Section V: Program Curriculum

IMPLEMENTATION OF GUIDANCE CURRICULUM

Garden Ridge Elementary's counseling program implements its scope and sequence of the guidance curriculum by planning each month's lessons as a year at a glance to ensure all lesson requirements, needs, and standards are met. A continuing goal for the school year was to increase self-esteem and coping skills as tools to practice positive ways to regulate emotions and behavior and reduce behavior referrals while working with the whole child at GRE. We have seen that behavior regulation, positive interactions with others, and positive self-concept continue to be areas of struggle for our students in post-COVID times through parent, staff, and student self-reporting as well as office referral data.

CONTENT AREA: INTRAPERSONAL EFFECTIVENESS

I.A. Student Competency: Students have a positive self-concept

I.A.i Goal: Students will have accurate self-concepts

Students will: Become aware of their personal traits, become aware of the importance of liking themselves, identify some of their strengths and limitations, become aware of their personal traits and characteristics that contribute to the uniqueness of each individual, demonstrate an awareness of what contributes to an accurate self-esteem, demonstrate understanding of how their school performance contributes to their self-esteem.

GRE Counseling Library

Our Counselor and previous administrator were awarded a grant to create the GRE Counseling Library, which is packed full of books and workbooks for social-emotional learning and reinforcement of skills. The Counselor, GRE staff, and parents have access to the Counseling Library to check out books to read aloud in class, in guidance lessons and small groups, or to take home and help with behavior support for parents.

The Counseling Library was launched at our 2022 back to school teacher training and the Counselor had staff pull books and help to create a Google Drive shared file of lesson plans that are shared school-wide with staff members so that lessons are easily accessible for most of the books in the Counseling Library. The Counseling Library inventory is updated regularly as more titles are added each year when funds are available through campus or district monies. In addition, we have had GRE parents and families donate books to the Counseling Library from our campus book fairs on topics such as diversity, family changes, and acceptance.

All of these amazing resources have been a huge blessing not only for the GRE counseling program, but for our campus as a whole. We have been able to reinforce our behavioral expectations from school to home and provide a common language for parents to use by sending books home with parents. The Counselor has highlighted different books that are available in her weekly Skylert parent email newsletters to encourage visits to and use of the Counseling Library and we met and exceeded our goal of 100 books checked out!

Our GRE Counseling Library has several series of books and individual titles as well that lend themselves to supporting a positive self-image and building student self-esteem. You may click here to see a list of the current titles available for staff and family check out from our GRE Counseling Library and some pictures are posted to the side. We are excited for this to continue to be a resource for our staff and families for years to come.

GRE Counseling Library

Intrapersonal Effectiveness: Positive Self-Concept

"I Like Myself!"

Positive Mindset and Strengths Guidance Unit

Working with Stakeholders

The GRE school counseling program is an example of teamwork with many perspectives working together to benefit students. Mrs. Mennsfield coordinates and confers with school staff, parents, and community members to meet needs in regard to each of the four service delivery components. The counselor uses classroom needs assessments and stakeholder surveys to evaluate the effectiveness of the program and plan future activities. Mrs. Mennsfield maintains an up-to-date website with parent and community resources and sends weekly counseling emails to parents and staff regarding lessons, services, and activities. The GRE counselor also serves as the Zone Leader for the Flower Mound HS feeder campuses and meets monthly with district leadership and then with her feeder campus cohort to share relevant information and plan events across campuses to benefit families in the area. Finally, the counselor works in conjunction with school administrators, PTA, and district staff to promote counseling initiatives and advocate for the school counseling profession.

Example of Weekly Counseling Email to Parents and Staff

Counseling Office Website

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