| POSITION: | School Counselor - Probationary | | LOCATION: | Middle School | | CERTIFICATION: | NYS School Counselor | |
Purpose: A school counselor will have the primary responsibility of focusing on the relations and interactions between students and their school environment with the expressed purpose of reducing the effect of environmental and institutional barriers that impede student academic success. The profession fosters conditions that ensure educational equity, access, and academic success for all students K-12. To accomplish this function, the trained school counselor must be an assertive advocate, creating opportunities for all students to nurture dreams of high aspirations. The counselor assists students in their academic, social, emotional and personal development and helps them to define the best pathways to successfully achieve their dreams. The school counselor serves as a leader as well as an effective team member, working with teachers, administrators and other school personnel to make sure that each student succeeds. The school counselor, as consultant, empowers families to act on behalf of their children by helping parents/guardians identify student needs and shared interests, as well as access available resources.
Core Values:
As a Pal-Mac staff member, we believe that we can achieve our vision and accomplish our mission if, in all of our work, we focus on clearly defined and consistently demonstrated core values.
In all of our actions and interactions we:
- Focus on students
- Value the power of positive relationships
- Act with integrity and honesty
- Work with a purpose, striving for excellence, pride and passion
- Approach experiences with an open mind and a willingness to grow
- Foster safety and a sense of belonging
Expected Results:
1. School counselors will work with all students, school staff, families and members of the community as an integral part of the educational program by:
- Providing counseling services for all students.
- Being available at the appropriate Open House.
- Planning and conducting orientations for incoming classes.
- Making every effort to keep parents informed of significant academic events in their child’s school life through telephone communication, written correspondence, and individual conferences.
- Assisting Building Principals in selecting students for local scholarships prior to graduation (High School).
- Encouraging parental involvement.
2. School counselors will promote school success through a focus on academic achievement by:
- Assisting faculty in arranging parent conferences and recording pertinent information derived from such conferences.
- Prior to the mailing of Progress Reports to the parents, reviewing and signing these reports pertaining to the students submitted by teachers.
- Compiling the High School course catalog (High School).
- The counselor will individually, on a yearly basis, schedule students for classes to be taken the following fall (Middle School and High School).
3. School counselors will promote school success through a focus on prevention and intervention activities, advocacy, and social/emotional counseling by:
- Meeting with students who are placed in in-school suspension or out-of-school suspension.
- Promoting youth development through individual counseling, group counseling and classroom guidance in:
- Self-esteem
- Family relationships
- Social skills
- Problem-solving, decision-making, and goal setting
- Conflict resolution
- Avoiding drug and alcohol use
- Dealing with grief and loss issues
- Anger management
- Being a collaborative member of special programs, if applicable, such as the Primary Project, Eagles, and Bridges programs.
- Conducting home visits to meet with parents and students.
- Coordinate services provided by other agencies (counseling, tutoring, and mentoring).
- Reviewing report cards and meeting with students to review progress.
- Assisting with students support services to remove barriers to academic success (as part of RtI) such as attendance problems, family-related issues, health and nutrition related issues, and mobility/transfer issues.
- Being a member of the building’s Crisis Team.
4. School counselors will promote college and career readiness by:
- Helping students develop and implement post-secondary educational and career plans.
- Reviewing each student’s career plan annually.
- Maintaining, supervising, and evaluating college catalogs and other pertinent resource materials for students preparing for college (High School).
- Setting up and facilitating visitations from college and military representatives (High School).
- Setting up and facilitating financial aid night for parents and students (High School).
- Scheduling students to take the SAT and ACT examinations (High School).
- Assisting students with the college search, the application process, and applying for financial aid. (High School).
- Helping students to complete the necessary documents to receive their working papers (High School and Middle School).
- Work with the Work Based Learning Program Coordinator, when applicable, to provide students with internship and shadowing opportunities.
- Work with the Work Based Learning Program Coordinator, when applicable, to assist students with job readiness and employment skills.
- Work with the Work Based Learning Program Coordinator, when applicable, to help implement NYS CDOS Standards.
5. School counselors work to promote student success by closing existing achievement gaps and providing access to a demanding academic program for each student by:
- Being a member of the school’s Pupil Personnel Service (PPS) team, Saving Struggling Students Team (SSST), and Response to Intervention (RtI) team.
- Identifying and conferring with students struggling to succeed in their academic classes.
- Identifying and conferring with students who are failing two or more subjects.
- Providing students with information regarding summer school programs, register interested students, and record the grades in the student information system (High School and Middle School). If applicable, determine those students who should be awarded a diploma in August (High School).
6. School counselors ensure that every student benefits directly from the school counseling program by:
- Being current on counseling theory and techniques.
- Meet with each student at least once a year and maintain records of the conference.
- Maintain and be responsible for the accuracy of their students’ cumulative folder.
- Properly register new entrants to the high school, checking the authenticity of information provided or validating the same information. Any new entrant who is suspected of having special needs will be referred to CSE.
- Maintaining records of which students have taken and need to take the required Regents exams to graduate (High School and Middle School).
- Assisting the principal in developing the master schedule (High School and Middle School).
- Creating and maintaining a chart of senior graduation requirements and will recommend to the high school principal the type of diploma to be awarded to graduating seniors (High School).
- Coordinating and supervising the mark reporting system and student information system.
- Maintaining the accuracy of students' grades within the mark reporting system and student information system.
- Finalizing student records at the end of the academic year including:
- Promoting or demoting students in consultation with the Building Principal;
- Affixing permanent records tabs to permanent record cards;
- Affixing attendance tabs to individual file folders;
- Affixing testing scores to individual file folders; and
- Preparing folders of graduating seniors for transfer to file rooms (High School).
- Working with the Building Principal to evaluate the counseling program and explore ways to improve the program.
7. All parents, students, community members, employees, and all visitors to the Palmyra-Macedon CSD will experience the Pal-Mac Way by:
- Greeting parents, students, community members, employees, and all visitors with a friendly and helpful attitude.
- Displaying a customer service approach when working with others in person, on the phone, and through written and electronic communication.
- Being attentive to the needs of all individuals who request their assistance.
- Communicating clearly, both verbally and in writing.
- Utilizing their skills to de-escalate a situation when other people are in a heightened or excited state.
8. School Counselors will perform all other duties as assigned by the Building Principal.