President’s Letter: Don’t Reinvent the Wheel

Welcome back to a new school year, Iowa school counselors. I know this year is like no other and is offering a new set of challenges and obstacles. By now, I hope we have started or will be starting the new school year soon.

At our summer board meeting and leadership development, the ISCA board spent time talking about the best ways to support school counselors this year in the face of COVID-19 and social justice movements. We also spent time discussing what a virtual conference would look like for our members.  We have been pushed to grow and adapt over the last six months like never before. 

One of the community partners I regularly work with has a saying about R&D (originally research and development). The idea isn’t to come up with a new idea or try to reinvent the wheel, but to “rip off and duplicate.” If you do a quick Google search of this topic, the results are not always positive about this trend. However, as school counselors, we all are trying to figure out how to do our work in a virtual or hybrid setting, and a lot of us feel like we have no idea what we are doing. In this instance, I encourage you to do the kind of R&D that takes other people’s ideas and adapts them to your current situation. Many school counselors have expertise on how to counsel kids in a virtual setting, because they work in an online school all year. I recommend following them on social media, watching webinars they host, or reach out to them to ask questions. Those that have technology on lock-down? Check out their Twitter or Instagram pages for tips on how to create a virtual classroom, use Bitmojis, or create engaging lessons online. ASCA’s SCALE Research site is a great place to find small groups and core curriculum lessons that are backed by action research through the RAMP process. The Internet provides us with more resources than most of us can use in a school year.

This will be a challenging year, so please reach out for support. You are not alone!

Contact Sheryl Cline, Iowa School Counselor Association president, at sherylacline@gmail.com.