BE the best you!

Heres my bulletin board- finally! I don't exactly have a ton of time to work on things like this, and I'm not the most crafty person. I feel like it's sub-par, but at least it's done? 

Just some new additions to my office :)

Magnetic Words

I recently put some magnetic words on the front of my desk where the kids sit. They're not exactly what I wanted (Shakespeare), but a couple of kids haven taken to using them. I love what is happening with them! Do you keep anything on the front your desk? 

I also have a puzzle:

Self Care

Something I'm struggling with is self care. Through grad school this habit is drilled into your head; avoiding burn out, taking care of yourself, eating healthy, etc. The first few weeks of school were a breeze, a honey moon period if you will. Now that things are slowing down and I'm starting to deal with some heavier things, I noticed my personal life start to feel heavy as well. Dishes piling up, sleeping for hours on end on the weekends, worrying myself sick about situations that happened at school, and generally just being absent from my family. 

I'm not saying that I've made a lot of changes as of yet, but I am at least aware of the problem. Sleep has always been one of my favorite things, so I am not going to make myself feel guilty if my body needs a little extra of it on the weekend. This weekend I also cooked a meal with my family, which not only brought us together but we saved some money on going out as well. I tackled the dishes and even managed to get several loads of laundry done. 

My next goal is to start exercising. Many of the staff at my school work out religiously- it's the only way they can relieve stress they say.

How do you implement self care? 

"Guidance" Counselor

The first few days of school have been a whirlwind, but I wouldn't trade a minute of it! I love my job and am grateful that I have the opportunity to work with high school students. My mentor has been amazing; sending emails to check in on me and including me in on the important stuff (504s, At Risk students, etc).

Something I'm struggling with at my school is the term "guidance counselor". Granted, this may be partially my fault as I have not addressed my staff head on. I am constantly introduced as the new guidance counselor, and my office door still says "guidance". I did however have a chance to talk with the counseling secretary and have her change the transcript request form to "school counselor", and she seems to be on board with the change. Baby steps, right? I have a feeling that if I address my staff, they will be really open to the change. I've been told multiple times that they don't envy the amount of work that goes into being the counselor, and think I am doing a fantastic job.

The g-word is the least of my worries though. It seems like a lot of counseling duties are happening outside of the counseling office. I won't go into any details, but right now my plan is to slowly "take back" some of these duties. Again, the counseling secretary is amazing and is all about helping me take the steps to do this.

Things are finally slowing down enough with scheduling that I am hoping to have more time to focus on more counseling related things. I am currently working on a bulletin board for the seniors. It is tradition for the seniors to hang their senior pictures up in the counseling office, so I decided to make a list of every senior and hang it up on the bulletin board. My plan is to write what college/job/military/etc each student is attending after they've been accepted and then hopefully by the end of the year I will have a good idea of where everyone is going! I will post a picture once it's finished.

I feel very fortunate to have the support I do, and I know this journey is only going to get better.

Updates to the office

As it turns out, high school students are kind of nosey. I found out the hard way that they like to snoop, which is why I decided to rearranged my office. Originally I didn't want my desk to be a barrier between the students and I. However, I could be simultaneously working on multiple transcripts at a time and all it could take is a student or parent seeing some classified information. 

I also like this set up better because before there really wasn't a good place for my chairs where the student could see my computer if I needed them too. This works a lot better. 

I'd love to update more (and I will!) but I just wanted to do a quick update on my office :)

Making Appointments to See the Counselor

Something my principal wanted to start this year is requiring students to schedule appointments to see the counselor. I don't know how things are usually around the office, but I'm told students like to hang out! So to help combat students hangout around without a purpose, I created a Google Form for my students to fill out if they wish to see me (I'd like to clarify that I probably won't be SUPER strict about this... If I can get any of my students to use it, that's a win for me!).

The best part about creating this form is that my school is 1:1. So every single one of my students has a laptop. I'm hoping to share this form at freshmen orientation before school begins, and from there I will send it to teachers and student's emails. Planning on mentioning it during advisory too.

 

I love Google Forms because each time a response is submitted, Google Forms generates all the answers in a spreadsheet for me!

What do you think? Do any of you require your students to make appointments?

Setting Up My Office

Since accepting my position, the staff at my school have been so supportive. I was worried about being a newbie, but they embraced it. Not only is the staff super excited for some ideas I've put on the table, but they are also 100% okay that I don't know everything! In fact, they are sending me to a couple of trainings in August. I am extremely grateful for the people I work with.

One of the first things I've been trying to accomplish before school starts is setting up my office. This was difficult at first because the current school counselor (who is retiring), wasn't exactly in a hurry to leave. Here's how he left it:

It's a pretty small space, so I couldn't believe all the stuff that was in it!

I had been thinking a lot about the colors I wanted in my office, and how I wanted it to feel. I'm an earth tone girl myself, and like when places feel like home (think coffee shop). So while at Target one day, my best friend and I picked out this lampshade that I decided would be the base for how to decorate my office.

A few days later, one of the secretaries contacted me and asked if I would be interested in surprising the counseling secretary in painting her office. I said yes, and we took an entire day to paint. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of her office, but while we were painting hers we decided to paint mine too! The secretary I was painting with happened to have some left over brown paint from her daughters room, and was kind enough to let me use it.

Since then, I've bought quite a few things for my office (and may have spent way more money than I wanted too...oops). For instance, these chairs:

I also took a trip to Ikea with my best friend and purchased a rug, a lamp, pillows, and shelves. I still have a lot of work to do but here is how my office currently looks:

I tried to open the room up a lot more, and wanted it to feel more like home. The way the office was set before was functional, but I felt as if it wasn't a place a student would feel comfortable. The desk is no longer a barricade between me and the student,  and the comfy chairs provide more of a relaxed feeling. 

Right now I'm working on getting some good resources pertaining to high school counseling to put on those shelves. Next thing to tackle: the mountains of papers the retiring counselor left behind. Phew!

Also, I wanted to mention something about my principal. In graduate school, you hear over and over again how important a school counselor's relationship with the principal is. In interviews, it's easy to tell which principals value their counselor and which ones don't. I cannot express how fortunate I am in working with a principal who not only values me, but also shares a lot of the same views as me and is truly doing everything he can to make my experience a good one. For instance, the past counselor was responsible for MAP testing (which takes up a HUGE chunk of time). My principal told me that he is working to delegate the MAP testing so that I can be out about more. "I want you out there in the hallways and classrooms as much as possible,". 

Can I just say how excited I am about all of this!

I'm a Big Girl Now

Well, after 12 phone calls for interviews, and 9 actual interviews... I did it! I landed a job. I am unofficially the new 9-12 counselor at a high school I am so far in love with.

The reason I wanted to start this blog (other than a friend telling me I should) is because there seems to be SO MUCH information out there for elementary counselors, and not as much for secondary counselors. I know that each high school is different with requirements and whatever, but how nice would it be to have a place where I can post all the cool links I find, and all the wonderful stuff I learn?

This entry isn't for posting cool things I've found though. This post, I wanted to talk about my interview process. I can tell you from experience that being rejected 8 separate times is absolutely heart breaking. You get everything from "You were a great candidate, but ultimately we went with someone else," to "You were one of our top candidates but it came down to experience". Experience, experience, experience.

For the most part, a lot of my interviews were the same. At least 3 people sit around a table and ask you questions. I've had as many as 6 people interview me. Questions about how you'd handle certain situations, questions about things you know/have experience with, and questions about you. Majority of the time, I was drilled (at least that's what it felt like) and then given a tour of the school. But my last interview... the one I landed. When I walked in, they offered me a cup of coffee. Now, that may seem small to you, but I am an Iowa girl and manners are a big deal. That was my 9th interview, and the only one to offer me something  to drink. And that's just one reason I knew I picked the right school.

My interview with them was more of a conversation than it was being drilled. I talked about me, and they talked about their school. So not only did they not just shoot questions at me, but I felt like I actually had a sense of the school and staff when I left. The principal wasn't even phased when I admitted that my experience in scheduling is limited. "Well that's okay, AEA has classes on that. I might even go to one with you." Can you believe that!?

I know this is going to be a huge learning experience, and I'll be honest that I'm already feeling a little overwhelmed. However, more than anything I am excited and ready to share my experiences and what not with this blog along the way!