71. Using Data In Our School Counseling Program

Key Points Covered:

The Role of Data in School Counseling:

  • Data as a tool for informed decision-making.
  • The significance of proactive interventions in student support.

Types of Data School Counselors Can Collect:

  • Academic performance data (grades, test scores, attendance).
  • Behavioral data (disciplinary incidents, attendance patterns, social-emotional skills).
  • Surveys and assessments (career interests, mental health, school climate).

Using Data to Create Responsive Programs: 

  • Importance of analyzing data to identify trends and underlying issues.
  • Communicating Data Findings to Stakeholders

Strategies for sharing data effectively: 

  • Data dashboards.
  • Presentations.
  • Written reports.

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Transcript

Carol: 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 you make a big impact on student growth and success, you're in the right place because we're better together. Ready to chat? Let's dive in.

Carol: Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. This is Carol here. And today we are going to talk all about what did the data say? And really, it's about ways that school counselors can use data in their school counseling program to enhance student outcomes. Because when we include the use of data, it really helps us to create programs that move us to a responsive form of counseling rather than doing reactive counseling. As counselors, we are committed to really ensuring that every student reaches their full potential. But how can we ensure our efforts are targeted and effective? Well, the answer really lies in the data. And data isn't just numbers. It's really the key to unlocking those insights that drive informed decisions and really proactive interventions. So how do we really make that shift from reactive to responsive programming? In the past, I think as, and I know I'm included in this, I often reacted in a really reactive mode. I addressed issues as they arose. I was so busy fighting fires that that's pretty much what I did from the minute I walked in the building until the time I went home. And it took me several years. In fact, it took me probably a decade or two to really understand that with data, if we take a minute and we slow down and we really start to collect it and analyze it, we can really start taking a more proactive approach. You know, way back in the day, I thought a comprehensive program was really one that responded to the needs of students, and it covered a variety of topics. And I don't think I really, truly understood what a comprehensive school counseling program was. I mean, they didn't really talk to us in great details about that when I was in college, and they kind of just glossed over it. They just said, everybody needs to have a comprehensive program, and we have to align our program to the mindsets and the behaviors and really address our student, our students needs. But for me at least, they didn't really talk to us about what comprehensive, a comprehensive program means. And that's really taking a look at what's going on in your school, in your building, and kind of creating a program that helps to fill in some of the gaps and from there, moving it forward. So you close those gaps. Now, that might sound a lot easier than it is to be done. And true it is, but comprehensive really takes a look at that, as well as providing the lessons and the services and the counseling groups that our kids need. And so the best way to really dive in and to take a look at that is, my friends, to look at the data. So you might be thinking, what kind of data should we collect? And really, the answer to that is, the possibilities are endless. But for a few examples, I'm sure you know, you can track academic performance. Tracking grades and test scores and even attendance can provide us valuable insight into a kid's academic progress and help us identify areas where they need additional support. Now, that's just one example. There's also that behavioral data where we can monitor disciplinary incidents. Once again, look at those attendance patterns, go to the report cards and look at that social emotional skills that our kids might be struggling with. Class, you know what I always thought was funny? Well, first of all, I didn't even realize that our social emotional skills for kids were even listed on the elementary report cards. And lo and behold, I pulled up a report card, and there that information was. And I was seeing these deficits our kids had that their teachers were responding that I never knew about. They never came to me and said, hey, my kids are struggling in this area. And it wasn't until I really started pulling that information from report cards that I was really able to form groups for my kids that they really needed, and that started to make a difference. So we can look at that, at those social emotional skills from report card data. We can also send out surveys and assessments to our teachers. We can send out surveys like career interests, mental health, school climate, and we can get feedback from our students, our parents, and our staff. We did this two years ago. We sent surveys to all of our students because we wanted to know how they felt I about their relationship in school. Did they feel safe? Did they feel welcomed? Did they feel like if they were absent, that somebody was going to notice? And we got back some really good information from our kids. And from that, we really tried to align programs in our school to really make sure that kids were seen, were heard, were valued, were welcomed, and, of course, felt safe. So taking a look at data really helps to really put programs in place that our kids really need. So how do we create a responsive program for kids, here's just one example. Let's imagine we notice a trend of declining grades among a group of students. Once we start really analyzing the attendance records and talking to teachers, we discover that many of these students are frequently absent from class. Knowing this information now we can develop targeted attendance intervention programs which can include incentives for improved attendance. Maybe we want to do one on one counseling sessions to address underlying issues. We can collaborate with teachers to provide additional academic support. We can meet with our kiddos and really find out what's going on. Maybe it's not just the attendance. Maybe they feel so lost in their classes, they don't even know how to ask for help anymore. So we can help them by putting the right systems in place for them. But Mary, remember, my friends, it's not just enough to really collect and analyze data, but we also have to really effectively communicate our findings to our stakeholders. We can have data dashboards where we create visual dashboards that really display key metrics and trends, and pretty user friendly format. This is great if you put some information into Excel spreadsheets and you use the chart function where you can create a bar graph or a pie chart and have those visuals, they're really easy to do. And having that visual really can be quite eye catching. Like, wow, boy, I can really see what we need now based on this data. Or, wow, I can really see where we need to help our kids. We can also have presentations. We can host meetings or workshops and present our findings. I'm sure you know one type of presentation or meeting or workshop to host, and that's an advisory council meeting. Because when you have an advisory council, you really can get people on board to really help shape your program, to help get the word out, to help advocate for the things that you need, to help you pull in outside supports that can further the programming that you offer. So maybe one of your surveys said, hey, we don't do enough with careers. Our kids, by the time they're getting out of 8th grade, they have no clue what careers are out there. They have no clue what their interests are or their surveys are. They don't understand what these different what a major is or what options are available to them. And so if we present findings like this to an advisory council, they might come back and say, hey, we have some great ideas for presentations that we can do with the kids. We can have some career fairs. We can have speakers come in and help you talk about careers. We can maybe even provide you money to do more programming. Wow, wouldn't that be nice? A little money to do programming. But you never know. They might even say, hey, I saw a grant about this. Our school right now is, we just heard about a grant that my principal just applied for four careers. So hopefully we're going to have some money because we are definitely hosting a career, kind of like a fair during the school day with our kiddos, because we also realized that we wanted to increase career awareness because our kids were saying they still needed more information about that. And granted, I'm in an elementary school book, career planning starts with kindergarten. You know, we have to make them aware of different things. So data really drives. It drives the program, and presenting, it helps us really make those plans come to life. You can also, my friends, do written reports. You can gather all the data, put in your insights, your recommendations, and you can send those to the stakeholders as well. And in years where there's budgetary crunches and crisis is kind of like what we're going into next year now that a lot of COVID money is gone and we're seeing some staff members potentially lose their positions, having reports of what you do and what you cover and what kids need can be really valuable in terms of keeping and creating positions. So, in conclusion, my friends, data, it's not just a buzzword. It's a really powerful tool that you can use to drive positive change in your program. We really need to start shifting from reactive to responsive, and we do that by slowing down. One of my favorite things that I always tell myself is, you gotta slow down before you can speed up. And it's true. Once you take a step back and say, I'm not gonna get this to this other thing today, or these five things today, I'm just gonna focus on this one because this is important, because this might change what I do or how I react to these other five things that I'm not going to do today, you're going to find that by slowing down, you will speed up. So I hope that this was helpful and that you let data be your friend, because we really, we want to create student outcomes that really create an environment where every kid can thrive. All right, until next time, I hope you have a great weekend.

Carol: Thanks for listening to today's episode of Counselor chat. All of the links I talked about can be found in the show notes and@counselingessentials.org podcast. Be sure to hit, follow, or subscribe on your favorite podcast player. And if you would be so kind to leave a review, I'd really appreciate it.

Carol: Want to connect?

Carol: Send me a DM on Facebook. Or instagramounselingessentials until next time. Can't wait till we chat. Bye for now.