162. The 3 Pieces of Data School Counselors Should Grab Right Now

You're listening to the Counselor Chat podcast, a show for school counselors looking for easy to implement strategies, how to tips, collaboration, and a little spark of joy.

I'm Carol Miller, your host. I'm a full time school counselor and the face behind Counseling Essentials. I'm all about creating simplified systems, data driven practices, and using creative approaches to engage students.

If you're looking for a little inspiration to help help you make a big impact on student growth and success, you're in the right place. Because we're better together.

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Hey everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Counselor Chat. I'm your host, Carol Miller. I'm a school counselor and the face behind Counseling Essentials.

And I am just wondering,

where did this year go?

We are mid May,

people, Mid May, which means I know that some of you are counting down like the last two or three days of your school year.

And there are others like myself, that go till the end of June.

But wherever you are in your school year, it is almost done.

And so today's episode is all about data.

Because there are just some pieces of data that we should grab right now.

Whether we're ending the year like soon or we still have a little bit of time,

there's still some things that we need to do to prep for next year.

And I don't know if you're like me,

you're probably sitting around saying,

wait,

where did this year go?

Because let's face it, every single year it seems to happen.

It just flies by.

I mean, we start the school year with all these big plans. We're going to track all the data, we're going to document every single intervention. We're going to have beautiful graphs, organized spreadsheets.

We're going to be data driven queens and kings.

But then, let's face it,

reality shows up. I mean, there aren't crisises. There are schedule changes, there's testing interruptions, and of course, there are behaviors.

And there are assemblies that somehow magically appear on our calendar five minutes before they actually happen.

And before you know it, it's the end of the school year and someone says,

so can you summarize your counseling program for the year?

Cue the panic.

So today's episode, my friends, is all about the three pieces of data that you should grab right now before the school year slips away,

what actually matters, and how to use what you already have instead of creating more work for yourself.

And don't worry, we're going to keep this simple because complicated systems that only work in Theory.

Well, we don't need any more of those.

I think the one biggest misconception about school counseling data is this idea that more data equals better data.

And that's simply not true.

Honestly, sometimes we are drowning in information,

and we still can't clearly explain our impact.

And the truth is, your principal probably doesn't want a 47 page spreadsheet.

All they want is clarity. They want highlights. They want outcomes.

They want evidence that students were supported.

And what you want is something that is manageable,

doesn't take 14 hours,

and actually reflects the work that you did all year.

So instead of trying to track everything under the sun right now,

I want you to focus on just three things.

I know that this might sound obvious,

but the first thing is what you did.

Counselors, I think, often forget to track the actual scope of their work.

And this matters because we do so much that people never see.

So first, grab the numbers. Things like how many classroom lessons were taught?

How many small groups did you run?

How many individual counseling sessions did you have?

How many times did you respond to crises?

How many parent meetings were your referrals or attendance interventions,

behavior supports, career activities, community circles,

do whatever fits your role.

And here's the good news.

You probably already have most of this.

So somewhere,

maybe it's your calendar,

maybe it's your lesson plans. Maybe it's a Google form for people putting in referrals.

Maybe it's some signing sheets or referral logs,

Maybe even the sticky notes on your desk that somehow become a filing system.

And let me tell you, there's no judgment there,

because I have a bunch of sticky notes that I saved that are, see this kid, See this kid, see this kid?

Because for me, that's a tracking system.

The key here, though, my friends, is to don't overcomplicate this.

Even estimates are better than nothing.

Because when you say,

I taught 87 classroom lessons this year,

well, that tells a story.

And when you say, I facilitated 14 small groups supporting friendship skills, grief attendance, and emotional regulation,

well, that tells a story, too.

People need some visuals and numbers to understand the scope of your counseling work.

The next piece of data that you need to collect is what changed?

Now,

this is the piece I think we as counselors get nervous about because we hear outcome data and suddenly it feels like we need a dissertation and a statistics degree.

Here's the thing.

You do not.

You just need evidence of growth.

That's it.

So ask yourself, did students learn something?

Did you improve something?

Can they understand something?

Did something change?

This could be some Pre post surveys.

Maybe it's the behavioral referrals, decreasing attendance, improving students, identifying coping skills,

teachers reporting improvement,

and maybe even some student reflections.

And again,

you may already have this.

Maybe you did exit tickets or feeling check ins,

quick rating skills,

a thumbs up, thumbs down in classroom lessons.

Maybe you did some forced choice surveys.

I mean, that all counts.

And sometimes counselors dismiss the data that they do have because it doesn't look fancy enough.

But simple data is still meaningful data.

For example,

before our lesson, only 42% of students could identify three coping skills. After the lesson,

89% could.

That's pretty powerful.

Or students in our attendance group improved average attendance by 12%.

That's also powerful.

Or how about this one?

Teachers reported improved peer attendance after classroom community circles.

That's still valuable because growth matters.

The third piece of data is stories.

And honestly,

this might be the most important piece because numbers are important,

but stories make people feel the impact.

And this is where you collect student quotes,

teacher feedback,

parent comments,

success moments,

observations.

These are the things that make your program come alive.

I love when teachers send me a little email that says, wow, that lesson really made a difference.

Or the teacher says,

this lesson is so important, I'm so glad that you did this with our kids.

Or wow,

these community circles, they have made all the difference because I love a good community circle and I always think that they make a difference. But when the teacher shares that, they see an improvement.

Oh, that's like gold.

Now,

I once had a student who barely spoke during the first few sessions of a small group that I was running.

I mean, you probably have encountered a similar kid. Their head was down,

there was minimal interaction.

I would ask a question,

you know what they would do? They would shred.

I, I don't know.

And I didn't even get the I don't know. I just got the shrug.

And at the end of the group, the student said,

this is the first time I felt like people listened to me.

You better believe that went into my end of year report,

because that matters.

Stories,

even those really short ones,

they put heart behind all the numbers that we collect.

And when you combined numbers,

outcomes and stories,

that's when people truly understand your impact.

And here's what not to do right now.

Let me save you from a mistake I see counselors make every May.

Do not suddenly create 17 new spreadsheets,

color coded data systems,

or a tracking process that takes longer than your actual counseling sessions.

This is not the time.

May is survival season.

Use what you already have.

Your goal is not perfection.

Your Goal is capturing enough meaningful information to tell the story of your program.

That's it.

Now, I pretty sure that I've shared this before,

if not this year, I know in previous years,

but I'm called the teacher coordinator of our counseling elementary counselors.

One of the things that I do in my role is I send out a weekly email that goes to a data collection form. It's just a simple Google form that we put together and it collects the data.

How many lessons did you do,

how many small groups,

how many individual sessions, how many referrals did you make? How many CPS calls or things did you have to sit in on?

And I usually recreate this email every week and I put it into the scheduler and I schedule it in batches.

And so I usually try to go from break to break.

And I have to be honest, I was excellent about that until this last big break that we had and then I totally forgot to reschedule them.

And so I'm still gonna send out my last one to my counselors and I'm just gonna ask them to just go back from break to break and just count up all the things.

Cause I know that they keep a calendar,

we all have a little schedule. And to put that in so that it's all nice and neat in our spreadsheet, it shouldn't take a lot of time, it shouldn't take a lot of effort.

And like I said, the data is already there.

And that is so cool when we're able to go to our advisory council meeting and say look at everything the elementary counselors did.

Look at all these lessons,

but also look at how many classes we missed because we were responding to a crisis.

And like I said, that matters too. Our advisory council,

they use that information.

So this past year they added some,

we have connected community schools and so they added some behavioral support people into our programs as well. So they use that data to help us with the things that we need help with.

So that data, my friends, is so important.

Now you also want to make your data look good with without making yourself miserable.

So once you gather your information presentation, it does matter because let's be honest, a beautiful one page report gets read a lot more often than a giant wall of text.

And I have end of year counseling report.

It's actually a little freebie.

And I'm going to link that into the show notes so that you have it super simple to use. You just count up your stuff, shove in the little form and voila, it's all there.

And this is great. We use it too,

because counselors really need this way to summarize their impact.

Showcase your program,

and like I said, present the data in a way that's eye catching and easy to understand.

This will help you organize your lessons, your group,

your student impact,

and your highlights.

And it will be in something that will look polished and professional without taking forever to create.

We will use this in our district. I'm going to put it all together for us in our advisory council meetings. We have a slideshow that we do, and so this will actually be one of our slides.

And then we also, in our district, report to our advisory council one of our smart goals. And so we have the data for our smart goal too.

I still have to tally that up,

but it's all there. I just have to add some numbers together and look at the difference between when we've started to where we're at.

And that's our second slide.

So my friends having this,

these visuals,

they really,

they are quite impactful.

And here's the thing,

sometimes administrators,

they don't really realize the scope of our work until they actually see it visually laid out.

The same with our advisory council. And our advisory council is made up of administrators from throughout different buildings throughout the district.

Plus, we also have a lot of community members.

We have people from the local college. We have people from some banking. We have people from.

We have Griffis Air Force Base in Rome. And so people from the base are there. We have a lot of different individuals who all have some sort of connection with the schools.

And when we lay this out for them,

they're like, wow, like, that's a lot of work.

It really gives a lot of credibility to our school counseling program.

The reports,

they make invisible work,

just visible.

And you know what the best part is?

You don't need complicated data systems to use it.

You just need a few numbers, a few outcomes, and a few stories, and that's it.

So if you've been feeling behind or you're like,

I didn't collect enough data this year,

I want you to hear this.

Start with what you have.

Not what you wish you had tracked,

not what another counselor on Instagram color coded beautifully and shared on their post,

you need to look at what you have.

Because your work mattered this year.

Even if it felt messy, imperfect,

reactive,

exhausting,

or unfinished.

Your students were supported because you showed up.

Now it's just time to tell that story.

One last thing before we kind of wrap this up, too.

Is that that data that you're collecting, not only does it show the story to your administration,

but it can help really drive your program in a direction for next year.

And just like the world of school counseling is ever evolving,

so are our counseling programs.

And so if we take a moment and we look at our impact and what we did,

it gives us a direction for where we need to go next year.

Because it really is a continuation.

It's not a let me start over, let me start from scratch.

It's a continuation of the work that you're currently doing.

So if you'd like my friends to grab that free end of year counseling report,

I'll really make sure that the link is in the Show Notes.

It's designed to help you pull everything together quickly and professionally so you can end the year feeling organized instead of overwhelmed.

And honestly,

future you and June will be very thankful.

So, my friends, thank you so much for spending part of your day with me.

You are and you have done amazing work this year.

So until next time, I hope you have a really great week.

Bye for now.

Thanks for listening to today's episode of Counselor Chat. All of the links I talked about can be found the show notes and at counselingessentials.org podcast.

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I'd really appreciate it.

Want to connect? Send me a DM on Facebook or Instagram at Counseling Essentials until next time. Can't wait till we chat.

Bye for now.