School Counseling
The role of the school counselor is to help every student thrive academically, emotionally, and socially. In partnership with students, staff, family, and other members of the community, the school counselor strives to prepare students to become effective learners, achieve success in school, live successful and rewarding lives, and develop into contributing members of our society.
Each elementary school has one full-time school counselor and another part-time counselor who splits time between Lincoln Center and Kaposia Education Center. Elementary School Counselors see students for a variety of social emotional reasons related to concerns at school and/or at home. Students can be referred to the counselors by their teacher or guardian, but can also self refer when they are in need of some extra support.
Reaching all students
There are three ways the elementary counselors currently reach students:
- Classroom lessons: In classroom lessons, the students work on lessons such as conflict resolutions skills,attention/focus skills, bully prevention, and self-management skills. The students learn the lessons in their homeroom and are given the tools to practice those skills both at school and at home.
- Group counseling: Group counseling focuses on more specific areas such as relationship skills and conflict resolution between friends, students with commonalities like new students or students with different types of anxiety. The group’s focus is to give students the opportunity to build their confidence in a safe setting with peers they trust and learn skills to be more successful in those specific areas.
- Individual sessions: Individual counseling is for students who really need the extra one-on-one time. They may have problems at home that impact their school day or need help building academic achievement strategies.
What does an elementary school counselor do?
The counselors work as a team with the school behavior specialists and psychologists to help identify the best way to support students with the greatest needs.
- Individual student meetings
- Runs small groups
- Conducts classroom guidance lessons each month
- Support for students who are having a rough day or are feeling sad
- Teacher consultation and collaboration
- Crisis intervention
- Conflict resolution
- Help students develop a positive attitude toward school and learning
- Improve student communication skills and develop effective decision-making strategies
