy.

Armed Assailant Drills

Are high-sensory drills effective? Are they worth the potential traumatic effects on students? 

Crisis Prevention Mini-Lessons

Building creative crisis intervention strategies into your classroom instruction can help limit the “three hurts.”

Resilience in the Aftermath

After a school or community shooting, school counselors need to help themselves and other adults in the school heal first. 

Laura Ross 2020 School Counselor of the Year

After a stint working as a counselor at a men’s correctional facility and witnessing what happens when young people don’t feel connected to their education, 2020 School Counselor of the Year Laura Ross realized school counseling was calling her.

Use ASCA Position Statements to Develop School Counselor Identity, Leadership and Advocacy Skills

The role and professional identity of the school counselor has been an ongoing discussion throughout the history of the profession. With the growing need for more support to address the mental health needs of students and improve their well-being, the confusion about school counselor role and identity has heightened. ASCA and its state affiliates have worked tirelessly to ensure the role of the school counselor is appropriately defined and understood.

Playing for Solutions

Trying something new can be intimidating, but solution-focused play counseling is worth exploring. It’s accessible and uses an approach you’re already familiar with, combined with a fun play application.

After the Miracle Question

How can you continue down the path of solution-focused brief counseling when students respond to the miracle question in negative or vague ways? Discover approaches to fully engaging students in all stages of solution-focused brief counseling.

Mythbusters

Solution-focused brief counseling places emphasizes a student’s present and future circumstances and goals rather than past experiences. But misperceptions about this elegant counseling method abound. Learn about what’s real and what isn’t.

Expand Your Reach by Marketing Your Program

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there, does it make a sound? Similarly, if you’ve got a great school counseling program but no one knows about it, is it really benefiting students and the school?

Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can’t Lose

Keeping your eyes open for advocacy and leadership opportunities can turn you into a school counselor leader, even when you’re the only school counselor in the building. 

Sharpen Your Influence

To become a true school counselor leader, you’ll need to learn how to influence stakeholders.

A Leadership Mindset

Professional growth requires continual self-assessment and reflection. How do you stack up when it comes to advocacy, collaboration and leadership skills?

From Doer to Leader

School counselors’ natural reaction is often to “do” rather than lead. Leaders don’t do. Leaders get things done.

Integrating Services for Safe and Successful Schools

When school-based mental health experts – school counselors, school psychologists and school social workers – work together, schools are safer, more supportive and conducive to learning.

Complementary Collaborators: School Counselors and School Nurses

Ideally positioned to support school counselors, school nurses are a practical ally in addressing students’ social/emotional, as well as physical, health.

Unified Mental Health Teams

Teamwork acrossjob boundaries enables school counselors to meet students’ mental health needs better.

Mental Health Matters

A Colorado school district turns tragedy into a communitywide opportunity for mental health education.

Let's Get Smart

Following steps to evidence-based interventions helped these school counselors provide successful stress management and resiliency training for their students.

Classroom Lessons That Work

These tips can help create meaningful, engaging classroom instruction to fit needs.

Tired But Content

Although a school counselor’s job is a demanding one, having a positive relationship with administration makes the job that much more satisfying.

I'm a Believer

One principal shares how his school counselors made him into a believer in the power of a comprehensive school counseling program – and how his students benefit as a result.

Help Wanted

While school counselor education programs report a mixed bag of higher vs. lower enrollment, a strong jobs outlook and improving student-to-school-counselor ratios point to increasing need for strong candidates.

From Position to Powerful Program

Since the 2003 publication of the first edition of the ASCA National Model through today, the school counseling profession has continued to evolve. Today’s school counselors are certainly not the guidance counselors from our parents’ generation.

Ever-Evolving Framework

As the education environment continues to change, so too has the ASCA National Model.

When Adults are the Bullies

Bullying behavior doesn’t just happen among the student population. Learn what to do if you or colleagues are targets of workplace bullying.

Trade Secrets

Get the inside scoop on what one long-time school principal and his team listened for when interviewing school counseling candidates.

Prepare to Dazzle

Properly preparing for standard interview questions can help build your confidence and let you present yourself in the best light possible during an interview.

A Bibliocounseling Dream Team

Collaborating with your school and community librarians can make your bibliocounseling program even stronger.

Working From Their "Why"

The five finalists for 2019 School Counselor of the Year share how they got on the 
path to being a school counselor and what keeps them there.

Brian Coleman: 2019 School Counselor of the Year

2019 School Counselor of the Year Brian Coleman approaches new adventures with an excitement and energy level not often seen – and turns initial impressions into long-lived relationships.

Stress Busters

For students experiencing high levels of stress, a stress busters small-group intervention may be just the solution they need.

A Journey to Mindfulness

Learn from one elementary school’s transformation to a mindful-centered school and how staff taught students to use their wizard brain instead of their lizard brain.

Technostress

Technology can streamline students’ lives. Alas, it can also increase their stress.

Battling Test Anxiety

Some students view tests as another chance to shine; others experience extreme anxiety. Help prepare them all to be victorious. 

Address School Refusal

School refusal can be debilitating and can lead to long-term negative consequences for students. Early identification and effective intervention can help increase a student’s adaptive coping.

Coping With Student Anxiety

Experiencing anxiety can be frightening, especially for young students. You can help students develop coping techniques.

A Heavy Burden

One parent shares the story of her substance-abusing daughter – and how a school counselor saved her child’s life.

Keeping it Real – And Safe

Every adult who interacts with teens has a chance to have a positive impact on their attitudes, beliefs and behaviors around alcohol – and school counselors are no exception. 

Beyond Just Say No

As more and more states legalize recreational marijuana use, our education efforts need to evolve to meet changing social norms.

Vaping in Vogue

Vaping is a rapidly emerging trend and is especially popular among youth and young adults.

The Opioid Epidemic

As the opioid epidemic continues to grow, school counselors need to provide education and support for students and partner with community agencies and organizations to combat the rampant problem.

Postsecondary Options for Students With Disabilities

As educators, it’s our duty to help all our students explore postsecondary options, and students with disabilities shouldn’t be left behind.

Beyond the IEP

Creating a small group for students with learning challenges can help them discover – and practice – what they need to be successful in college well in advance of setting foot on a college campus.

Turning At Risk Into At Promise

A college- and career-readiness group for African-American middle school boys can be a great tool to turn around students’ lives. 

Middle School College & Career Readiness in the Digital Age

Using free or inexpensive digital tools can help you expand your college- and career-readiness programming with middle school students.

Data as Easy as 1-2-3

Use program data to develop lasting and sustainable outcomes rather than random acts of improvements.

Kick It Up a Notch

Use multimedia tools to create results reports that are fun to make, entertaining to watch and able to convey a large amount of information in a short amount of time.

Show Your Work

You have an obligation to educate others about your program successes. The ASCA results report can help you do just that – showing how students are different as a result of the school counseling program.

Building a Community

Working at Lawndale Community Academy can sometimes feel like swimming upstream, but 2018 School Counselor of the Year Kirsten Perry is up to the challenge.

Imprisoned Parents, Challenged Children

Students with a parent in prison face numerous challenges and require a school counselor familiar with providing trauma-sensitive care. 

Foster Success

At any one time, there are approximately half a million U.S. children in the foster care system. How can you help the ones at your school? 

Support Military Families

Regardless of whether you’re in a community with a large population of military families or not, it’s important to learn how to help military children who may be in your school.

Apprenticeship Advantages

During my final few months of high school, I decided I wanted to be a welder. As much as I felt pressured to follow the traditional four-year university path, I knew I wanted to do something different. I couldn’t understand why most people viewed tech schools, which tend to be much more affordable and offer direct programs of education, as less viable than four-year universities. I was all ready to go to a tech school when I found out about the apprenticeship program at Buhler Inc., a family-owned company specializing in food production, die casting, innovation and sustainability.

Becoming a Meaningful Career Conversationalist

What world or community challenges do you want to solve? How do you know if you are doing your best possible work? What are you currently doing socially and emotionally, academically and career-related that is helping you prepare for your life after high school? If you could learn about anything, what topic would you want to learn about and why? 

Career Café Conversations

A career café may be just the recipe you need for middle school career exploration.

Careers From Day One

Career exploration and development needs to start right at the beginning – with elementary school students.

Advocacy via Research

Developing practitioner/school counselor educator research teams is a great way to develop school counseling best practices. Discover the ins and outs of team development and obtaining grant funding.

Take a Position

Use the ASCA position statements to advocate for your school counseling program and appropriate school counseling duties.

Let RAMP Help Tell Your Story

Once your school counseling program has received the RAMP designation, the advocacy opportunities abound. 

Self-esteem in a Social Media World

Today’s technology can have a major influence on students’ mental wellness, self-esteem and relationships. 

Targeted Learning

Establishing professional learning communities for school counselors can go a long way toward ongoing training geared specifically to you.

Data: Your Personal Cheerleader

You may think you don’t like numbers, but did you know numbers can make or break your school counseling program?

True Grit

If students never fail, they’ll never grow. Help them develop resilience and grit.

Mindset Matters

Do you encourage your students to cultivate a growth mindset? And does the rest of the school staff – and parents – work toward building growth mindsets as well?

Save the Cheetah Cubs

In today’s global economy, it’s more important than ever to make sure our students can “outrun” the competition.

Live Love, Teach Peace

Our students aren’t just learning math, science and English. They’re also learning from watching how adults behave. Ask yourself what you and your community are teaching them.

Safe Havens

Get strategies to create safe havens for transgender and non-binary students.

Serve All

As a school counselor, you’re committed to serving all students. That commitment is more important than ever in today’s precarious climate. 

What’s Your Story?

A good story is worth its weight in gold. Learn the ins and outs of sharing your successes with storytelling.

Yuridia Nava, 2017 School Counselor of the Year Finalist

Yuridia Nava
Riverside Polytechnic High School
Riverside, Calif.

Dawn Mann, 2017 School Counselor of the Year Finalist

Dawn Mann
Harrison High School
Kennesaw, Ga.

Rebecca Lallier, 2017 School Counselor of the Year Finalist

Rebecca Lallier
Dothan Brook School
White River Junction, Vt.

Jennifer Adams, 2017 School Counselor of the Year Finalist

Jennifer Adams
Carolina Springs Middle School
Lexington, S.C.

Leading With Intention

It’s not just Frosted Flakes putting Battle Creek, Mich., on the map these days. The 2017 School Counselor of the Year and her stellar school counseling program have also increased the visibility of both the profession and this city made famous by the Kellogg Company. 

Educate to Prevent Child Abuse

Schools can help keep children safe by being proactive rather than reactive. Through age-appropriate education programs, students can learn what to watch out for and how to talk to trusted adults about victimization.

Re-engage At-Risk Girls

Using their power to see beyond troublesome behavior, school counselors can help at-risk girls realize their potential.

Help for Grieving Students

School counselors, as well as other educators, need to be prepared to address grieving students’ needs – both inside and outside the school walls.

A Districtwide Effort

District directors owe it to students – and their school counselors – to ensure developing trauma-informed schools is a districtwide priority.

Transforming Schools With Trauma-Informed Care

No school is immune to the effects of student trauma. By implementing schoolwide trauma-sensitive programs, you can help students be that much more successful.

College Admissions Updates

A number of organizations and agencies have made important changes in helping students prepare for the college admissions search.

Early Exposure

You know college and career exploration is important, but how do you start it earlier, make it more engaging – and fit it into your schedule?

Partner for Success

When school districts partner with historically black colleges and universities for on-the-spot admissions events, it’s a win for students and HBCUs.

College Admissions for Transgender and Gender-Nonconforming Students

School counselors can assist transgender and gender-nonconforming students in the college search and admissions process to find the perfect postsecondary home.

Cartoons and Careers

Using cartoons is a natural fit for career exploration in elementary school.

Youth Apprenticeship: An Ancient Path to Modern Success

Developing a well-planned, business-supported youth apprenticeship program in your school or district helps students learn in-demand skills while still in high school.

Tech-Based College/Career Lessons

Inspire your elementary school students to #ReachHigher with technology-based college and career lessons.

Plan for Success

Building your school counseling program’s annual calendar can be one of the most important tools for an organized, successful school year.

Attendance Works

With data in hand and community collaboration, the Geneva City School District addressed its attendance concerns head on.

Mind Matters

Mindfulness keeps gaining attention, including in a growing number of school counseling offices.

Address Student Anxiety

Learn how to use evidence-based tools and data to help students with anxiety, regardless of their age.

Motivate Students

With motivational interviewing techniques and a small-group curriculum, you can improve unmotivated students’ chance of success in school.

Media-Savvy School Counselors

Learn how to put your best foot forward when speaking with the media – and how to shine a light on school counseling.

Promote Good Digital Citizenship

To help students – both while they’re in school and beyond – school counselors should promote proper digital citizenship.

Classroom Management the School Counseling Way

Classroom management can look one way if you’re a teacher, but for school counselors, it often involves a different set of skills.

Classroom Management the Elementary School Way

Managing a classroom full of six year olds is vastly different from managing a classroom full of 11 year olds, making classroom lessons particularly challenging in elementary schools. But with some tips, you can be successful.

Classroom Management the Middle School Way

Keeping middle-school students engaged can be a challenge. Follow these tips to maximize learning for this special group of students.

Classroom Management the High School Way

Given the limited amount of time high school counselors generally have in classrooms, effective classroom management skills are more important than ever.

Engagement via Evidence

Using evidence-based teaching strategies can help school counselors successfully deliver their school counseling core curriculum lessons.

Transition Support

Being transgender, commonly referred to as trans*, is not a walk in the park. Although the concept is pretty simple, in reality it is mentally and physically draining, thought-consuming and stress-inducing.

I came out to my parents in middle school, at the end of eighth grade.

Transgender Student Support

Cultural proficiency doesn’t just mean learning how to support students from different races and ethnic backgrounds but also addressing gender-related issues.

Generational Diversity: From Millennials to Baby Boomers

What can a millennial and a baby boomer learn from each other? Quite a bit, as it turns out.

Close But Far

You’d think growing up just a few miles away would help you understand and connect with your students. Not necessarily.

A Journey to Cultural Proficiency

The path to cultural proficiency is never-ending, regardless of where you live or work.

Teach the Children Well

It’s never too early to begin teaching students about diversity, differences and assumptions.

Myth Busters

What is your role in addressing race and racism in your school environment?

Will We Overcome?

Why, 62 years after Brown v. Board of Education, does this country still struggle with race, ethnic and gender equality ?

Food for Thought

Samantha Vidal
Creekside Elementary School
Franklin, Ind.

A 21st-Century Approach to College and Career Readiness

Kim Reykdal
Olympia High School
Olympia, Wash.

Early Struggle Leads to WISE Program

Kris Owen
Ridgeville STEM Jr. High School
Pickerington, Ohio

Promote Your Program

Rob Lundien
Staley High School
Kansas City, Mo.

Helping At-Risk Boys Achieve

Durenda Johnson Ward
Centennial Campus Magnet Middle School
Raleigh, N.C

Relentlessly Positive, Positively Determined

Katherine Pastor, 2016 School Counselor of the Year

Technology to the Rescue

When it comes to selecting technology to use in your school counseling program, the latest and greatest often needs to be ignored for the best and most useful.

Scholarship Surge

One school district discovers how using social media can increase scholarship money earned by students.

Tech Access, Privacy and Literacy

As technology use in the schools continues to evolve, how can you be sure you’re using it wisely – and ethically?

School Counseling 2050

If you think technology has changed how you work today, just imagine the technological changes the next 35 years will bring.

Storming the Castle

I will never forget the day one of my eighth-grade students walked into Kenan Memorial Stadium at the University of North Carolina for the first time. He called it “a castle.” Sixty-five miles from his home, this student had never seen anything like the UNC football field. In fact, he had rarely – if ever – been 65 miles away from home.

Teaching Our Children to Fish

In small-town USA, limited exposure to a variety of career options – and limited resources – can make a rural school counselor’s job a challenge. Discover how you can provide your students with the career development resources they need no matter how small the town.

Pursuing RAMP in a Rural School

Working in a rural environment can challenge and benefit school counselors who are pursuing the Recognized ASCA Model Program (RAMP) designation. 

Roadblocks on the Rural Route

School counselors in rural districts must build connections and get outside their comfort zones to overcome challenges and serve their students and communities.

10 Tips for SMART Goals

We all need goals, but it’s important not to make them too easy – or too hard – to attain. Learn the steps to creating SMART goals.

Success Outside the Lines

2015 saw a number of nontraditional schools earn RAMP status. Learn how you can do the same regardless of the type of school.

All By Myself

Just because you’re the only school counselor in your building, that doesn’t mean you can’t run a comprehensive school counseling program.

Now is the Time

Don’t have a comprehensive school counseling program yet? Let this be the year you finally get started.

Whatever it Takes

Campbell County, Ky., School District takes full advantage of its federal education grants and evidence-based school counseling to further hone its districtwide school counseling program.

Stronger Together

The whole often is greater than the sum of its parts, especially when it comes to collaborative efforts between state departments of education and state school counseling associations.

Capitol Victories

Numerous state school counseling associations have seen legislative victories in their states. Learn how you can do the same.

Your Advisors, Your Advocates

Learn to build an effective school counseling advisory council with these tips.

Girls and Boys Brains: How Different Are They?

We’ve all heard the adage of “boys are better at math; girls are better at language.” But how true is that really?

Overcome Barriers for a Better Mañana

Help Hispanic girls learn to see themselves on the road to college.

Mean Girls and Rough Boys

When it comes to bullying prevention programs, separating the girls from the boys can go a long way to driving your message home to each gender.

Gender-Specific Groups

Learn five strategies for small-group success and the benefits of gender-specific groups.

Theory Into Action

What does evidence-based school counseling look like in action? It looks as unique as each school counselor using it, although there are some clear guidelines.

Flip Your Lessons

Flipped lessons are becoming more and more popular in schools. Learn how you can reach all students and save time by flipping your school counseling lessons.

Forging Forward Fearlessly

Regardless of whether he’s headed down a mountain on his bike at full speed or helping to meet his students’ needs, 2015 School Counselor of the Year Cory Notestine puts his all into his adventures.

White House Reaches Higher

In today’s knowledge-based economy, getting a postsecondary degree is critical to achieve economic success and climb the ladder of opportunity. All too often, however, students find themselves with the desire to attend college, but no idea how to get there. 

Aid for Students With Chronic Illness

Chances are, your school has students with chronic illness. Do you know who they are and how you can help?

Help Migrant Students Grow

With their frequent moves from school to school – and often from state to state – migrant children can struggle to keep their education on track.

A Network for Newcomers

Social media can be a great way for refugee and immigrant students to connect with each other, stay in touch with old friends and make new ones.

Homeless Not Hopeless

Students experiencing homelessness need all the help they can get. School counselors can help. 

Old Money Meets Inner City

When some of your students come from affluent families while others are struggling just to pay the rent and keep food on the table, meeting all students’ needs can bring an extra challenge to your program.

Prevent Summer Melt

Research indicates that 10 percent to 44 percent of high school graduates who’ve been accepted to college and intend to go don’t actually make it there come fall.

Connecting Students to Careers

Easily provide your high school students with the tools and resources they need to explore careers of interest.

Not So Simple Times

When I was a junior in high school, I went to my school counselor’s office and asked for the application packet for the University of Missouri. I knew that was where I wanted to go and ignored her suggestions that I apply to a few other places as well.

Change Behaviors by Changing Mindsets

Use the ASCA Mindsets & Behaviors database to increase college and career readiness through research-based standards.

Sort through a Difficult Choice

Help your students find the college that’s right for them with a card sort.

Explore AmeriCorps

AmeriCorps NCCC is a federal program that lets 18 to 24 year olds spend 10 months giving back, traveling the country and making a difference.

Six Steps to a Colossal Career Program

Motivate students to explore career options that will build on their passions and truly make them happy.

Dreams into Plans

An innovative, well-thought-out college- and career-planning program can help elementary school students take the first steps toward turning their career dreams into reality.

Solution-Focused College and Career Planning

Using solution-focused techniques can help students overwhelmed with the college and career decision-making process.

A Professional Wake-Up Call

Most parents think their children are exceptional. My oldest daughter, Kate, is doubly so. Considered intellectually gifted, she also has ADHD, anxiety and bipolar disorder, a triple whammy that has impeded her ability to reach her full academic potential and has left her vulnerable to severe depression as well as intense periods of mania.

Ballooning Feelings

A simple balloon can be the key to teaching children how to deal with their emotions and calming them down during a crisis.

The Special Education S.C.R.I.P.T.

It’s not a question of if you should be working with students with special needs but rather how best you can work with students with special needs.

Make Connections: Bridging Students to the Community

Learn tips for ensuring your referrals to community-based mental health providers are successful for students needing extra help.

Students With Asperger's Syndrome: Meet Them Where They Are

School counselors play a pivotal role in helping adolescent students with Asperger’s syndrome achieve academic, career and social/emotional success.

Students With Depression: Help Them Find Their Way Out

Depression is dangerous territory. Having entered it, kids need every bit of help they can get to survive and find their way out.

Students With Anxiety: Help Struggling Teens

Help teens with anxiety disorders realize that, at times, anxiety can be a good thing.

Lead Mental Health Efforts

When students’ mental health needs are properly addressed, students thrive. School counselors are in the ideal position to ensure this happens.

Student Spirituality

How can school counselors respect the separation of church and state called for in the Constitution, yet still address students’ spiritual and religious needs?

The Power of Positive

Help your students develop a positive outlook and flourish by using these five steps.

Take Action, Save Lives

A new Model School District Policy on Suicide Prevention, created by the Trevor Project in collaboration with ASCA, the National Association of School Psychologists and the American Foundation of Suicide Prevention, helps school counselors and administrators introduce or improve suicide-prevention policies in their schools or districts.

From Crayons to College

Creating a college-going culture in elementary school can be as easy as ABC.

Calm, Cool and Confident

Integrating mindful yoga into your school counseling program can help students both academically and emotionally.

Jump, Run, Learn

It’s widely acknowledged that physical activity can have a positive impact on students’ academic performance and social/emotional development. Learn how you can capitalize on this by bringing physical activity into your school counseling program.

Spread the Word

Marketing isn’t just for companies with multimillion-dollar budgets and a dedicated marketing specialist. It’s also important for school counselors to market their programs. 

A Solid Grounding

Providing academic achievement groups in elementary school can help students make a successful transition to middle school and become responsible for their own learning.

A Perspective Shift

Students who are having a difficult time reaching their goals often need a shift in perspective. Learn how you can help them make this adjustment.

Dispel the Myths

When helping students with disabilities search for and apply to colleges, it’s important to address a number of misperceptions about what colleges do and don’t offer. 

A Winning Transition Plan

Helping high school athletes navigate the college recruitment process requires some extra steps. Make sure you’re on top of eligibility requirements and parental expectations.

Helping Boys Cope

Boys may tell us “I’m fine,” and we may view them as easier than girls. But when it comes right down to it, boys also need our help dealing with the challenges of growing up.

School Counseling Pinspiration

Discover how to grow your school counseling program with Pinterest.

Make Your Mark

Corporations often spend massive amounts of money developing and promoting their brands. Although school counselors don’t have the same budgets, branding and marketing your program is every bit as important.

A Place to Belong

Robin Zorn, 2014 School Counselor of the Year, builds her school counseling program on helping students feel connected to the school – and each other.

From Position to Program

What once was a position in the schools, with wide-ranging duties, often clerical and administrative in nature, has moved to a comprehensive program approach, allowing school counselors to better meet students’ academic, career and social/emotional needs. 

Designated Data Mondays

School counseling leaders in Fairfax County Public Schools (Va.) are embarking on a yearlong, districtwide data training program for their elementary school counselors. Learn how you can implement a similar program in your district.

Using Results to Get Results

Making a presentation to your school board requires solid data, excellent presentation skills and the knowledge of what’s important to the school board. 

Address Adolescent Anger

Anger is as omnipresent as the air we breathe. But it can be particularly trying and even dangerous in adolescents, whose brains are generally not operating at the optimal level of responsible judgment. Anger-control sessions are required by the courts for many teen offenders, and schools often recommend such classes for students identified as behaviorally dysfunctional. But the truth of the matter is that anger management can be beneficial for most adolescents as they encounter the often uncontrolled emotions of the teenage years. School counselors deal with the ramifications of anger on a daily basis. They are compelled, if not mandated, to provide school counseling curriculum lessons on the topic as well as individual counseling for some students. But the best intervention may be group counseling.

Student Threat Assessment

Perhaps no single area of school safety is more critical than understanding how to put solid student threat assessment in place. And as a school counselor, that is probably the aspect of your work that brings chills to your spine most quickly. Rather than feeling on the spot because your school depends on you to make critical decisions about whether a student may pose a threat, you need to feel well-supported in this area. Although many schools are doing a credible job of the first steps of student threat assessment when a student is referred, most still have room for improvement. Let’s look at what a cutting-edge student threat assessment system might entail and your role within it.

Plans, Processes and Procedures

The tragedy in Newtown, Conn. on Dec. 14, 2012, prompted school systems around the country to re-examine their emergency operations plans (EOPs) to keep students, staff and visitors safe. With a view to helping develop high-quality emergency operations plans for schools, institutions of higher education and houses of worship, a number of partnering federal agencies recently issued three guides, based on extensive emergency planning work, that are customized to each type of community. 

Duct Tape Adventures

With an inexpensive roll of duct tape, a handful of solution-focused questions and a little imagination, you can help your small groups move beyond their problems to improve behavior, attendance and achievement.

When Is a Chair Not a Chair?

Thomas, a fourth-grade student, appears at your office door at 2:45 p.m. Once again, Thomas let his anger get the best of him, and his teacher sent him to you after he had an emotional outburst in the classroom. You want to help Thomas with some ideas on how he can get this anger under control, but you now face one of the most common issues school counselors across the country deal with every day – limited time.

Envision the Future

We believe everyone has the power within them to achieve anything he or she deeply desires. Believing in the impossible and affirming our intentions is an ongoing process. It takes work, and it takes creativity. Teaching others to do this for themselves can be an empowering counseling technique.

Music Makers

When it comes to using creative arts in the school counseling setting, I win as the biggest fan. Throughout my career I’ve worked hard to fill my school counselor’s tool belt with the best, most original and creative strategies to help students become successful life-long learners. But it wasn’t until I began to incorporate my love of singing and writing my own songs, raps and chants into my elementary school counseling program that something just clicked. The smiles on my students’ faces said it all.

1 Picture = 1,000 Words

Students are with other students all day long. As school counselors, we know social skills are essential to all students’ academic, career and personal/social success. Without social skills, students are at risk for a plethora of problems and feel out of sync with their peers. School counselors are a pivotal resource to help students acquire social skills and to coordinate and consult with stakeholders to implement these interventions across settings. One effective way of teaching social skills is by using visuals.

Ooching

In 2006, John Hanks, a vice-president at National Instruments (NI), a company that makes scientific equipment, was deciding whether to make a big bet on wireless sensors. The technology had a lot of promise: A wireless sensor might be installed in a coal mine, in lieu of a canary, to monitor methane levels. Or sensors could send information back from a rotating piece of equipment, like an oil drill head, where a wired solution would be impractical.

Building-Level Leadership

What does it mean to be a school counselor leader? Do you think of leadership in the context of supervision and evaluation only? Or do you think of a leader as one with the ability to organize, someone who can initiate innovative solutions to issues, communicate effectively, multi-task or relate to individuals from various linguistic and cultural backgrounds?

Director-Level Leadership

Generally, when school counselors move into the role of a school counseling district director, the training may be limited. However, district directors need to recognize the important contributions their school counseling training has provided them as they continue working toward equitable outcomes for all students in this new role. District directors have an impact on student achievement through the work they do to support school staff, the advocacy they provide to change district policies and practices, their ability to form strategic partnerships to support students and school counselors and their ability to bring about systemic change through their work.

The Messy Process of School Counselor Leadership

One day, the principal walks into your office and says, “You are so adored by everyone – students, parents and teachers – and you are so brilliant and talented that I have decided to let you make all school decisions. We will follow your lead without question.” Yes, that is the fantasy. You are named the Supreme Leader, without any fuss or effort. This fantasy resonates with several myths of leadership: great leaders are destined for greatness by innate talents, and leadership “just happens” because these wonderfully talented people rise to the occasion. That could happen to you, right?

Book Groups: Not Just for Kids

As a school counselor who works in two schools, I am always looking for new ways to support my students, their parents and the community. I believe building relationships with parents is as important as building them with students, and I want parents to know I am also a resource for them.

Social Spies

Middle school students are, by nature, awkward. Those most vulnerable to the ravages of the unpredictable environment of the middle school are those who fall high on the autism spectrum or those who are insecure in their social management skills. These children often fall prey to their more astute peers, who sniff out these weaknesses with blind abandon.

Literacy Lessons

When Grace got home, she seemed sad.
“What’s the matter?” asked Ma.
“Raj said I can’t be Peter Pan because I’m a girl.”
“That just shows what Raj knows,” said Ma. “A girl can be Peter Pan if she 
wants to.”
Grace cheered up, then later remembered something else. “Natalie says I can’t be Peter Pan because I’m black,” she said.
Ma looked angry. But before she could speak, Nana said, “It seems Natalie is another one who don’t know nothing. You can be anything you want, Grace, if you put your mind to it.”
– “Amazing Grace,” by Mary Hoffman & Caroline Binch

Put a piece of children’s literature in front of an elementary school counselor, and the avenues for social and emotional development seem endless. The book quoted above, “Amazing Grace,” lends itself to a lesson on discrimination to help children recognize and handle gender and racial bias. Or, you could use Grace’s story as part of a lesson on self-advocacy, identifying personal strengths or exploring points of view. Alternatively, the range of emotions described in “Amazing Grace” could lead to a discussion of feelings and conflict resolution strategies.

Powerful Stories

The broad spectrum of a K-12 school counseling degree and the everyday challenges educators encounter in a competition for a teenager’s attention in our electronic-device-driven society lead most secondary school counselors away from biblio-counseling at the high school level. Typically high school students enter with a love or hate attitude for reading. Unfortunately, even the students who love reading often can’t find the time in high school to select reading materials beyond classroom textbooks and standardized test preparation materials. As a teacher, mother and school counselor I have always surrounded myself with books. In my office now, there are more than 50 adolescent novels for students to borrow.

By the Book

Ever lost yourself in a good book? Or read a book that helped you look at something in a whole new light? You can help your students look at challenges in a whole new light as well through bibliocounseling. Some may think bibliocounseling is just for elementary school counselors, who read their students children’s books about recess bullies, taking turns and the like. While bibliocounseling can be extremely beneficial in an elementary school program, it also has a valid place in middle and high school counseling programs.

Common Crisis

The tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., shook our nation and our schools to their core. We’ve heard amazing tales of heroism on the parts of the teachers, administrators and school personnel. Many of us working in schools may wonder how we would cope or respond to such horrific events, while at the same time praying we never find out.

Chances are you’ll never face the trauma and terror experienced in Newtown that day. Yet you probably deal with “common crises” every day. For new school counselors or school counselor interns, these everyday crises may cause stress, anxiety, uncertainty and doubt.

Continue to Contribute

In June 2012, I retired from my long-time position as a school counselor in a wonderful public school system in a suburb north of Pittsburgh, Pa. I surprised people by what they assumed was a sudden decision. It wasn’t. I had decided early in the year that I would be leaving and then committed myself to having the most incredible year ever with my students, and I did. I tried new ideas, worked as hard as ever and went out with a flourish – exactly the way I wanted. Don’t misunderstand. I loved the children and the work. It was just time to move on. I knew leaving my job didn’t mean also leaving the field. After all, I still had a lot to offer to the school counseling profession. The passion still remained.

Keep the Fires Burning

Remember the old tagline for the Army – we do more before 9 a.m. than most people do all day? Perhaps now that the Army no longer uses it, school counselors should adopt it. With student-to-school-counselor ratios often in excess of 1,000-to-1, it’s no wonder school counselors are ripe for burnout. The high caseloads and demands upon their time often result in feelings of stress and being overwhelmed and unappreciated. If these negative thoughts and feelings continue, they may lead to school counselor burnout.

Meant for Mentors

As a new school counselor, you’re probably reveling in the fact that you don’t have any more school assignments or professors to deal with. No more exams or textbooks. You can finally get started doing what you’ve trained to do.

But then reality sets in. 

The Power of One

As the only school counselor at Sunset Ridge Elementary School in Glendale, Ariz., a K-8 Title 1 school of 650 students, Mindy Willard has, by any standard of measurement, a daunting role. Yet, she seems not to notice. “I am so lucky to have found my dream job,” says Willard, the 2013 School Counselor of the Year. “School counseling is the most amazing profession.”

Tweet Your Way to Professional Development

You’ve probably heard about Twitter. Perhaps you’ve even read a tweet or two. But you may wonder, with everything else you have on your plate, if spending time on Twitter is worth it for school counselors.

iAdvocacy

"This is the best week of school ever," said an excited freshman as she walked down the hallway after receiving her new iPad, a part of Archbold High School’s one-to-one iPad initiative. Archbold High School, in Archbold, Ohio, chose to focus its technology efforts on the iPad because of its growing popularity and use within the education and work sector. Apple reported in its July 2012 quarterly earnings it had sold approximately 1 million iPads to high schools and colleges during the previous quarter, a number that was double the amount of MacBook laptops sold to schools.

Online and On Target

Have you ever noticed that when you meet someone new, one of the first questions they ask is, “What do you do for a living?” Because my role is so unusual, I try to answer simply: “I’m a school counselor.” Sometimes, the questions stop right there. But often, people want to know where I work. When I explain that I work for an online high school, the next questions tend to be along the lines of, “What? How does that work?”

Get on the Blogging Bandwagon

Technology continues to transform our profession. One of the greatest areas of impact is in the professional development arena. Once the purview of central offices and local, state and national organizations, technology now allows school counselors from any part of the world to both seek out specific information as well as share their own ideas with the school counseling community. This is done through discussion boards, like the ASCA SCENE, through school counselor chats (#scchat) on Twitter and through an ever-increasing number of school counseling blogs.

Self-regulation Leads to Student Success

Helping students plan and prepare for their future is an ongoing process. As most school counselors know, it involves building students’ future aspirations, sharing information, helping them make plans and decisions and assisting them with the many steps involved in reaching their future goals. However, what is less well understood is why some students seem better able to stay focused and make good decisions during this process while others with high aspirations do not.

It's Never Too Early

Paying for college is often one of the leading financial worries for students and their parents. This isn’t surprising given The College Board’s most recent “Trends in College Pricing” report, which found that college costs at in-state four-year public institutions rose by 8.3 percent for the 2011–12 academic year alone, with tuition averaging $8,244. Despite the escalating cost of college, there is good news for students, parents, educators and school counselors; both the federal government and private sector have developed tools aimed at increasing awareness and transparency around planning, preparing, saving and paying for college.

Target Community Needs

About a year and a half ago, I attended a summit in Madison, Wis., composed primarily of local private business people. There were more than 100 attendees, with a smattering of educators present, including about five school counselors. We had all been invited to come together to hear national experts talk about how the preK–12 system is preparing (or not) the workforce of the future. Two of the featured speakers were Bill Symonds from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, who was there to present on his newly released report, “Pathways to Prosperity: Meeting the Challenge of Preparing Young Americans for the 21st Century,” and Jim Stone, the director of the National Research Center for Career and Technical Education. I was excited to hear from them, knowing I was going to gain some great insight into how to approach career counseling with my students. I wasn’t disappointed, and my excitement was growing as I listened to them and thought about my own practice.

Leadership Leads to Scholarship

School counselors know which students are leaders. You see their passion for community service, knack for creative writing and their drive for personal achievement. You see the intangible qualities that make certain students stand out. What you may not know is how to help them leverage those qualities into merit scholarships that colleges offer to attract high performers. College merit scholarships provide reduced or free tuition, sometimes free room and board and almost always significant leadership roles for students they view as scholars.

Learning That Works

In the wings of the mainstream education system career and technical education (CTE) has been focused on guiding students down the path of college and career readiness. The nature of CTE is to evolve with the needs of business and industry while meeting educational demands. CTE has often been a source of misunderstanding within the educational process. Multiple applications and delivery of CTE have led to some confusion.

Beyond the Traditional Factors

Learn how you can help your students construct a better list of potential colleges.

A Smart Start to the School Year

It was my first day as a school counselor. It wasn’t even 8 a.m., and I was already running through the hallways in my high heels. After I made a few unsuccessful laps around the kindergarten wing trying to catch a student on the loose, my principal stepped in to help. My mind was racing with thoughts of what a terrible first impression I was making and how my counseling skills had obviously failed since I was chasing a five year old. When we finally cornered the little guy, my principal turned to me with a big smile on her face and said, “I guess no one told you to wear your running shoes today.” I sighed a big sigh of relief, but before the day was over I had several more encounters with this student, including talking him down from his walk across the cafeteria tables at lunch.

Build Your Professional Identity

As you begin your school counseling career, it’s important to fully realize and promote how necessary school counselors are to a school’s success. For the entire school community to value a school counselor’s worth, you must learn to present a core, professional identity with clarity and decisiveness. This identity involves applying and integrating the knowledge, skills and techniques you learned throughout your school counselor education program.

Six Steps to Intern Supervision

It was my last year of graduate school and the moment I had been waiting for had finally arrived. I received my internship placement. I was thinking; “Now is my chance to apply the skills that I had learned.” Coupled with the excitement of being one step closer to being a school counselor was an overwhelming sense of angst. A series of questions ran through my mind: “Will I meet their expectations?” “What if I can’t handle the work?” “Will the students respond to me?” “How strong is my classroom management?” “How do I set up small groups?” “Will I learn everything that I can learn”? “Could I balance my internship and coursework?” “Am I ready?”

Start Your Year With the ASCA National Model

You work hard as a school counselor meeting students’ needs. You put in countless hours so you can spend more time with your students while also juggling the many responsibilities of running a comprehensive school counseling program and being a team player at your school. Sometimes, it seems overwhelming. It doesn’t have to be.

Setting Sail

What prepares a school counselor for that first salaried position? Reports from the field suggest that training on a three-masted schooner might not be a bad idea: hands-on opportunities to learn the ropes, deal with the chain of command, navigate in unfamiliar latitudes, sail through heavy weather – and to know where to find the lifeboats.

Dads on Duty

We’ve all seen the typical list of parents for the school dance chaperone list, the field day volunteers, the PTA officers. Overwhelmingly, these volunteers are students’ mothers. How do we bring the dads into the schools as well? Fathers want to be involved. They often just don’t know how to go about doing it.

Cultural Exchange, Student Growth

Take 45 high school students from the suburbs of Chicago, put them and all their gear on a bus and travel to a remote campground in South Dakota, watch as they connect with the residents of the Crow Creek Reservation, and what do you get? Unbroken bonds. Cross-cultural understanding. And student growth you can’t develop within the school walls.

Beat for Peace

It’s Thursday, after school. Anyone walking through the halls might hear some unusual sounds. Sounds of bean-pod rattles. Sounds of drums. Sounds of disengaged students becoming engaged in the school.

The students pick up their bean-pod rattles once more and experience a traditional African drumming timeline. “Yah boo yah-yah boo yah boo yah boo yah-yah.” Peeking into the room, you’d see 25 students, who at times seem to be shy, awkward, disruptive or academically disengaged, being transformed into cooperative, engaged and enthusiastic performers. This is Beat for Peace, a drum circle program that’s helping at-risk elementary students.

Fertile Ground

More than a thousand years ago, the Hohokam Indians expanded canals west from the Santa Cruz River, bringing agriculture into what is now Barrio Hollywood west of downtown Tucson Ariz. Father Kino brought fruit trees from the Mediterranean to the Tucson Basin in the late 1600s as he traveled northward up the Santa Cruz. Today, although the Santa Cruz sits dry, the students of Manzo Elementary School continue the area’s rich agricultural heritage, growing many of the same heirloom crops and fruit trees irrigated by rainwater stored in large cisterns.

Bullying 101

When bullying comes into play, an entire school can develop an environment of fear and disrespect. In this environment, students have difficulty learning, feel insecure, dislike school, and they perceive that teachers and staff have little control and don’t care about them.

Address Bullying: Who's in Charge?

It used to be that school counselors might have only dealt with the occasionally bullying question. It used to be, too, that when most of us thought of bullying, we pictured the schoolyard bully. Think Scut Farkus in the 1983 TV movie “A Christmas Story.” But, at the dawn of the millennium bullying is understood to mean a wide range of behaviors that would not have been defined beyond the iconic schoolyard bully even as recently as that last quarter of the 20th century. What we understand today to be bullying could not have been so defined a mere 25 years ago, in part because the technological means by which much bullying happens today – smart phones, the Internet and social networking platforms – simply did not exist.

Prevent and Address Cyberbullying Behaviors

Bullying behavior among kids from elementary, middle and high school has expanded beyond what parents and teachers may have experienced in their youth. Teasing and name calling have grown into full-fledged attacks spread wide by the use of the Internet, a form of abuse commonly known as cyberbullying.

Building Motivation From Within

Anyone trying to lose weight, save for retirement, get better grades, graduate from college or accomplish any other major goal knows intrinsic motivation isn’t always enough. If you’re tyring to achieve a major goal or help others achieve goals, you could benefit from knowing about motivation, influence and individual/system change (MIC). As a school counselor, you already know and utilize more MIC skills than other school employees. By acquiring several additional skill sets, you will increase your value to the school and students even more.

Motivating the Unmotivated

Standing in the doorway, tall and lanky, shifting from one foot to the other, hair going in all directions at once, old sweatshirt and jeans looking like they haven’t been washed since new, he says to me, “Hey, Ms. H., I can’t stay. Gotta go watch my baby bro.” You have to admit to yourself that tutoring after school isn’t going to work.

Craft Your Vision

The school counselor's role has been shaped in part by quasi-administrative responsibilities, large student-to-school-counselor caseloads and never-ending paperwork. These external demands have left many school counselors feeling frustrated because they are unable to align their current role with appropriate school counseling duties suggested by ASCA. Although no silver bullet remedy exists, school counselors who feel less than satisfied with their current position can take some basic steps to transform their role into one that is instrumental in supporting the academic mission of their schools and the developmental needs of all students, especially those students who have been marginalized by the current system.

The Motivation Behind Achievement

Reaching the level of School Counselor of the Year finalist takes more than accomplishing the normal rigors demanded of school counseling professionals. Although awards and accolades may be nice incentives, what really inspires these school counselors and keeps them going in an already-challenging profession? Why isn’t “good enough” good enough?

Making Her Own Luck

Nicole Pfleger will be the first to tell you she is lucky. And with supportive administrators, active school parents, enthusiastic colleagues and strong county advocacy, who would disagree? But her recognition as ASCA’s 2012 School Counselor of the Year has to do with much more than luck. Pfleger’s success stems from her dedication to her students and their needs, her compassion and leadership and her masterful use of a comprehensive school counseling program. Her boundless enthusiasm doesn’t hurt, either.

Bridging the Gap

Scenario: Recently, I have had some difficulties with my administrator. She has accused me of keeping secrets from her. She feels I need to share with her all that is going on in my school counseling office so she is updated. She indicates that to be an effective leader she needs to be informed of what is happening in the school since she will ultimately be held responsible. I have tried to explain to her that what happens in my office is confidential. This has caused a big rift in our working relationship, and yet, I don’t want to betray the confidentiality of the students who come to me. Any suggestions?

Helping Homeless Youth

Every year, hundreds of thousands of American families become homeless, including more than 1.5 million children. These children may be hidden from our view, but they are living in shelters, cars, motels and campgrounds. They are young and scared, and their parents and families are frustrated and desperate. As the gap between housing costs and income continues to widen and housing foreclosures increase, more and more families are at risk of homelessness.

Collaborate Vertically

As school counselors, we all understand the importance of collaboration. We consult on challenging cases, get together at professional development events and share best practices with our colleagues. What is often lacking, however, is vertical collaboration – from elementary to middle schools and middle schools to high schools. We may get together briefly to plan transition activities from one level to the next, but that’s often where it ends.

Hand in Hand

Because the delivery of a comprehensive school counseling program is relatively new to many educators, school counselors must continually educate others about their roles. As a result, school counselors can often feel challenged or threatened when new positions encroach on what is perceived as the “school counseling turf.” Graduation coaches who are hired to work in the school or college coaches who have been hired by students’ parents may seem like threats to the school counseling profession, but school counselors can work collaboratively with these individuals to determine how to best meet students’ needs

The Magic Formula

It comes as no surprise that both school counselors and principals want students to learn, achieve and graduate career- and college-ready. But how do we collaborate to accomplish this goal? At Cary High School, Cary, N.C., the principals and school counselors realized there was significant overlap in how we both work with our students.

Building Trust and Respect

When working to improve students’ lives, school counselors find teaming with other student services personnel can make a dramatic difference. Whether addressing students’ career goals, academic issues or personal/social issues, it’s easy to see how other faculty members and student services personnel can lend a helping hand.

Let them Lead

Using the ASCA National Model components as a guide, you can involved students in leadership skill-building activities, ensuring student leadership becomes an integral part of your comprehensive school counseling program.

A Critical Combination

School counselors play a vital role in integrating 21st-century skills and training into the school environment.

Digital and Media Literacy

Developing critical thinking and communication skills are vital for 21st-century students. Discover how focusing on online pranks with your students can lead to media literacy and ethical responsibility.

Making Sense Out of Dollars

Educating students in financial literacy and how their educational, occupational and lifestyle choices affect their future earning power puts students on a path to financial success.

The Adolescent Brain

As the research on adolescent brain development becomes mainstreamed and more schools respond, students -- and their teachers and parents -- will have a different experience.

Kids Supporting Kids

As much as we might wish we could protect our students from exposure to death or loss, that’s an impossible task. Children lose relatives, pets, friends or acquaintances all the time, and it’s rare for students to go through their entire school career without being confronted with loss at some point. Often, multiple students are affected at the same time.

Youth in Crisis

Hurricanes. School shootings. A parent’s death. Bombings. The world can be a tough place to handle during times of crisis, especially for children. Crisis counseling is short term, with a goal of helping the student reach a sense of normalcy. A crisis situation lasts anywhere between four and six weeks, with an expectation that the sooner you intervene, the faster the student will return to normalcy with newly acquired coping skills.

Lend a Hand

It’s not surprising that a school counselor would want to help others, but ever since adolescence I knew that working with individuals who had faced tragedy and hardship was something I felt compelled to do. Community service led me to where I am today, working with students and their families within the educational system. As an officer of the Pennsylvania School Counselors Association (PSCA), I had learned through ASCA that school counselors would soon be able to be disaster mental health volunteers for the American Red Cross, a position that was previously reserved for licensed mental health workers only. That was all I needed to hear. At that moment I knew this would be my next venture.

Five Steps to Prepare

It may be the Boy Scouts who’ve adopted the motto of “Be Prepared,” but when it comes to building emergencies – be it a gunman, a natural disaster or some other crisis affecting your school – we all need to be prepared. Although many districts have an administrative position that oversees emergency preparedness, in reality everyone has a piece of the puzzle, including school counselors. We all need to contribute our parts to what will allow our buildings to mobilize immediately, respond seamlessly and recover smoothly.

Support Traumatized Students

Students lives are all too often touched by trauma and loss. It is estimated that 90 percent of students have experienced the death of a family member, relative or someone they cared about by the time they graduate from high school, with 40 percent experiencing the death of someone their own age. Children also experience traumatic events in their lives, such as parents’ divorce, domestic violence, child maltreatment, parental substance abuse and accidents.

Childhood Observers of Domestic Violence

Regardless of whether children are exposed to domestic violence through direct physical abuse or are observers only, they can be emotionally traumatized by the violence in the home. Childhood observers of domestic violence can display some of the same responses as physically abused children and may affect their ability to function in school.

Careers: Building Your Child's Future Together

When planning a career with your child, consider the following:

• Work situations and skills needed for employment are constantly changing.
• Almost half of the working population expects to change jobs in the next three years.
•  Retraining and upgrading skills will be a requirement for maintaining employment.
• Two-thirds of the jobs created today will require education beyond high school.
• The worker of tomorrow must be able to work as a team member, communicate, solve problems, use technologies, adapt to change and be drug-free.
• Career development is a lifelong process.

Schoolwide Bully Prevention

Bullying has become one of the most serious issues affecting our schools today. Take these eight steps to put a schoolwide bullying prevention program in place at your school. 

Positive Parenting Tips for Summer

For 180 days a year, school counselors work with students on how to express their feelings in appropriate ways, how to deal with their anger and how to cope with stressful situations. But what happens when school is not in session, especially during the extended summer break? As a parent, you are the most influential person in your children's lives, and how you work through family issues can have a positive influence on behavior throughout the family as well as the school. Following are some parenting tips to work on throughout the summer months.

Supporting LGBTQ Faculty: The School Counselor's Role

As school counselors, we should understand the unique issues of our lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) students. These students often struggle with their identities during adolescence, which can be an additional burden as they manage the normal teenage issues of independence, identity and role confusion, experimentation and emotional upheaval. LGBTQ students are often at higher risk for verbal and or physical harassment, academic failure, school truancy, dropping-out, homelessness, social isolation, and alcohol and/or drug use.

But what about LGBT faculty at your school? Should school counselors also be helping them? Is it ethical to provide support and services to them as well as to LGBTQ students?

Pressure to Conform

When the two girls decided to hold hands in public, it was a momentous step in their lives. They didn’t anticipate the crowd of students who would surround them in the hallway chanting, “Kiss, kiss, kiss.” And when they left their high school to return home that day, they had no idea one girl’s parents would beat her for the transgression.

Educate Staff to Save Lives

Before I became a high school counselor, I was a middle school teacher, excited and ready to inspire my students’ hearts and minds. If I wanted to be a successful educator, I knew I would have to develop meaningful and positive relationships with all students to ensure they felt cared for, welcomed and safe at school. I noticed immediately how visible cliques created a separation of power isolating any student who was different or seemed like an easy target.

Gay and Lesbian School Counselors: Making a Difference

One person. It hardly seems too much to ask.

“The research says that if LGBTQ students know that there is one person in the school who is supportive of them – gay or straight – it can make a difference in their mental health,” says Ken Jackson, head school counselor at Decatur High School near Atlanta, Ga. The positive effect extends to grades, attendance and academic aspirations, according to a national survey by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) and increases with more support.

Cultivate Respect

Some may think elementary school students are too young to worry about addressing issues surrounding gay and lesbian students. Not so, experts say. It’s never too early to begin teaching children about respecting differences. When an elementary school student has questions related to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) issues, it is critical that you are prepared to answer these questions in a way that fosters healthy dialog, critical thinking and inclusiveness. With that in mind, your conversations must include all students and perspectives to create a safe and supportive school climate. Several strategies will help you and your school community have positive conversations with elementary school students around LGBTQ issues.

Safe and Sound

We have seen the news and heard the statistics, and they are not pretty. The 2009 national school climate survey from the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) reports that nearly two-thirds of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) students reported they felt unsafe in school because of their sexual orientation, and more than a third felt unsafe because of their gender expression. Also, LGBTQ students who were more frequently harassed because of their sexual orientation or gender expression were almost half a grade lower than students who were less often harassed.

Social Networking: Blessing or Curse?

I cannot begin to imagine where technology will be in the next five or 10 years. To say that technology has changed our culture and way of life is probably the understatement of the century. Some of the communication devises we watched on “Star Trek” in the ’60s are part of our everyday life today. Our world has become even smaller because of the Internet. Family photos and videos are sent through thin air from all over world in a matter of seconds. So what is next? Where will we be? How will we live? And, most importantly, how can we make sure our children are benefiting from technology rather than suffering because of technology.

Leading the Way

For many students in north Memphis, Tenn., Randy A. McPherson, Ed.D.,  leads the way – the way out of generational cycles of poverty, the way into futures they hadn’t even imagined. ASCA’s 2011 School Counselor of the Year has spent his 15-year school counseling career with Trezevant Career and Technology Center. He has transformed a program that was stuck in a 1970s shop-class mentality into a model school with 15 career-cluster programs that prepare students to fill the high-skill, high-paying jobs in the Memphis job market. “He has helped change the culture of a school serving at-risk students by providing a data-driven, comprehensive school counseling program that supports and challenges all students to excel in school and through their transition into life after high school,” said Betty Russell, Trezevant’s CEP instructor, now retired.

Speaking Up for School Counseling

Speak up, reach out, and always use your data. With these approaches, four ASCA 2011 School Counselor of the Year finalists get out the message that school counselors matter, within their schools and beyond. These professionals make advocacy for their field an integral and ongoing part of their working lives. They know that when administrators and teachers learn about the value school counselors can bring to education, great things can happen – new programs, collaboration and measurable student success.

Taking it to the Streets

Ask any school counselor to articulate the value of “community outreach” and you’re likely to get one answer: It matters a lot. “There’s power in the community,” said TeShaunda Hannor-Walker, Ph.D., school counselor, Northside Elementary, Albany, Ga. “When we get out in it, the community responds back in ways that can really help in the academic progress of students.”

The Transition to Middle School: Tips for Parents

Students entering middle school are experiencing a tremendous amount of change. Just a few months ago, they had only one or two teachers. Now they may have seven or eight. Their bodies are growing and developing every day. Added to the equation are the hormones and emotions that accompany the physical changes. This all can create the perfect storm for unrest at home and at school. Although they are beginning to look like adults, middle school students still need parental and adult guidance and assistance. Here are a few tips for parents and caregivers as they navigate the middle school years.

Beyond Standard Service Learning

When schools and communities partner on service learning projects, students – and the community – gain additional benefits.

Seven Solutions for Working With Parents

Imagine the following scene:  You’re near the end of a day of busily managing and delivering your comprehensive school counseling program. This included a dozen advising appointments, three large-group guidance lessons and consultation/collaboration with the school psychologist on disability issues. Then, as you’re crunching some accountability numbers and getting ready to slip away to run an afterschool social-skills group, a parent suddenly appears at your door. Of course, the timing is bad, but you realize part of your school counseling role and responsibility includes collaboration and consultation with parents. How do you react to and approach this added stress, this spontaneous professional duty?

Three Steps for Dealing With Helicopter Parents

The over-protective parent. The helicopter parent. The pushy parent. There are many terms to describe overly involved parents. These parents hover over their children, watching their every move, preventing and solving their children’s problems. These parents may insist the kindergarten class replace recess for an extra math lesson, lobby that their children skip a grade because they are “gifted,” make excuses for their children not completing homework assignments, request their children move to another class to be with their friends, give teachers pointers on their teaching, expect school staff to respond to e-mails within the hour. The list seems to go on.

Breed Success With Community Schools

At around 3:10 p.m., after a few minutes into the interview with Marybeth Kachnic, related service counselor at Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School, Bronx, N.Y., there were insistent knocks on her door that she tried to but could not ignore. It was a student, about 17 years old. He politely apologized for interrupting, saying his day had been horrible and he couldn’t leave without seeing her. He added that he hadn’t had any coffee, could she give him some. She invited him into her office, replying “I’ll give you some coffee.” There was none, and she brewed him a mild cup while he played a rap song on her computer. She asked if that was the song he liked so much, and he nodded. “There’s a new one that I like even better.” She put a pile of snack pretzels on the table, and he grabbed a handful. She handed him the coffee with milk and the sugar jar, gently lecturing him about the perils of sugar. Joking, he put in three spoonfuls, took the cup, some more pretzels and she walked him to the social worker’s office next door. Before leaving, he apologized again for the interruption. “She is the coolest person in the school. She’s really, really nice; I really needed to talk with her.”

Redefining Latino Parent Involvement

As educators, we often find ourselves throwing our hands up in despair unable to answer the golden question: What do we do to get parents involved? This frustration is compounded further for schools with a significant Latino population. Factors such as language and cultural barriers make it difficult to establish working school-parent relationships. This is a growing concern as the rate of Latino students continues to increase. To meet the needs of a changing population, schools must shift their approach. The traditional definition of parent involvement is no longer valid in today’s changing cultural and economic landscape. What worked 40, 20 or even 10 years ago is no longer applicable to today’s students.

The Importance of Self-Care

Scenario:
You’ve noticed several changes, both physical and mental, in one of your colleagues. You’re concerned about her drastic weight loss and have also noticed her difficulty in maintaining a conversation. This colleague currently shows a lack of focus and a lack of empathy for the students under her care, which is a drastic change from her previous commitment to her students. She has shared with you how much stress she is going through at home and at work. This stress has affected her relationship with her students, her colleagues and her family, resulting in poor professional performance.

Sustain Your Momentum

Once you’ve got the basics of a comprehensive school counseling program in place, it’s no time to relax. Follow these 10 tips to sustaining your ASCA National Model program momentum.

College Admissions in a Nutshell

If you're a new high school counselor overwhelmed by your new job and new school and you're also busy helping students with college admissions, here are some basics you need to know about the admissions process.

College Cachet: Is It Worth It?

Each spring, high school students begin the agonizing process of determining which colleges they should apply to and the one to attend. This time is hectic for school counselors too. College admissions officers need to be contacted, speaking engagements arranged and meetings with anxious seniors and their (more anxious) parents seem endless.

Future Planning

UtahFutures, an Internet-based education- and career-planning system, helps guide Utah students in developing comprehensive career and education plans, starting in elementary school.

10 Tips for Career Day Success

All school counselors want to provide their kids with an amazing education on the world of work. But, let’s face it; we can’t always have helicopters landing in our school yard. OK, it’s true, this actually happened at one of my career days, but they can’t all be that exciting. The point is that even doing a small career day can change the course of a child’s life, and that is what it’s all about. It’s all in how you prepare and plan. If you are like I was in the beginning and feeling a little lost, follow these 10 steps for a successful elementary school career day.

If the College Fits, Recommend It

More students are finding community college is a viable option for their continuing education. School counselors need to be aware of the type of student who will excel in this environment and the advantages this option has for students.

Addressing Autism Spectrum Disorder

Learn to help students with autism spectrum disorders achieve their IEP goals and become productive members of society via proven strategies and programs.

Help Others Help Themselves

Teaching autistic students how to be self-advocates can help them learn their educational rights – and ensure they get what they need to be successful in school.

Fix Six Social Deficits

Collaborating with speech therapists and classroom teachers can lead to much more effective ways of addressing social skills for students with an autism spectrum disorder.

Making Sense Out of Sensory Processing Disorder

Sensory processing disorder can affect one in 20 students and is sometimes misdiagnosed as a mental health disorder. Discover how to help these students achieve in school despite their disorder.

Empowered High School Parents

Encouraging parental involvement in elementary school isn’t always easy, but it is possible. However, keeping parents involved through the high school years can provide additional challenges.

Is Your Program RAMP-ready?

The Recognized ASCA Model Program (RAMP) recognizes exemplary school counseling programs that follow the ASCA National Model. Implementing the ASCA National Model takes three to five years, so don’t rush to mail in your application unless you are certain your program is fully established.

Remember, the RAMP designation recognizes your program, not individual school counselors. If your program successfully answers the question, “How are students different because of what school counselors do?” then you're ready to show the world that you are “ramped up.”

School Counseling Beyond the Borders

Ready for a new challenge in your career? Consider leaving the United States and working as a school counselor in an international school.

Reaching Out, Measuring Up

Obtaining RAMP status is more than just getting a plaque to hang in the school counseling office. RAMP programs make a profound difference in how the school counseling program and the school counselors are perceived.

A Districtwide Effort

School counselors running comprehensive, data-driven programs have the ability to make a positive and lasting impact students’ academic. If you are already following the ASCA National Model for comprehensive school counseling programs, then you have taken the first step in becoming a Recognized ASCA Model Program (RAMP). Now it is time to come together as a profession and show that what we, as school counselors, are essential in helping ensure all students achieve at high levels. One way to do this is to RAMP up your school and your district.

RAMP and Student Achievement

Because we constantly preach the “how are students different as a result of what you did?” mantra, it’s only fair to also preach the “how are schools different as a result of a comprehensive school counseling program?” mantra. Recent research examined this issue, focusing on student achievement and school performance at elementary schools that have received the Recognized ASCA Model Program (RAMP) status.

Make It Work

Response to Intervention is bandied about a lot these days. But what exactly is it, and where do school counselors fit in?

In Transit

Freshman transition programs give ninth-grades much-needed support for a successful high school career.

Advisory Advice

John Wooden, one of the greatest basketball coaches of all time, instructed his players to “be quick, but don’t hurry.” With this simple philosophy he turned around the UCLA men’s basketball program and won 10 national titles. In schools, as in basketball, “hurry” often means movement without purpose.

Mission: A Drop in Dropouts

Study after study shows American high school students aren’t learning what they need to succeed as citizens, college students or workers. Overall student achievement is low, and achievement gaps are wide. And compared with students in other nations, U.S. students perform relatively poorly. The intense activity at the federal, state and district levels is aimed at raising the level of student achievement and ensuring students can be prepared for colleges, careers and adult life.

Organized Students = Successful Students

“I know my homework is in here somewhere?”
“Can I go to my locker and get my notebook?”
“I need to go back to school and get my science book.”
“You had three weeks to complete the assignment.”

To educators working with disorganized students, these statements are all-too-familiar. As school counselors, we work with students on a daily basis who face challenges impeding their academic progress: discipline, attendance, motivation and, for some, disorganization. These are the students who can never find their homework, are unprepared for class, leave things at school and home, forget what assignments they need to complete and procrastinate.

Power, Promise and Potential

School-based service learning has the power to improve students’ academic achievement and character development while helping the community at large.

Pies & Posters, Candy & Caring

At Green Mountain High School, the BIONIC Team infusing a climate of caring, by reaching out to students, faculty and other schools going through tough times.

Making Connections -- Drop by Drop

By connecting students with the world at large, one middle school discovered just how caring and involved teenagers can become.

Take Time to be Kind

What a difference a year can make. Between spring 2008 and spring 2009, student achievement at our district’s five K-4 schools improved 5 percent in reading and 12 percent in math, rising from below the state average to 6 percentage points above. At our three Title I schools, students outperformed state expectations by more than 20 percentage points.

Foster Success

You play a critical role in improving educational success for students in foster care. Learn how to best serve these children.

Immigration Integration

Immigrant students have some unique needs, as well as the need for traditional school counseling services. How can you be sure you’re addressing all their requirements?

Sticks and Stones

One school learns just how effective No Name Calling Week can be for addressing bullying and name calling concerns, especially when it's a schoolwide effort. 

The STEM Career Launch Pad

Science, technology, engineering and math careers are growing at a faster rate than many other careers. Help your students, especially girls and minorities, explore the valuable career path.

The Undocumented Student: Dreams and Challenges

It was the fall of her junior year, and the heaviness of her reality hit Cristina. What would she do with her life? She had heeded what her teachers and school counselors had recommended: “Take the most challenging courses because you are definitely college material.” Cristina was indeed academically prepared; now the challenge was getting into college and funding a college education. Cristina had followed her school counselor’s advice every step of the way. She attended any workshop or presentation that even closely resembled “money for college.”

Show Them the Money

“Why does college cost so much?” asked Anthony, a rising senior. He sat in my office inquiring about the steps to begin searching for the perfect college. His task became even more cumbersome as he wondered how he would pay for college. How can you, as a school counselor, help students like Anthony find the money needed to pay for college?

Average Students Need Apply

“There is a college for everyone.” Not only do I always tell my students this, but I firmly believe it myself. Although finding the “right college” is difficult for even the most accomplished student, it is nonetheless more challenging for the average student. Many colleges advertise that they are looking for the best and the brightest, but colleges rarely say, “C students apply here.”

Depending on Data

In 2009 an estimated 3.32 million students graduated from high school, and an estimated 15.1 million of them will pursue an undergraduate degree, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. This is the highest number of high school graduates this country has ever seen. Behind this record number of students are thousands of school counselors who help them reach the American dream of attending college. But did these school counselors use the data available to them to facilitate these transitions, or did it just it just happen by chance?

A Commitment to Growth

The NBPTS certification process is rigorous – but rewarding. Get some helpful tips for completing the process.

A Positive Outlook

Learn to develop a positive, engaging school environment through Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports.

Bouncing Back

Focusing on three easy areas can help you ensure students develop the needed resiliency to deal with what life may throw their way.

Do You Need a Doctor in the House?

If you don’t ever plan on teaching at the college level is there any reason to pursue a doctoral degree?

A Winding Path

For some, the journey to becoming a school counselor is a long, circuitous one.

All RAMP-ed Up

A school counselor shares lessons learned from applying for – and achieving – Recognized ASCA Model Program (RAMP) status.

Student Support and Community Collaboration

Knowing your role in helping students with mental health disorders goes a long way to ensuring students get the help they need – in the most appropriate manner.

Nurturing Successful Partnerships

Getting a mental health agency into your school is only the first step. Several things can be done to ensure the partnership is running smoothly and effectively.

Meeting Students' Needs

A team approach is the best way to help a student with mental health issues make the most out of school and home life. As a member of this team, the school counselor has some vital roles.

Cause for Concern?

When is a teen’s behavior a warning sign of mental health concerns, and when is it just typical teen behavior. The answers to two questions can help you decide when to investigate further.

Supporting Students With Depression

School counselors have an important role in helping students with depression – and their parents – before, during and after their diagnosis.

The Parental Influence

When working with children whose parents have a major mental illness it’s important to know how living in this situation affects children and how you can help.

Building Bridges

Partnering with mental health providers can help you bridge the achievement gap among at-risk students.

Understanding Mental Disorders in Youth

While only mental health professionals can diagnose mental health disorders, it’s helpful for school counselors to be familiar with the characteristics of the disorders.

Victimizing the Victim

Recently in my school a group of fourth-grade boys attacked a fifth-grade African-American girl on the playground after school one day. They kicked and hit her and called her racial slurs. She ended up in the hospital for a few days. The boys were expelled from the school; however, one of the boys' parents demanded their son be able to come back to school. (The reason for this demand is unknown). The girl had returned to school by this time, and she had been told the boys had all been expelled. I wanted to talk to the girl before this particular boy was allowed to return so she could at share how she was feeling and how she might respond to his return. However, administration told me I couldn’t discuss this boy’s return with her because of some legal issues. And the district lawyer said she couldn’t be warned because she had said some things back to the boys during the attack and therefore didn’t warrant any notice of the boy's return to school. This decision disturbs be greatly; not being allowed to talk with the girl about the pending return of her attacker seemed unethical.

Good Groups: Helping Hispanic Girls

Regardless of the focus of a particular small group, there are some universal truths to be realized and lessons to be learned.

Let's All Go to the Movies

Using cinematherapy in a school counseling program can help students in both small groups and large groups address issues and feelings in a unique, effective way.

Practical Tips for Practicum Students

If you have the opportunity to start a small-group project during your internship or practicum, here are few lessons learned to take into consideration

Good Groups: It's Elementary

It’s at the elementary level that we most often hear about small-group counseling programs. Follow these tips to help make your elementary-level program the best it can be.

Girls and STEM Careers

Get five tips to help you open the gates and increase the diversity of students entering the science, technology, engineering and math pipeline.

Good Groups -- The High School Way

Many high school counselors say they don’t have the support of administration to do groups at their level. One Virginia high school shares its successful formula for a small-group counseling program.

The Urban Challenge

Getting impoverished, minority students to consider college is one thing. But an urban school counselor’s work doesn’t stop there. It’s also imperative to ensure they have the skills they need to succeed in college.

An Ounce of Prevention

Prepare your students today to deal with the challenges they’ll face when entering the workforce.

High-Flying Careers

A middle school career unit with a travel agency theme helps students successfully journey to the career of their choice.

An Impossible Dream?

Much of El Paso, Texas, may be economically challenged, but their dreams know no boundaries. A districtwide program beginning in preschool, helps these students plan for – and achieve – post-secondary education.

Tips for Types

Different types of students will thrive at different types of colleges. Get some tips for helping your students examine what schools may be right for them.

Going Test-Free

At many small, liberal-arts colleges across the country, admission officers are moving beyond SAT scores to focus on other aspects of an applicant’s record.

Community Ties

Community colleges can provide a wealth of opportunities for students looking for less expensive or less overwhelming college options.

Tracking Trends

When it comes to college admissions, some new trends could make a world of difference in how school counselors work with college-going students.

College in High School

For both highly motivated and at-risk students, dual-enrollment programs provide a wealth of benefits.

Admission Impossible?

The perception these days is that it’s increasingly difficult for students to get into college. In some ways, this is true. In others, not so much.

Out of State, Not Out of Mind

Learn to make the most of a visit by an out-of-state college rep – both for yourself and your students.

Destination Graduation

When I took my first school counseling job the first thing I did was a needs assessment. What I learned was disheartening. The previous year the high school our middle school fed into posted a 50 percent dropout rate. The train was leaving the station without our students. I did some research on dropouts and discovered most students first decide to drop out by eighth grade and that kids who see a connection between school and their futures are more likely to stay in school and finish. So I set off to develop a career intervention. Clearly I needed to do something.

Winning the Parent-Child-School Trifecta

When it comes to getting parents more involved in their child’s education, it all comes down to communication. Finding out what they want and then letting them know you can meet their needs goes a long way to building successful relationships.

Grounding Helicopter Parents

As more and more schools struggle with helicopter parents, school counselors can lead the charge to help parents let their kids stand on their own two feet.

The Technology Twist

Using various high-tech communication methods, in conjunction with more traditional means of reaching parents, can go a long way toward increasing parental involvement in the schools.

Pulling In Parents

If you build it, will they come? Maybe, but when it comes to parent participation programs, it certainly helps to find out just what exactly the parents want and need you to build.

Making the First Move

Engaging parents during the kindergarten transition can set the course for successful parent involvement throughout a child’s entire school career.

Overcoming Obstacles

Reaction, response, reflection. These were all words used to describe the multitude of opinion papers my professors assigned during college and graduate school, and I was good at responding. I have a variety of opinions, and I usually revel in the opportunity to share. But when I tried to reflect upon my first year without formal schooling, my first year “on the job,” I hit a wall. I finally realized that with all of the challenges I’ve faced during my first year of school counseling, I have purposely tried not to look back, tried not to reflect, for fear that I would lose my motivation and be unable to move forward. However, we all know that isn’t a good strategy.

Stepping Into the Future

Graduation is rapidly approaching. Thinking toward the future and contemplating how guidance and counseling can be provided most effectively, efficiently and enjoyably, I suppose the possibilities are endless. For me, this is an exciting time to enter the school counseling profession. What I see is a profession overflowing with outstanding leaders ready to meet challenges head on, increasingly unifying and boldly strutting into the 21st century.

Building on the Past, Embarking on the Future

We’ve all heard about the benefits of lifelong learning and the fact that most people will have numerous careers in their lifetimes. I’m a living testament to both those facts. Call it a mid-life crisis, courage or insanity, but I chose to leave my successful career as a graphic design consultant to become a school counselor. Why would I throw away 25 years of experience to start over?

In the Trenches

There are some things you will never forget as a new school counselor: The first time a student tells you she is pregnant, your first call to Child Protective Services, the first time a student excitedly runs into your office to tell you he’s been accepted into college or the first time you have to face a student death. School counselors encounter these things on a frequent basis, but they become no less challenging and, in some cases, no less exciting as time passes.

Surprising Circumstances

School counselors may not go into the profession expecting to be leaders in the school system, but they can be -- and need to be.

Making It Personal

The future seems to be on many minds these days. Looking at curriculum and school programs for the future, while incorporating 21st-century skills, seems to be the priority. Everyone seems to be looking toward what the future will demand from our students and what skills they will have to offer. Educators envision a competitive future where students may change career paths multiple times. Students predict a future full of new technologies where people appear to them on computer screens at the push of a button.

Balancing Required with Desired

As a master’s-level student aspiring to become a school counselor, I had an assignment to investigate the role of a school counseling in the school setting. I interviewed three different school counselors from varying grade levels. My requirements were to inquire about their perceptions of the field and their involvement in it. This overall experience brought up the topic of school counselors’ role in the school and their identity.

Looking to the Horizon

The professional school counselor plays a vital role in schools across the nation by advocating for students to ensure all students have the necessary resources to grow and achieve to the best of their ability. The fast-paced, high-tech society we live in today creates a number of new challenges for the school counselor to contend with while testing remains a top priority in schools.

Building Bridges

Education is my life and passion. I began my career as an elementary school teacher. After five years of teaching, I have come to realize school is more than a place where students learn academics. I realized that if my students are having social or environmental difficulties, I must address them or I am not going to be able to get them to learn. How can I do my job as a teacher if students are afraid to come to school because of a bully? Students are coming to schools with different situations then what was experienced 20 years ago. As a society, we are implementing new security measures and laws to accommodate for our changing world. Updating security is important, but I believe we also need to update the way schools are organized inside the building.

The Most Significant Lesson

As you know, the tantrum-throwing toddler is usually heard well before she is seen. Her loud whining, crying and screaming carry throughout the store. If you actually get to see her, she is on the floor, lying on her back, flailing her arms and legs all around. She is audibly and physically protesting some displeasure.

Learning to Triage

As the daughter of a 26-year veteran teacher and a former math teacher, many would say working in the education field is in my blood. I agree. Upon graduating from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, I began my career in education as a third-grade teacher. After teaching in the classroom for four years, I decided to return to graduate school to pursue a master’s degree in school counseling

Weaving the Community Tapestry

Following a crisis, either large or small, schools need to work with parents and the community to recover and rebuild.

When You’re Too Affected to Be Effective

It’s not just the students who go through tough times following a crisis. School counselors need to keep in mind that they, too, will be affected by the tragedy.

The Grieving School

For a school coping with a student or faculty death or other crisis, the following tips can help fine-tune a crisis management plan.

Virginia Tech: The Aftermath of a Tragedy

Once you get through the initial days following a crisis, you may think the hard work is done. However, weekly, monthly and yearly anniversaries of the event can cause many issues to spring forward again.

Breakfast With Guidance

Sharing coffee, muffins and information has helped one high school counseling department build a stellar team-approach relationship with its students’ parents.

Connecting With Your Child's School Counselor for a Successful School Year

It’s that time of year again – back to school. As students across the country enter the school halls with fresh notebooks, clean backpacks and a new attitude to do their best, it’s time for parents to think about their back-to-school roles as well. One way to ensure your children have a successful school year is to make a connection with their school counseling department.

Find the BALANCE

In an imperfect world, it seems odd that there would be so much emphasis on being the best, the top dog, the number one. The search for perfectionism has students and parents alike striving going for the gold, regardless of the price paid in the long run. Encouraging students to do their best is one thing, but striving to be perfect can result in students buckling under the pressure and may lead to self-destructive behaviors such as eating disorders or substance abuse.

A Dramatic Improvement

Using drama in school counseling is nothing new, but dramatic programs addressing bullying, peer relationships, dating and school violence are hot commodities in Kid World today – and can build a better school climate along the way.

Hand in (Artistic) Hand

In this era of accountability and adequate yearly progress, the creative arts can get short shrift. In the Jersey City, N.J., Public Schools, however, creative arts offer so much more than chorus and coloring, drama and drawing. Here, school counselors and creative arts therapists work together to address the needs of students with social, emotional, academic and/or behavioral challenges.

Cutting: A Growing Problem

When confronted with students who cut or engage in other types of self-mutilation, school counselors need to address the issue from a number of angles.

Drug Prevention in the 21st Century

It’s unacceptable for educators to think they can ignore the illegal drug problem and it will go away – or that it’s only a problem in poor, inner-city schools.

The Rx Generation

As the prescription drug abuse problem continues increasing among teens, school counselors are turning toward interactive, high-tech solutions to help students.

Stemming the Tide

School counselors across the country are focusing on a continuum of school-based substance abuse prevention and intervention programs.

From Crisis Comes Opportunity

As much as we’d like to avoid them, crises in the school will happen. Through prevention, intervention and follow-up, school counselors can make sure their schools are well-equipped to deal with the bad times when they come.

Scared or Prepared?

Don’t fall into the trap of only thinking about school safety when it’s a hot topic in the news. A proactive approach to school security and emergency preparedness planning is critical.

By the Numbers

Crisis management and response is a huge undertaking. Breaking down the important components into 10 areas can help you manage an otherwise overwhelming process.

Driving Your Program

Do you find your program based on true student need, backed up by data, or “but that’s the way we’ve always done it”?

Looking Back – and Ahead

When a school shooting, natural disaster or other tragedy occurs, we all rally around those affected. On event anniversaries or other important dates, however, those affected are remembering, and we need to help them heal then too.

A New Home

Following a crisis, school counselors have an important role in helping displaced students adjust to a new school – and new life.

Crisis in the Schools

Children need safe environments if they are to thrive. When that safety is disrupted, for whatever reason, adults need to reassure children that they will be protected. Crises can range from school-related incidents to incidents in the community, such as natural disasters, or the world at large, such as terrorism or war.

Take it to the Board

When making a presentation to the school board, be it your first or your 15th, following these 10 tips can help make your presentation effective, memorable and on-target.

Digging Deeper with Data

School counselors in Abingdon, Pa., show they have the expertise to collect and analyze data and then work with administrators and teachers to focus on improving the system.

Data Isn’t a Four-letter Word

By breaking down data projects into five easy steps, professional school counselors can easily delve into data gathering and get the answers to any burning questions in the school.

Understanding the School Counselor/Parent Connection

All students can learn. A student who is troubled, however, cannot learn as easily. School counselors can help. Divorce, substance abuse, child abuse, poverty, violence and suicidal thoughts are among the social stressors placing numerous students at-risk of educational failure and dropping out of school. Early intervention is essential, and parents and guardians play a vital role. A guidance program that provides direct services and is directed by a professionally trained school counselor is a critical component of a school’s prevention efforts in the 21st century.

Building Tomorrow's Leaders

When we think of leaders, people such as Mahatma Gandhi, Winston Churchill, Colin Powell and Abraham Lincoln often come to mind. These leaders, while all vastly different people, shared qualities such as empathy, trustworthiness, fairness, cooperation, a sense of responsibility, citizenship and valuing the significant contributions of each person. Obviously not everyone is cut out to be a leader, but if you teach your children to lead and give them opportunities to lead others, the results can be amazing.

Helping Children Cope with Natural Disasters

Natural disasters like hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes can cause fear, anxiety, and even depression among children. Sometime impacts aren't felt for weeks, months, or even longer. School counselors, trained in providing immediate and long-term support to students in coping with disasters, stress to parents the importance of creating a feeling of safety for their children.

Letting Kids be Kids

We all know them, don't we? "Those" parents -- the ones no one wants to sit with in the bleachers because they're so irritating. Recognize any of these folks?

No Fear Results Evaluation: The Missouri Story

Today the issue of evaluation is increasingly part of professional discourse. School counselors, working within the framework of comprehensive school counseling programs, are being asked to show how their work makes a difference in students’ success. The issue of evaluation is not a new phenomenon, however. Almost as soon as guidance and counseling was introduced in the schools in the early part of the 20th century, concern was expressed about the need for evaluation. This concern continued to be expressed over the decades of the 20th century resulting in hundreds of studies being conducted investigating the effectiveness and impact of the work of school counselors. These studies, however, were almost always conducted by counselor educators and/or university researchers, not by school counselors themselves. Granted, the findings of these studies were important. However, it’s important for school counselors themselves to evaluate their work and its impact on students. Not only will evaluation help school counselors improve their techniques and services but it is also important in today’s environment of accountability to demonstrate that the work of school counselors within a program framework contributes to overall student success including student academic achievement.

Giving and Growing

Today’s students are a world away from their counterparts of just 25 years ago. With an increased emphasis on getting into the right college, impersonal communication via the latest technological gadget and schedules that are often busier than high-powered executives, the “human touch” often gets lost. With service-learning projects, school counselors can help bring the human touch back into student’s lives – and help improve academic, personal/social and career development at the same time.

Turning College and Career Planning into Family Communication

Once upon a time we knew a boy who wanted to become a part-time professional baseball player, part-time professional football player, part-time private businessman and part-time Captain America. We also knew a girl who wanted, despite artistic and literary talents, to become the governor of Montana. We knew these children well because they were us.

Counseling Hispanic Students

When it comes to counseling Hispanic students, although they may have different barriers to success than other students, they require the same type of comprehensive school counseling program as every other student.

The Challenges of Differences

Being different can be enormously hard. The tendency to torment students who are different is puzzling when we realize that being different is natural. Just as there are no absolutely identical snowflakes or blades of grass, there are no absolutely identical human beings. Even monozygotic twins are slightly different than each other. Humans vary widely in terms of shape, size and skin/hair/eye color. We also vary in gifts, strengths, personalities and abilities.

Hope for Special-Needs Students and Their Parents

As the disasters of hurricanes Katrina and Rita have shown us all too well, we can't always count on the community or the government to act in the best interests of those unable to advocate and care for themselves. The political will to provide adequate and equal care for all citizens, especially citizens with physical or mental disabilities, waxes and wanes in our culture; we can never rest assured that those with special needs will have their needs met.

This is Not Your Grandparents' School Counselor

School counseling just isn't what it used to be. Over the past several years, we've asked college students and adults, ranging in age from 20 to 65 about their experiences with school counselors. The main question asked was: "What do you remember about your school counselors in elementary school, middle school or high school?" Here's a smattering of what we've heard:

Calling All Parents

Thanks partly to the lingering effects of “Leave it to Beaver” and “Father Knows Best,” most of us still carry around a sort of fictional ideal family that includes:

School-Parent Collaboration: A Labor of Love

Just take a deep breath. Relax. That’s it. Notice the warmth of your skin. Feel the sense of calm and peacefulness growing inside your mind. You are now relaxed, calm and ready to face new challenges. This little article is about such a challenge: collaborating with the school with the goal of improving your child’s educational experiences and achievements.

The Buzz on Bullying

If you grew up and are functioning in American society, you can probably provide your own definition of bullying and have had some level of personal experience with it. Bullying is an all-too-common human activity that has existed since the beginning of recorded history and is present in most cultures. It is enacted by both boys and girls, as well as women and men. Research suggests that somewhere between 30 percent and 60 percent of American schoolchildren report being bullied.

Recipes and Equations for Career Satisfaction

Sometimes parents start worrying about their children’s career options before their children’s birth. After they’ve arrived, and as they grow, the drumbeat of concern may intensify, “My daughter is so bossy and argumentative, how will she ever survive in the real world where she actually has to work peacefully with other humans?” or “My son isn’t very good at school. I’m afraid he’ll end up stuck in a low-paying job, never earning a decent income.” To deal with these worries, it helps to understand what leads to career satisfaction and how to help your children with career planning.

Breaking Through Barriers

At-risk students create barriers to protect themselves from perceived threats. They build walls to hide family secrets of alcoholism, abuse, poverty and shame. They build walls to protect their tender feelings from being disappointed yet again. They may appear tough and unaffected, but they aren't. Schools and communities also build walls to keep kids out that "don't belong" or could be a "bad influence." In the classroom, teachers create barriers to discourage students who are perceived to be lazy. At-risk students can feel the barriers and express their anger and frustration by acting out or dropping out. Ss school counselors, we must tear down these barriers and create a safe, nurturing educational environment to meet these students' needs. Empowerment, a strong support system, opportunities for success and skill building are key components to building a strong school counseling program that meets the needs of challenging students.

On a More Personal Note

A fundamental strategy for leaving no child behind is to make schools and interactions with students more personal and meaningful. In Providence, R.I., the school district is implementing a Personal Growth Plan (PGP) program for middle and high school students to do just that. Students plan for their academic, career and personal/social development annually and collect evidence of their progress toward counseling standards.

Living Up to Expectations

Gifted and talented students can be found in every school district across the country. They may exhibit special talents in academics or the arts, but most commonly these students are recognized for their intellectual ability. School counselors can play important roles in meeting the academic, career and personal/social needs of these students. Finding ways to meet those needs though guidance curriculum, responsive services, individual planning, and system support requires first developing an understanding of these students' unique needs. School counselors should keep in mind that gifted and talented students are a heterogeneous population, often more different than they are alike. Each student possesses unique characteristics and challenges resulting from personal, cultural and environmental factors.

Appropriate Use of the Internet

Trying to find helpful information regarding appropriate use of the Internet by children can be a challenge for parents and educators. One helpful site is NetSmartz, which was created by a partnership of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. The following information is from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

Helping Children Overcome Test Anxiety

Test anxiety is almost universal. In fact, it is unusual to find a student who doesn’t approach a big test without a high level of anxiety. Test anxiety can cause a host of problems in students, such as upset stomach, headache, loss of focus, fear, irritability, anger and even depression. New research is helping to better define how emotional stress and anxiety affect learning and academic performance.

When It’s Time to Change

School counselors are increasingly using data to legitimize the efficacy of their programs as well as to support system or policy changes. Let’s take a look at how school counselors in one district used their advocacy and leadership skills, backed up by data, to make a change in curriculum policies resulting in increased academic achievement for students.