Benold Middle School Counseling Mission Statement

The Benold Middle School Counseling team's mission, which aligns with the Georgetown Independent School District's mission, is: Inspiring and Empowering Every Learner to Lead, Grow, and Serve.

The Benold Middle School Counseling team uniquely supports this mission through a balanced and comprehensive school counseling program by providing services through each of the four delivery system components: Guidance & Advising, Individual Planning, Responsive Services, and System Support. Those services intentionally address every learner’s strengths and unique interests while creating and/or supporting personalized academic plans with the learner to reach his/her academic and post-secondary goals.

Program Definition, Rationale, & Assumptions

Program Definition

Georgetown ISD school counselors, in collaboration with campus and district administrators, teachers, parents, and community partners, strive to provide a comprehensive counseling program for all students. In Georgetown ISD, we believe every learner shall graduate from our schools with the attributes outlined in our Learner Profile, which include the ability to:

Communicate, collaborate, and apply critical thinking
Create and innovate
Obtain knowledge through inquiry and exploration
Adapt and persevere
Develop self-knowledge and personal responsibility
Build and model respectful relationships

School counselors play a critical role in supporting students to learn, grow, and connect through classroom guidance, small group interactions, and individual student support, in order to strengthen these Learner Profile attributes for academic success in GISD and beyond.

To learn more about each campus’ comprehensive school counseling program, follow the link to their campus page and view their CSCP plan.

Rationale

The Georgetown ISD Counseling Services Team empowers students to be socially and emotionally prepared to learn, grow, and connect. Our counseling programs serve the whole child by preparing students with competencies which address interpersonal and intrapersonal skills, personal health and safety, and post-secondary planning. Counselors use a variety of data-gathering practices to determine student needs and implement strategies to address these needs into their school counseling program. GISD school counselors utilize their unique counseling skills to address students’ individual and developmental needs. Additionally, we work closely with families, staff, and the community to support student needs through consultation, collaboration, guidance and advising, and referrals to additional resources as needed.

Assumptions

Comprehensive School Counseling Program Assumptions are statements of student, staff, and program conditions that must exist for the school counseling program to exist.

Comprehensive School Counseling Programs (CSCP) provide for each of the four delivery system components: Guidance & Advising, Individual Planning, Responsive Services, System Support.
Every student, parent, teacher, community member, etc. has equal access to the CSCP's services.
Parents will be full partners with educators in the education of their children.
Counselors can make their unique contributions to the educational program and healthy growth & development of students.
School Administrators understand and support the school counseling program priorities and demands & make decisions that reflect those.
All Staff Members accept responsibility for CSCP's goals and objectives

For the 2022-2023 academic school year, Benold Middle School will prioritize the following two assumptions:

Priority assumption one: Comprehensive School Counseling Programs (CSCP) provide for each of the four delivery system components: Guidance & Advising, Individual Planning, Responsive Services, System Support.

Priority assumption two: School Administrators understand and support the school counseling program priorities and demands & make decisions that reflect those.

Developing and Evaluating Program Goals

Development

The Benold Middle School Comprehensive School Counseling team's goals provide the comprehensive school counseling program with direction. Program goals are developed from the assessment of students’ educational, personal/social, and career needs. Activities and services are intentionally selected to address identified needs and determine the priority of the program's time and resources. When creating annual goals, school counselors review a variety of data points and collaborate with key stakeholders to ensure the comprehensive school counseling program's goal aligns with the campus improvement plan. Learn more about the Benold Middle School's Comprehensive School Counseling goal in Section IV.

Evaluation

The Benold Middle School Counseling team utilizes a variety of assessments and data points to evaluate and analyze student, staff, and community needs. Those assessments and data points include:

Teacher feedback through student referrals, consultation with counselors, Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS) meetings, and input on the Health & Wellness Advisory Design Team
Parent feedback on student and campus needs, and PTA & Site Based Decision Management team collaboration
Spring 2022 Student Experience Survey
22-23 Student Campus Advisory Committee Survey
21-22 School-Based Therapy statistics
Care Solace Dashboard data
Classroom Guidance Lesson data
Campus Time Tracking data
Request to Meet with the Counselor form data

Teacher Feedback

Teachers are a valuable resources for shaping the Comprehensive School Counseling Program. Throughout the school year, teachers refer students to the school counselor they believe to be in need of crisis counseling, individual social/emotional counseling, or group counseling based on classroom observations or parent information. Teachers often consult with school counselors on specific student needs and how to best support those students. Once a week, teachers meet with their fellow grade level teachers during a MTSS meeting to discuss students multiple teachers have concerns (academic, behavioral, or social/emotional) about, and develop a consensus on action steps for how to help that student. School counselors are encouraged to attend these meetings to provide collaboration or consultation depending on the need of the student. School counselors can also suggest the team discuss a particular student based on what the school counselor has observed or information parents have shared with the school counselors. In addition, MTSS is a time for teachers to provide feedback on any school counseling initiatives; for example classroom guidance topics in need based on what the teachers are seeing/hearing from their students. It truly is a synergetic relationship between the Benold Middle School Counseling team and faculty members.

Teachers are also members of the Health & Wellness Advisory Team and actively participate in the development of school-wide programs that promote social/emotional, mental, and physical health.

Parent Feedback

The parents provide feedback throughout the year through the Benold Middle School PTA and Health & Wellness Advisory Team. During meetings, parents are provided the opportunity to share their experiences and discuss the needs of the school community. Ideas are then generated based on the real-time feedback to better support Benold Middle School.

Spring 2022 Student Experience Survey

The Student Experience Survey (SES) is annually provided to students in March . The survey asks a series of questions focusing on the Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) domains (i.e. intrapersonal, interpersonal, and cognitive), as well as environmental observations and engagement with learning. The information from the survey is used by campuses to inform the need for specific school-wide, small group, and individual support for the upcoming school year.

For more information regarding the SES, please visit our district's Counseling Services website.

SES Spring 2022 6th-11th.pdf

22-23 Student Campus Advisory Committee Survey

Student feedback is important in shaping both our Comprehensive School Counseling Program and the Benold Middle School's Campus Improvement Plan. Select students were asked to complete the Campus Advisory Committee survey so that we may better ascertain Benold Middle School's ability to develop well-rounded and competent students.

21-22 School-Based Therapy Statistics

Every school in GISD has a School-Based Therapist that will come on campus during the school day to provide direct and indirect services to students in need. School counselors and teachers are able to make referrals for students they believe would benefit from the short-term, solution-focused therapy during the school day. In addition to student demographics (grade, gender, etc.), number of referrals, and number of indirect vs direct services, School-Based Therapists also keep track of goal progression. At the end of the year, we analyze and disaggregate the data.

CareSolace Dashboard Data

Care Solace is an online resource with a live 24/7 concierge meant to assist individuals in finding local mental health related programs and counseling services. Care Solace's web-based system works alongside GISD's multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) as a tool for school staff and families, to connect with community-based mental healthcare resources and providers. The Care Solace navigation system uses a vast database of mental healthcare resources to find carefully vetted local therapists and programs.

The school counselor can initiate a warm handoff by submitting the student's contact information after parental consent is given, and a care concierge will reach out to the parent to begin the process of connecting the family with a mental health professional. The school counselor can also provide the parents with Care Solace's contact information to reach out directly to Care Solace.

At the end of year, we can look at how many referrals were made to Care Solace, demographic information about those individuals, and if those individuals actually made it to their first appointment.

Classroom Guidance Lesson Data

The Benold Middle School Counseling team utilizes pre/posttests to determine effectiveness of classroom guidance lessons. After each classroom guidance lessons, the school counselors analyze the data collected from the pre/posttests, create infographics depicting the essential data, and share those infographics with the Benold Middle School community through the Benold Bulletin (a letter sent by the Principal to faculty members and parents). The infographics are also posted on the Benold Middle School Counseling Connection website.

Campus Time Tracking Data

The Benold Middle School Counseling team tracks weekly use of time based on the four delivery components: Guidance & Advising, Individual Student Planning, Responsive Services, and System Support. This particular time tracking document also computes our time usage by nine week and year, allowing us to continuously review our services.

Copy of Benold Time Tracker

Benold CSCP Four Delivery Components Defined

Request to Meet with a Counselor form

If a student would like to speak with a school counselor, we ask that they submit a Request to Meet with a Counselor form. We ask for students' names, grade levels, which school counselor the student needs to see, and the reason (problem at school, problem at home, grades, something personal, or other) for the visit. At the end of the year, we analyze, disaggregate, and disseminate this data.

Program Evaluation Data Infographics

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