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Practical ideas you can read between meetings.
151 posts, newest first. Each one opens on counselorclique.com.
Blog The Class PBS Docuseries: A Must-Watch for High School Counselors *This post is sponsored by The Class Documentary. High school counselors are almost exclusively portrayed in a negative light in the media… often the old-fashioned…Advocacy & Data
Blog The Ultimate College Search Hack: Why Students (and High School Counselors) Need Loper The college search brings excitement but it can also bring our students apprehension as they can feel stuck with how to even get started. I want to introduce you to…College & Career, Supporting Students
Blog Appealing Financial Aid? Use This Tool! *This post is sponsored by Going Merry. Financial aid is one of the top stressors on our students’ minds when we ask them to start thinking about their post-secondary…College & Career, Supporting Students
Blog 3 Creative Ways to Boost Social Emotional Wellness in High School Students With ever-growing caseloads, pressures from administrators, and responsibilities that feel counterproductive to our overall counseling goals (a sad, but often true…Small Groups & Lessons
Blog 4 Counselor-Approved Academic Interventions that Actually Set Students Up for Success Academic interventions that aim to reach all students in a single grade level simultaneously are something counselors should be gearing up for each year, no matter their…Supporting Students
Blog 4 Ways to Make the Most of Your High School Counseling Budget Whether you’ve just been given a pool of funds or you’re brainstorming ways to advocate for more dollars in your high school counseling budget, let’s talk about how to…Advocacy & Data, Counselor Growth
Blog Do This 1 Super Simple Activity to Celebrate Senior Students and Make a Major Impact As we prepare to launch our senior students into the next chapter, we have the privilege of making them feel ultra-celebrated and supported. One way we can celebrate…College & Career, Supporting Students
Blog 3 Creative, Fun Career Activities (That High School Students Are Actually Excited About) If you’re looking for some ways to refresh career exploration for your high school students, you’ve come to the right place. Career activities are always a hot topic for…College & Career
Blog 6 Ways to Overcome Obstacles and Execute Effective Counselor Classroom Lessons Counselor classroom lessons often get overlooked or pushed to the side because there are a lot of obstacles to pulling them off. First, you have to get your teachers on…Small Groups & Lessons
Blog Pro Tips for Classroom Lessons: Target These 6 Teacher Types to Increase Reach Classroom lessons should be a regular part of a comprehensive counseling program. Unfortunately, there are REAL barriers and challenges to getting space for counselors…Small Groups & Lessons
Blog 4 Ways to Maximize Productivity in a Typical “Day in the Life” of a High School Counselor Whether it’s that enormous caseload of students, persistent parents phoning daily, or the ever-increasing pressure from your administrator to see graduation rates…Counselor Growth
Blog When 10% of Your Students Require 90% of Your Time: 4 Ways to Better Manage Frequent Flyer Students A topic that is overwhelmingly popular among our counselor friends is the challenge of managing our frequent flyer students. “Frequent flyers” are a handful of students…Supporting Students
Blog 6 Tried-and-True Ways to Boost Job Satisfaction and Get Excited About High School Counseling Again One thing I love about Counselor Clique is that we truly are a community. Whether it’s hot topics, biggest wins, or job stresses keeping you up at night, I love hearing…Counselor Growth
Blog Focus on These 3 Relational Boundaries to Prevent Counselor Burnout If you’ve been here awhile, you know I’m a big fan of self-care for counselors. Not because it is today’s latest buzzword, but because it is so common for us counselors…Counselor Growth
Blog Set These 3 Boundaries for a Better Work-Life Balance as a High School Counselor We all know that life as a high school counselor means wearing many hats, juggling multiple tasks simultaneously, and all the while advocating the what and why of your…Counselor Growth
Blog 3 Ways to Complete Your School Counselor Office Like a Rockstar When it comes to being a rockstar counselor, your school counselor office space is simply a resource in your tool belt. You already have the training and skill set to do…Programs & Systems
Blog 3 Strategies for Helping First Gen Students Find Success When we use the term “first gen students,” we are referring to high school students who are (or will be) the first in their families to attend college, excluding older…Supporting Students
Blog Advance Your High School Counseling Program with Social Media: 4 Best Practices (For All Levels) Most of you probably have some sort of interaction with social media on a personal level, but have you considered the benefits of using various platforms to give your…Advocacy & Data
Blog Remember These 3 Fundamentals When Engaging Failing Students With huge caseloads of students, outsiders may be surprised by the amount of time high school counselors spend with our failing students. Whether we’re calling their…Advocacy & Data, Supporting Students
Blog Your Cheat-Sheet for Navigating Parent Relationships: 4 Pro Tips When you graduated with your degree in school counseling, it’s probably safe to assume that the tall task of building and maintaining parent relationships was not at the…Advocacy & Data
Blog 3 Simple Ways to Use Data as a High School Counselor For many counselors, just hearing the word data makes you start to squirm. This makes sense when you consider that most of us are wired to connect with people, not…Advocacy & Data
Blog 9 Must-Have Gift Ideas for Your High School Counselor If you are looking for a unique way to encourage your high school counselor and remind them that their work matters, read on to discover some gift ideas they are sure to…Counselor Growth
Blog A Break Down of 4 Counselor Caseload Models: What I Like and Don’t Like About Them When it comes to settling on a counselor caseload model that is best for your school, there are a lot of things to consider. I’ll be the first to admit, there is no…Advocacy & Data
Blog Our Role as an IEP Team Member: 3 Things High School Counselors Want Teachers and Families to Know When it comes to putting together an effective IEP team, many hands make light work. Teachers, parents, and counselors all have indispensable roles to play as IEP team…Advocacy & Data
Blog 3 Ways to Incorporate Social Emotional Learning Into High School Classroom Counseling Lessons You and I both know social emotional learning is important. With your high school counselor training and experience, this is right in your wheelhouse. However, with the…Small Groups & Lessons
Blog 4 Ways Time Management Can Be a Powerful High School Counseling Advocacy Tool One of the great plights of being a school counselor: no one really knows what you do. When others don’t adequately value your time, you have to be your own time…Advocacy & Data, Counselor Growth
Blog A Quick Pep Talk for Veteran School Counselors Heading Back to School Dear Veteran School Counselor: Alright, real talk here. You’re about to enter the back-to-school swing where you’ll be putting out fires right and left and juggling more…Counselor Growth
Blog 3 Popular Interview Questions to Prepare for Your High School Counselor Job Interview Whether you’re aiming to land your first-ever counselor job or you’re looking for a fresh start with years of experience under your belt, get ahead of those tough…Counselor Growth
Blog The High School Counselor-Administrator Relationship: 3 Effective, Healthy Habits The counselor-administrator relationship can be an absolute force for good when leveraged correctly. As with any relationship, this partnership requires some intentional…Advocacy & Data
Blog 4 Ways Going Merry is Providing Effective FAFSA Help for Your High School Students *This post is sponsored by Going Merry. As a high school counselor, you’ve probably been sending transcripts and running senior meetings since school started. We’re now…College & Career, Supporting Students
Blog 3 Tips for Ending the Year Well as a High School Counselor As your teacher colleagues clean out their classrooms, send off report cards and head to the pool, the workload for us counselors is just now heating up…or maybe we…Counselor Growth
Blog 3 Ways Going Merry is Streamlining the Scholarship Search for High School Counselors *This post is sponsored by Going Merry. High school counselors deal with information overload every day! Add scholarship search questions and emails to the mix, and you…College & Career
Blog 4 Creative Mindfulness Resources to Engage Your High School Students As high school counselors, we know that mindfulness resources can help lower stress levels and increase academic engagement for our students. However, we don’t have the…Small Groups & Lessons
Blog 4 Benefits of Small Group Counseling in High Schools Even if we don’t currently run small groups in our high school, we can probably determine a few benefits of small group counseling in our school’s setting. It can be…Small Groups & Lessons
Blog School Counseling Services: 3 Ways a High School Counselor Can Provide Meaningful Services As a high school counselor, I sat around more IEP tables than I could count as a part of the school counseling services that are offered by high school counselors…Advocacy & Data, Supporting Students
Blog 3 Ways to Successfully Introduce Small Group Counseling to Your High School Are you a school counselor at a high school that doesn’t believe in small groups? Is your administration against the facilitation of small groups? Do you get push back…Small Groups & Lessons
Blog Making Time for You: 4 Self-Care Tips for the Exhausted High School Counselor As high school counselors, we are helpers who feel like we need permission to engage in self-care. We’re so much more likely to be preaching self-care tips to everyone…Counselor Growth
Blog All Things Data: Everything High School Counselors Need to Know About Data There are many topics to tackle surrounding data collection in high school counseling. When and where should I collect data? How should I use it? Where and with whom…Advocacy & Data
Blog 4 Valuable Places to Share Your Compelling School Counseling Data What good is the data you’re collecting as a high school counselor if you’re not sharing it with anyone? You’re running a data-driven program! It’s time to shout it from…Advocacy & Data
Blog 3 Unassuming Ways to Incorporate Perception Data Into Your High School Counseling Program Perception data answers the question, “How are students different in their thoughts, attitudes, skills, behaviors, or knowledge because of what we are doing as school…Advocacy & Data
Blog 4 Misconceptions About Collecting Data in Your High School Counseling Program Collecting data is the thing you want to get better at but just don’t know where to start. It’s way easier to make excuses and never make progress on this front, right?…Advocacy & Data
Blog 3 Reasons Why Using Data Matters in Your High School Counseling Program When asked why counselors aren’t using data, I found a lack of understanding about its usefulness (it makes total sense that you wouldn’t collect data if it was useless…Advocacy & Data
Blog 3 Compelling Reasons to Use Small Group Counseling to Promote Career Readiness in Your Comprehensive School Counseling Program Small group counseling often gets overlooked especially in the high school setting. Small groups take the most strategic planning of any of our initiatives and involve…Small Groups & Lessons, College & Career
Blog 4 Fun Career Activities to Engage Your High School Students How many times do we skip over the “career development” aspect of our roles as high school counselors because it seems too tedious, or we feel like we don’t have the…College & Career, Supporting Students
Blog 3 Simple Steps to Hosting a Successful Career Fair Hosting a career fair can feel intimidating and scary… so you might be tempted to never host one. Think of all of the amazing careers your students may miss out on…College & Career
Blog 3 Genuine Career Readiness Conversation Starters for High School Students When my high school students walked across the stage to get their diplomas, I always wanted them to have an idea of what was coming next in terms of their career…College & Career, Supporting Students
Blog 4 Helpful Tech Tools to Sync Your School Counseling Systems Have you ever stopped to think about the tech tools (or lack thereof) that you use every day as a school counselor? Your time as a school counselor should be spent doing…Programs & Systems
Blog 4 Ways to Find New Inspiration in Your High School Counseling Role Maybe you’re thinking, “What I’m doing is already working… why change anything up?” Of course, you could keep working like this… tired, exhausted, unnoticed, invisible…Programs & Systems, Counselor Growth
Blog 3 Practical Reasons You Need a Quality High School Counselor Community It is always funny to me (for some reason) to pause and realize we’re all doing the same job in different places. Whether you feel like your high school counselor…Counselor Growth
Blog 5 Ways to Use Your Calendar to Position Yourself as an Energized High School Counselor Wondering when you’ll fit in some extra professional development or learning opportunities as an energetic high school counselor this summer or this school year?…Counselor Growth
Blog 4 Ways to Find Money for Your Professional Development Opportunities Ever wonder how you’re going to fund your professional development or professional learning opportunities? I’ve been in your shoes. I’ve been given the full amount, I’ve…Advocacy & Data, Counselor Growth
Blog 4 Benefits of Attending a Counselor Fly-In Are you sick of wondering where all of the fun and unique opportunities are for growing professionally as a high school counselor? Have you considered attending a…College & Career, Counselor Growth
Blog 4 Places to Find Relevant School Counseling Professional Development We don’t have time as high school counselors to waste on irrelevant school counseling professional development. It’s often hard to find relevant PD that we’re excited…Counselor Growth
Blog 3 Ways to Make a More Profound Impact on Students by Changing Your Mindset As high school counselors, we are always looking to make a bigger and more profound impact on students while still balancing all of the tasks throughout our day-to-day…Advocacy & Data, Supporting Students, Counselor Growth
Blog 4 Easy Ideas to Make College Accessible to Your High School Students School counselors hold a very powerful seat in their school building: the power to make college accessible to ALL of their students. No matter the students’ background…College & Career
Blog 3 Fun and Engaging Ways to Celebrate Students’ Post-Secondary Plans By this point, seniors have spent so many years of their life in school, done lots of soul searching, and decided what is next for their post-secondary plans. Whether a…College & Career, Supporting Students
Blog 3 Important Things High School Counselors Can Talk About in Senior Meetings There is some uniqueness between what I talk about as a high school counselor with seniors compared to all other grades. When we get into talking about these three…College & Career, Supporting Students
Blog 5 Niche Groups of High School Students to Look Out For as a Supportive High School Counselor During my years as a high school counselor, I discovered a few groups of high school students that I especially needed to make note of, pay attention to, and reach out…Supporting Students
Blog 3 Reasons Why It’s Okay to Ask for Help During the College Application Process As your student gets closer and closer to graduation, you want them to have a post-secondary plan for their life after high school. You may be in a season of…College & Career, Supporting Students
Blog 3 Ways to Use College Application Day to Increase Student Confidence Around College Applications I am completely aware that college is not the post-secondary path for every high school student. However, hosting an event like a “College Application Day” is shown to…College & Career, Supporting Students
Blog 4 Helpful Things I Wish I Knew as a First-Year High School Counselor From the first year of being a high school counselor to the eighth year, I was constantly learning or re-learning the ins and outs of this amazing career! There was…Counselor Growth
Blog 4 Inspiring Tips for Eager High School Counseling Interns Hosting high school counseling interns has grown me as a school counselor and challenged me in new, professional ways. I often have new or future school counselors…Counselor Growth
Blog 3 Unassuming Ways to Invest in Your School Counseling Program So That Your Students Will Grow As school counselors, we all want to see students succeed, so how can we reach all students and help them grow to their fullest potential? Just like every student will…Advocacy & Data
Blog 4 Tips for Gaining Guaranteed Teacher Buy-In to Your School Counseling Program How do you rally teachers to get on your team and move in the direction you’re headed? Teacher buy-in is so important for moving your school counseling program forward!…Advocacy & Data
Blog 4 Places to Seek Worthwhile Stakeholder Buy-In from Your Local Community Community partnerships can be such a valuable asset to your school counseling program. Your community stakeholders are another piece of your stakeholder puzzle in…Advocacy & Data
Blog 4 Ideas for Getting Impressive Student Buy-In for High School Counseling Small Groups One of the biggest roadblocks to running high school counseling small groups with students (besides lack of time) is getting these students bought in. How do you find…Small Groups & Lessons, Supporting Students
Blog 3 Tips for Starting Small Groups Out on the Right Foot in Your High School Counseling Program Do you ever dream of starting small groups but then get halted in your tracks? You want to make sure you move in the right direction AND be sure you’re running something…Small Groups & Lessons, Supporting Students
Blog How to Confidently Communicate with 3 Main Stakeholders While Planning High School Counseling Small Groups It’s important for students, teachers, admin, and parents to be on the same page about the high school counseling small groups you’re running. If you want your small…Small Groups & Lessons, Advocacy & Data
Blog Taking Back Your Calendar: 3 Helpful Tips to Prioritize Your Job and Advocate for Your Role We all know that our days are (and, therefore, our calendar is) absolutely crazy. No two are ever the same as school counselors. (It’s honestly one of my favorite things…Advocacy & Data, Counselor Growth
Blog The 5 Comprehensive Phases of College Applications When you start navigating the college application process on your own, you quickly find out how much information is out there. SO MUCH! TOO MUCH! Think of the college…College & Career
Blog 4 Quick Tips for the FAFSA Senior year is full of stressors! Questions I hear from students (and even parents) include, “What should I be doing? When should I be doing it?” When senior year…College & Career
Blog 3 Questions Parents Should Ask Their Students When Beginning the College Search Process Do you feel ineffective as you try to move the needle in communicating with your teenager about college? Are you clueless as to WHAT you should even be asking and WHEN…College & Career
Blog 4 Tips for Parents Heading into the College Application Process When you don’t know where to start in the college application process, the frustration starts to seep in. As a parent, are you feeling this tension yet as you’re…College & Career
Blog 2 Ideas for Impactful Tier 1 Academic Interventions with High School Students I am convinced a big part of my school’s student success is because of the effort put towards tier 1 academic interventions with our students. We have always had a…Advocacy & Data, Supporting Students
Blog 4 Quick Tips for Remembering Students’ Names Once you start getting to know students, school counseling referrals will flow, connections will be made, and trust will be built. Relational capital is one of your most…Supporting Students
Blog Master Open Communication With Your Administrators Using These 3 Tips As school counselors, we know how valuable a strong relationship with an administrator can be. This relationship can benefit a student, a caseload, or even an entire…Advocacy & Data
Blog 4 Practical Ways to Incorporate Digital Activities and Check-Ins into Your School Counseling Setting School counselors often ask me how to best utilize check-ins or digital activities with their students. Digital resources are a helpful way to connect with students and…Supporting Students, Programs & Systems
Blog School Counseling Caseloads: 5 Important Questions to Consider When Dividing Them Up Here’s the thing: there’s no RIGHT or WRONG way to divide your school counseling caseload. You just have to figure out what works best for you, your students, and your…Programs & Systems
Blog 3 Simple Ways to Decide Who Does What in Your School Counseling Program Are you hoping I’m just going to tell you to play “Rock, Paper, Scissors” to decide who gets what responsibilities for the year in your school counseling program?…Advocacy & Data, Programs & Systems
Blog 3 Effective Ways to Check In With Students Even When It’s Tough Students are inundated with emails right now and have information overload. We’re living in some weird times. What can we do to check in with students and make sure…Supporting Students
- Blog How to Stay Organized and Motivated with a Scholarship Spreadsheet High school parents are living in tension. Their student is almost ready to launch into the “real world,” but they’re still under their roof. How do they push them to do…
Supporting Students
Blog 7 Helpful Questions For and Answers From a High School Counselor: Part 1 I recently opened up a Q&A on my Instagram stories where followers asked questions about a “day in the life of a high school counselor.” I figured I’d do a round up of…Advocacy & Data, Programs & Systems
Blog 6 Questions For and Answers From a High School Counselor: Part 2 Here is round 2 of my Questions and Answers for a High School Counselor Round-Up! Here is a compilation of questions and answers to/from a high school counselor from…Advocacy & Data, Programs & Systems
Blog Counselor Self-Care: The 5 Myths You’re Believing About Work Email Causing You to Fail at It Let’s address the elephant in the room. School counselors are natural helpers. Not checking email at home is actually counselor self-care! My biggest argument for not…Advocacy & Data, Counselor Growth
Blog A Day in the Life of an Adaptable High School Counselor People are always asking… what does a day in the life of a high school counselor look like? Here are some things to expect for new counselors, interns, people thinking…Programs & Systems, Counselor Growth
Blog 6 Keys to Holding a Productive School Counseling Department Planning Day During our prep week, our school counseling department gets off campus together to hold a “School Counseling Department Planning Day.” Our principal has always seen the…Programs & Systems
Blog 5 Helpful Categories of Back to School Essentials for High School Counselors This blog post is a curated list of high school counselor back to school essentials or high school counselor office must haves. Of course, you can do your job without…Programs & Systems, Counselor Growth
Blog 3 Steps to Hosting an Effective Virtual Career Fair When we went to 100% digital/distance learning, I knew the career fair we were planning for this year was going to be a no-go. But if I’ve learned anything, I am certain…College & Career, Programs & Systems
Blog How I Hold Productive Senior Meetings as High School Counselor I want to tell you about my first week of “Senior Meetings” as we start out the school year. My senior meetings are timed at 30 minutes each, and I try to do about six…Supporting Students, Programs & Systems
Blog 7 Tips for Running Small Groups at the High School Level It can be really easy to ignore running small groups at the high school level altogether… you have to find out how to make it work for you and your school. Once you find…Small Groups & Lessons
- Blog A High School Counselor’s Year in Review I blinked and this year flew by! I took a minute to exhale as I was reviewing what we accomplished this year in order to present it at our end-of-the-year School…
Advocacy & Data
Blog Dear New School Counselor Dear New School Counselor, Do you have a job yet? (The question everyone is asking you.) Don’t worry if you don’t. You might be going from interview to interview…Programs & Systems, Counselor Growth
Blog How We Hosted a Memorable Mindfulness Day at Our School As a school counseling department, we decided to try an every-other-year approach with two major events because they require a lot of manpower to organize, facilitate…Small Groups & Lessons
Blog 3 Quick Wins by Using a Mindfulness Bulletin Board in Your High School Mindfulness seems like a buzzword in the counseling world, but it’s because it’s something our students are truly needing help with… so we’re hearing it a lot as high…Small Groups & Lessons
Blog 5 Promising Characteristics of a Principal Who Supports School Counselors If you DO already have a good working relationship with your principal, you already know how valuable this is. If you don’t, maybe it’s something you wish you had. Maybe…Advocacy & Data
Blog 40+ Mixers & Ice Breaker Games That Your Students Will Love I have spent so much time working with high schoolers and middle schoolers over the years. I’ve been a camp counselor, a school counselor, a Young Life leader, and a…
Blog 4 Things I Pack in My Counselor Crisis Bucket What should you pack in a counselor crisis bucket for your school counseling program? Be able to respond on a dime to suicide, death, or other crisis with ideas for…Small Groups & Lessons
Blog Why I Love “Coffee with the Counselors” Partnering with stakeholders is important. We know this to be true. As high school counselors, we are connectors in our school buildings and in our community. It’s a…Advocacy & Data
Blog 3 Reasons You Need to Start a Devoted School Counseling Advisory Council Each year, our 3 school counseling advisory councils prove to be one of my favorite parts of our comprehensive school counseling program. It’s definitely easier to make…Advocacy & Data
Blog Counselor Fly-Ins: 7 Insider Things You Need to Know About Them Counselor Fly-Ins are the hidden treasures of school counselor professional development! You get to explore and travel, learn about a college, and bring home information…College & Career, Advocacy & Data
- Blog How to Make the “I Applied! Bulletin Board” I am always trying to think ahead at what will go on our school counseling bulletin board right outside of our office. My strategy is, honestly, how can I use what I’m…
College & Career
- Blog All the Steps for Hosting a Successful College Application Day After I posted a picture of my College Application Day “exit ticket,” I got numerous comments and direct messages about tips for holding such an event! We’ve done this…
Small Groups & Lessons, College & Career
- Blog Office Wall Quotes If I don’t update my office at the beginning of the year, I will never do it. I REPEAT: I will never do it. Like… last year I had a big open spot on the wall where I…
Programs & Systems
- Blog Counselors on Point Bulletin Board Our lobby bulletin board needed an update, and I’m really loving Astrobrights cardstock… hence my new creation! We liked the idea of the students and parents getting to…
Small Groups & Lessons, Programs & Systems
- Blog What I Grab When Working With Grieving Students Unfortunately, I have had to deal with grief at the high school level too many times to count. I have run numerous small groups for grief, and I am so encouraged to…
Small Groups & Lessons
- Blog How To Have Meaningful College Search Conversations with High School Students As I finished up the school year with my seniors, I sent off 57% of my seniors to 4 year college and 29% to 2 year college… you could do the math, or I could just tell…
- Blog A Practical Guide for Helping Students with Job Interviews Students can partner up: one being the employer, one being the employee… then switch! I made 6 copies for myself, so I have them on hand ready to go. These are printed…
Blog 5 Best Practices for Hosting a Career Fair Without Losing Your Mind This year, one of our program goals was: Fifty percent of ninth through eleventh grade students will visit a career fair display of their number one identified career…College & Career
Blog 3 Easy Ways To Advocate for Your Time Without Rocking the Boat How should we best advocate for our roles as school counselors? How should we protect our time to ensure we best serve students and families? How do you let…Advocacy & Data
- Blog Get the Scoop On Careers: A Bulletin Board For Your Career Fair We have our first career fair (since I’ve been at my school for 6 years) for our high school students! We are giving away free ice cream to participants, thus… this…
Small Groups & Lessons, College & Career
- Blog “Oh The Places You’ll Go” Bulletin Board This was one of my very first bulletin boards in our school counseling lobby when I first started at my school. Seeing how it went pretty viral on Pinterest was the…
Small Groups & Lessons
- Blog How to Add a Calendly Widget to Your Website in 8 Steps Has your school counseling website transitioned to the new Google Sites yet? Seems like there’s always a “new” Google Site to learn, but, once I got the hang out it…
Programs & Systems
- Blog How to Add a Remind Widget in 5 Easy Steps I have a “widget” on my website to scroll through my Remind text messages. Remind has been one of the most useful daily tech tools I use. Since we loop with our caseload…
Programs & Systems
- Blog How to Use Quick Perception Data for Effective Career Programming: A Pre/Post Test I created a pre/post test that could be used for a variety of career lessons: career small groups classroom lessons: regular ed, special ed, freshman success, etc…
College & Career, Advocacy & Data
- Blog Why Tieks Flats Beat ALL Other Work Shoes First things first: I am not being endorsed by Tieks shoes by any means (though I would welcome any signing bonuses, new pairs of shoes, or anything else they’d want to…
- Blog How To Inspire a College Going Culture… with College Bingo In our state, College Application Day is an initiative to promote the college-going culture and encourage students to complete college applications with the help of…
- Blog How To Inspire a College Going Culture… with College Application Day Pennants I made these “college pennants” for our College Application Day! This is a school wide celebration to promote a college-going culture. Our seniors can sign up for 45…
Small Groups & Lessons
- Blog How To Start Your Semester Off Smoothly: A Schedule Change Flowchart As the beginning of the year approaches, we all know what takes up so much of our time as high school counselors… SCHEDULE CHANGES.How many different ways can you say…
Programs & Systems
- Blog 16 Podcast Recs School Counselors Should Not Miss School is winding down, maybe you have a bit of free time? (I know– how DARE I say that!) Between fine tuning your students’ schedules, take some time to dive into a…
Programs & Systems
Blog Before Applying to RAMP: 5 Things You Need to Know to Kickstart the Process Our school is officially a RAMP (Recognized ASCA Model Program) school, and it feels SO good! This is such an important designation and something you can advocate for in…Advocacy & Data
- Blog How To Flip Your Parent and Student Meetings Each year, we sit down with all of the students on our caseload and have 15 minute meetings with each individual student and parent where we discuss…
Programs & Systems
- Blog 4 Tactics for Collecting Classroom Data I really dove into the importance of collecting meaningful data in new, creative ways as our department endeavored applying for RAMP this past year. This semester, I’ve…
Advocacy & Data, Programs & Systems
- Blog How To Look 2 Months Ahead with a Master Calendar: Part 2 Two years ago, we created a white board master calendar, so we could see two months out what our days as a department would look like. (See the old blog post on it…
Small Groups & Lessons
- Blog How to Advocate for Your School Counseling Department Using a Data Wall Some feedback from our end-of-the-year Advisory Council meeting came in the form of “I didn’t know all of the great things you were doing!” especially from parents and…
Small Groups & Lessons, Advocacy & Data
- Blog 2 Habits of High School Workers Outside of work, I’m fighting not to be lumped into that millennial crowd; you know… the ones who don’t work hard and live expectantly for the world to serve us. Inside…
- Blog What No One Tells You About Digitalizing Your Sign In System We were kickin’ it old school with a paper notebook sign in to our school counseling office until October of this past school year. We thought… what an easy opportunity…
Advocacy & Data, Programs & Systems
Blog First Time Going to ASCA? 5 Tips for the First-Timer This summer was my first time going to ASCA! I had my very first opportunity to attend ASCA, the American School Counselor Association’s national school counseling…Counselor Growth
- Blog What No One Tells You About the Big, Bad Data Monster We are feverishly validating our skills and services as school counselors with data, data, data. As I’ve moved past the initial that’s super scary and I want nothing to…
Advocacy & Data
- Blog TGIF (A Monday Edition) There are days that come out of nowhere to remind you that it’s worth it. Yesterday didn’t feel like one of those days, but I’m confident today is. I can’t see the light…
- Blog Jumpstart Your PR with Piktochart: A Tech Tool As school counselors, part of our competencies include career planning and development for every student. We not only use career assessments, but also we help students…
Programs & Systems
- Blog How to Easily Celebrate National School Counseling Week | Part 2 Part 2 of our National School Counseling Week celebration… We let all teachers know that they should come and TREATYOSELF and EDUCATEYOSELF. Nothing brings teachers and…
- Blog School Counselors Can Do It! Bulletin Board We kicked off our National School Counseling Week with a new, very visible bulletin board! It’s fun how creative you can get when your whole department sits down and…
Small Groups & Lessons
- Blog How to Rock a Partnership with Your Librarian: Bibliotherapy Our school librarian is always thinking of creative ideas to help our students. Not only is she on instagram, twitter, facebook, snapchat, and the blogosphere… but also…
Blog 54 Questions and a Career Building Blocks Game Your High Schoolers Will Love I am doing some career activities this week in some high school classrooms and I thought I’d share something new I’m adding to the mix. I bought a classic Jenga® set and…College & Career
- Blog Quick Guide: Update Those Memberships Welcome back to the school year!Are you a member of your national professional organization? The American School Counselor Association membership renewal costs $179, but…
- Blog Looking Ahead to Summer Time has slipped away as most of you would probably agree with me. The end of the school year is a whirlwind! I have some summer goals, but are they too lofty?Some of my…
Small Groups & Lessons
- Blog DIY Hack: Simple Senior Bulletin Board A VERY simple and fun way to involve your seniors and their power of influence on underclassmen… A SENIOR bulletin board! When our senior counselor was visiting senior…
Small Groups & Lessons
- Blog How to Inspire Career Culture In Your School: A Quick Career Activity A simple movement through the school to start conversations about careers, colleges, and majors. We gave these out to all teachers and asked them to fill them out and…
College & Career
- Blog How to Celebrate National School Counseling Week– Day 4 Day four of National School Counseling Week 2015‘s photo challenge is “Appreciation” themed. Although I didn’t snap a pic, our principal (@Principal_WHHS) took orders…
- Blog How to Celebrate National School Counseling Week — Day 2 For day two of National School Counseling Week 2015, check out our decor around school. I threw together this bulletin board to put out in a main hallway this week. Easy…
Small Groups & Lessons
- Blog How to Celebrate National School Counseling Week– Day 3 It’s day three of National School Counseling Week, and our department is here to share with you the reasons why we love our careers! We love using the ASCA templates to…
- Blog How to Celebrate National School Counseling Week– Day 1 We’re kicking off National School Counseling Week by jumping into the NSCW photo challenge for the year. This is an easy way to get your department excited to celebrate…
- Blog PSSCA 2015 The Palmetto School Counselors Association Annual Conference is underway in Myrtle Beach, SC. This year’s theme is “Find Your Oasis,” and there are a variety of breakout…
Programs & Systems
- Blog DIY Hack: Positive Parent Sticky Sign My door decor was looking pretty poor… So after our teacher workday meetings, I went for an update! I wanted some positivity and thought this would be fun because it was…
- Blog How To Look 2 Months Ahead with a Master Calendar: Part 1 Inspired by a need for a big group calendar and a desire to incorporate more washi tape into my life, our department decided an oversized, easily updated calendar would…
Small Groups & Lessons
- Blog DIY: Extreme Office Makeover I knew if I didn’t redecorate my office over the summer, it wouldn’t get done once the school year started. I gathered things throughout the summer that I wanted to put…
- Blog DIY Hack: Rock Your Tests Bulletin Board Long time, no update. The initial shock of the school year is settling in, and we’ve hit the ground running. Counselors still work in the summer, but we somehow still…
Small Groups & Lessons
- Blog How I Made Treats in 2 Steps for National School Counseling Week Time to celebrate National School Counseling Week! We put these in all of our teachers mailboxes and hand delivered them to the rest of the faculty, food service, and…
- Blog Embrace Your To-Do Lists We’ve survived a full week back from a break. Mornings for some reason seem earlier, and the chaos for some reason feels multiplied. Our semester has almost ended which…
- Blog 6 Questions for Classroom Teachers on College and Career Day As an easy activity to get teachers, administrators, and staff on board to celebrate November’s National Career Development Month, we had a “College and Career Day.” For…
College & Career
- Blog Practical Ways to Incorporate Career Assessments into Your School Counseling Curriculum Did you know November is NATIONAL CAREER DEVELOPMENT MONTH? There’s no way you wouldn’t around our high school. I am a huge advocate of career education and career…
College & Career, Advocacy & Data