Lauren: Hi, my friends. If you are listening to this, I'm
venturing that you are either at the end of your school year, you
have made it across the finish line, your students have
graduated, or you are this close to getting there. Like, you can
see it, you can taste it, it's about to happen for you. I know
we are all barely hanging on through the end of the school
year, whether that is in your work life or also add in
personal life, just this time of year ends up getting crazy. It's
like the craziness without the holidays, but all the to do
lists, et cetera. So let's talk about how we're going to wrap up
the end of the year, how we're going to check out, but the
things that we need to do before we officially get out for the
end of the year.
And then if you still have some time left in the school year and
If at this point, you are still interviewing for jobs, like you
are trying to make a transition from elementary or middle to
high school, you're in a high school and you're trying to move
to a different high school, or maybe you're an intern and
you're hoping to get a job, I want to make sure that you get
these free interview videos that will give you tips and
strategies for interviewing for your jobs. I can't promise that
you're actually going to get the job from doing it, but a lot of
people have. So go to counselorclique.com/interviews
to get those videos sent to your email inbox to help you prep for
your job if you are still hoping to nail an interview and get
that dream job.
you are trying to get together some end of year resources, I
have an end of year bundle that I've put together with some of
my favorite resources as you're wrapping up this school year. It
has things like data collection and just some things you can do
in classrooms and individual lessons and counseling sessions
with students. So I'd encourage you to check that out. I will
link that in the show notes. If you are still feeling like you
need to have some counseling tools in your back pocket, I've
got you covered there. Let's go ahead and get into the three
tasks that you're going to do before you check out for the
year.
You you got into this profession to make a difference in your
students' lives, but you're spread thin by all of the things
that keep getting added to your to do list. I can't create more
hours in the day, but I can invite you into my counselor
clique, where you'll finally catch your breath. Come with me
as we unpack creative ideas and effective strategies that'll
help you be the counselor who leaves a lifelong impact on your
students. I'm Lauren Tingle, your high school counseling hype
girl, here to help you energize your school counseling program
and remind you of how much you love your job.
First and foremost, I want you to collect and write down any
notes that you just think that you're going to remember,
because we all have this ideal that we will remember everything
we set out to. We will know that when that student's name pops
up, we're going to remember that they are doing algebra two and
credit recovery over the summer, and if they don't complete it,
they're going to be retained in 10th grade. Okay, I think I'm
gonna remember that because it's so specific, because I know that
student so well. We sat and talked about grades every week
in my office, but if I don't write down the specifics, I
might not remember where we left off with this conversation, or
what my responsibility was gonna be when that grade came back in
or it didn't, or what their plan was going to be when they
actually didn't finish the class.
So write down all the information that you think
you're going to need, like, who are your failures at the end of
the year, and what that plan is for each of those individual
students. If it's credit recovery, if it's some sort of
summer school, if they are trying to finish something in
the first week of summer and average with their grade, I
don't know. I'm sure there is something unique that your
district does, that your school does, that might be different
depending on where you are or what grade level you work with.
So write those things down so that when you get a random
parent phone call in the middle of the summer or the craziness
of the school year starts, you can quickly just trigger that
memory with the notes that you have.
If you have any weird scheduling or transcript stuff, let's also
write down these type of notes. So if, you know, you're in the
middle of this master schedule, getting everybody's schedules
just right, but there are things you know that are coming that
you're going to have to make big changes with, like a teacher is
going to change and it's gonna push all these, you know, the
ones that I'm talking about, like, where you know that this
special ed class is gonna be dissolved, and you're gonna have
to find new things. Like, go ahead and just like dog ear
those pages. Jot your notes down. Print out any of the
emails from admin that say, like, Band One is now, you know,
marching band, and it's whatever those prerequisites are.
And then transcript stuff. If you have students who are
graduating that need certain transcripts sent places, or you
have already sent those places, I kind of talked about this in a
senior episode before, but get your systems in place for your
senior transcripts and where they're going. If you have some
final grades for your other students that will be printed on
their final transcripts at the end of the year, make sure that
if there is just something weird about it, like that they are
failing due to attendance, or you are waiting on a last minute
grade to get this one up to passing, and it's gonna make or
break them being retained or being promoted, like those kinds
of tiny details are all very important. They're the ones that
you don't wanna forget what the backstory was, but the parent
wasn't involved, so the parent never sent you an email, like
you have no paper trail other than the notes that you write
down.
So pick where you're gonna keep your notes written down for your
failures and their plans, any weird scheduling things, any
weird transcript stuff.
If you still have emails that are like ongoing conversations
where the loops haven't been closed yet, I want you to either
flag those, put them in a special folder, print them off,
and file them in the student's folder that you keep the extra
special printed stuff in. Like, you know, the ones that are
still continuing on into the summer, the loops that you wish
you could close, that you just haven't closed yet. Go ahead and
print those out, or jot some notes on there so that you don't
forget where you left off with those conversations.
A thing that I want you to remember to write down,
reference last week's episode if you need help with this, write
down some quick data points that you'll want to track year over
year, or you'll want to be able to reference when the new school
year starts. So I'm talking about doing the things that will
serve your future self, do those right now. Because I know when I
would get to the end of the year, I don't have that readily
available in my brain of what the promotion or retention rate
was at the end of last year. I do not know how many students
fail their classes due to attendance. Like the things that
you might want to have some new initiatives for or set some new
smart goals off of, it is so much easier to do it when it's
still fresh in your mind at the end of the year, versus going
back and digging for that information when August rolls
around and you have 1,000,001 other things to do.
If you're wondering what sorts of data points you could
collect, head back to last week's episode, the one that
comes right before this, and I'll also link it in the show
notes, but that is a great data episode for the end of the year.
Okay, we've already talked about the things that you're going to
write down, any notes that you're going to collect, because
let's be real, you're not going to always remember them. Now,
let's talk about relationally. I want you to tie up any loose
ends you have with your students. If you have high
flyers and you're still connected to them now, because
they haven't left your school building yet, I want you to have
a game plan for them. Connect with them, talk to them about
the summer resources they might need.
So whether that is summer school, and you need to follow
up and make sure A, they're registered, B, they know how to
access their account if it's online, or where to go if it's
in person, and C, why it's important and get them some
motivation going to get that completed. I want you to touch
base with them before they leave for the summer. They need to
know how important whatever the work is that's in front of them,
so that they follow through. If they're your high flyers, you
probably know that maybe they're not the most accountable to
actually finishing work. And so every touch point that you can
have all the way till you don't see them anymore, is valuable in
your book.
If you have students who are going to need some extra mental
health resources over the summer, don't let that slip by
before they walk out of your school building. Give them the
things that they're going to need. Do they need to follow up
with a counselor outside of school? Are they doing some sort
of, okay, I'm going to say mental health summer camp. That
sounds maybe weird, but in our school, our LPC used to hold.
I'm gonna put it in air quotes, summer camps, for her students
on her caseload. Don't know if this is common everywhere else,
but it was really cool. But I would have to remind students,
hey, when Miss Jera calls you over the summer to invite you to
her summer camp, make sure you answer. Text her back, make sure
you go. It's gonna be really fun. She would offer these
activities, but then have some coping skills and therapy mixed
into whatever they were doing. It was a really valuable time
for those students, so I always wanted to make sure I was just
helping facilitate that connection point before they
left for the summer.
And then if you have students who maybe have some basic needs
that need to be met over the summer, if you've had students
who have been homeless throughout the year, make sure
they have the contact information of the shelters or
the homeless liaison. Yes, you will probably be working some
over the summer, but you might not be available whenever they
need you. So if they can know where they can access food banks
or just emergency resources that they might need, I think you
will sleep better at night knowing that your students are
connected. It's so hard to go away for the summer knowing that
you have these high flyer students with a lot of needs,
and you can easily spend your summer worrying about them or
hoping that they have everything that they need when they're not
connected at school.
Lastly, I want you to dream big about your summer. What are your
big hopes and dreams for this summer? And there is no right or
wrong answer here. I just want you to take a second to do this
before you completely check out for the school year. Do you want
to revamp a part of your program? Jot some notes down. Do
some daydreaming. Maybe chat over lunch with your team about
it just as you exit the year, and it's all still fresh on your
mind.
So if you did one small group right here as you ended the
school year and it went well, talk about that, remind each
other and hype each other up like we want to do this again
next year. Or maybe when you see some of those data points that
you wrote down as you got to the end of the year, you're dreaming
big for next year about something that you can see going
really well in your school to meet a need based on the data
that you pulled and just some of the things that you observed as
you got to the end of the school year.
Is reading a book on your list this summer? Now, of course, it
could just be, you know, the newest fantasy novel or
something, but maybe you want to read a PD book this summer, and
you challenge yourself to put one on your to be read list, and
you actually do it. What is that for you? I am finally going to
finish The Anxious Generation here pretty soon. I've been
listening slowly but surely on audiobook, and I've loved every
second of it, so that's free to listen to on Spotify if you have
Spotify, but I'd highly recommend that or some other PD
book that you've seen floating around. Don't forget that you
can pop in some air pods and listen to that after you listen
to your weekly episode of High School Counseling Conversations.
As you're going into the summer, maybe have big dreams of
onboarding a new team member, or you've already signed up to take
on an intern for next school year. You're probably already
thinking about what that's going to look like as they come into
your office, as they get situated, and what you're going
to kind of need to do to make sure that they have a great
experience in your school counseling office and with your
school counseling team. So if there are a couple little bullet
points that you want to jot down for that, or just dream about
what that might look like, now is the time to think about that.
And maybe your big dreams for the summer are just relaxing,
laying by the pool, thinking nothing about high school
counseling, and that is totally fine. I am here to give you
permission to say you can check out at the end of this school
year and not think about school for the entire summer. Depending
on the season that you find yourself in and the level of
stress or not stress that you find yourself in, you might have
different goals for the summer, and that is okay. It's okay for
that to change every summer, or it's okay for every summer for
you just to say, I want to check out. I don't want to be
responsible for anybody else, and I am not going to do
schoolwork over the summer, if I can help it.
I hope thinking about these three big things that you're
going to do before you check out for the year is exciting and
encouraging, because you have either already made it, or you
are so close to making it. So write down any notes that you
need to remember, tie up any loose ends with your students,
and dream your big dreams for the summer, and we will talk
more this summer.
Remember, if you're still interviewing and you need some
help with those interviews, counselorclique.com/interviews
is going to get you those free videos that are going to help
you through the interview process. And I'm going to link
some end of year resources in the show notes if you are still
looking for some resources for your high school counseling
program that'll help you tie up the end of the year. Enjoy.
Thanks for listening to today's episode of High School
Counseling Conversations. All the links I talked about today
can be found in the show notes and also at
counselorclique.com/podcast. Be sure to hit follow wherever you
listen to your podcasts, so that you never miss a new episode.
Connect with me over on Instagram. Feel free to send me
a DM @counselorclique, that's C, L, I, Q, U, E. I'll see you next
week.