100th Episode Q&A: Podcasting, Prioritizing Your To-Dos, Landing Jobs, Counselor Challenges, and More! [Episode 100]

0:00
It’s the 100th episode. We’re here! High School Counseling conversations has been in existence for almost two years now, which is wild for someone whose personality shifts gears all day, every day, Let me tell you. I’ve stuck with something like this for a long time, which I’m extremely proud of.

0:18
For the 100th episode I asked on social media and in emails for some questions to answer, really anything goes. So ask me anything in this episode. I did this back in episode 50. And it was fun. So we’re doing it again. I actually put a few different options for themes for this episode on my Instagram stories and this one won it out, so q&a episode it is.

0:40
I also want to mention real quick that I’m going to be doing a giveaway on my Instagram stories this week in honor of episode 100. So keep your eyes peeled for that. I’ll kind of save my reflections on podcasting here for this first question, and we’ll dive right in.

1:01
You got into this profession to make a difference in your students lives, but you’re spread thin by all 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 will 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.

1:32
Kristen asked on Instagram to tell more about the podcasting journey. So this feels like a great first question because it’s what we’re celebrating today. 100 episodes. I love that these episodes have become a bank of information, interviews, thoughts, opinions, guest experts, listeners and followers questions have become full episodes. And I think that’s so cool. Like people ask a question in my DMs and it’s fleshed out into an entire episode for you all. I love being able to point people back to full episodes and feel like I’m really giving them the fleshed out answer that they need, and that they deserve instead of just a quick one sentence, Instagram DM and return or something like that.

2:11
I also love that I can link to other podcast episodes or other blog posts that would be relative to the topic at hand. So this all started back way back when I studied telecommunication in college, which was basically radio and TV news. I worked at the radio and TV stations on my college campus, writing news stories, interviewing people, recording audio and video, editing them and then having them ready for deadlines to air that day. It was fast paced, it was high energy and I really loved it. Back in those days, podcasting wasn’t really a thing yet.

2:51
Okay, pause. I just paused to look up the date that podcasting started and it was 2004. So okay, it was a thing, but it just wasn’t hugely popular, I guess. Because I’m sure nowadays, and the same major students are probably taking classes in podcasting, or at least it’s touched on in the media production classes. I say all this to say, when podcasting even became a blip on my radar, I really wasn’t super intimidated by it. Because I knew I had the skills at one point in my life, to be able to produce a podcast, I just needed to dust off the old gears. And it’s funny because the program that I’ve edited in is the exact same program that I used way back in the day.

3:32
I’ll date myself here, I graduated college in 2010. Okay, I was gonna say 2006. So podcasting was around when I was in college is just not really a thing. I guess we were just watching TV and listening to the radio. I kicked off high school counseling conversations in January 2022. And here we are November 2023. And still going strong. I actually have never missed a week, which is insane, because I feel like I’ve lived a lot of life during that time.

4:01
The planning for the podcast started happening near the end of 2021 though. I wanted to have at least three episodes kind of in my bank ready to go when I released the show. And I knew I’d be releasing it in January to start the new year. I had to have a trailer, music for my show, a plan for what I was going to talk about, a place to host it, basically got a lot of behind the scenes stuff to learn, and then record it, edit it and get it out to the world.

4:27
I was a one woman show with my podcast for about 11 months. I didn’t hire a podcast manager until November 2022, which is about a year ago. And let me tell you, my life is better because of Sara Whittaker. Sara Whittaker is my podcast manager and you can find her @podcastingforeducators on Instagram and all the places. I proved to myself that I could do it all and I don’t know if I needed to prove it or I just didn’t want to spend the money on help. But it was getting to be too much for me. I was doing the same tasks over and over again each week. like to get each episode out, and I just didn’t have enough hours in the day to keep up. I honestly didn’t mind the editing process. I just did not have time for anything else when I was producing my own podcast.

5:11
If you’re curious about how to start, manage, grow a podcast, you need to head over to Sara’s Instagram page. That’s @podcastingforeducators. She shares tons of tips and resources for getting started and then maintaining and growing a podcast. I’ll link her free podcast launch guide in the show notes. She has a wealth of information if you’ve ever thought about dabbling in podcasting about any topic. She is the one who I found when I figured out how to do all the behind the scenes stuff myself. So I attribute all of my starting information and knowledge to her. And then I handed it off to her.

5:44
Okay, let’s shift gears into some high school counseling questions. Renee P asked, how do you prioritize all the to do items when you’re the sole high school counselor? Okay, this feels so hard. I don’t even think it matters. If your caseload is the recommended 250 students or you have 800 students, I think it’s hard no matter what to be the only counselor. I have not been the only counselor at a school, whether that was practicum and internship, obviously, I was under another supervising counselor. And then I worked at the same school all of my years in high school counseling with a team of counselors. So I cannot relate on this very specific thing saying, Yes, I’ve been in your shoes as the only high school counselor, but I have some encouraging thoughts for you.

6:31
First, know that you will never get it all done, that to do list is going to keep rolling over to the next day. And you just need to give yourself permission to work all the way up to deadlines. This might be paralyzing or it might be freeing for you to hear me say this. I know it feels like if we were really on top of things we’d be working months out and not working up to these deadlines. No, go ahead and give yourself grace. And know that it’s okay not to be working way ahead of schedule. Sometimes you’re putting out fires, and sometimes you’re working on huge projects that take a long time. And as long as you have them by the deadline, you’re okay.

7:12
Second, I want you to set your goals for the year and then prioritize your things around that. So when your principal comes to you with a new initiative that he suddenly wants you to lead or oversee, you can see how it does or it doesn’t fit in with your goals, you’ll have a natural filter that you’ve already set up, that will be really easy for you to stick to some boundaries that you have. Because again, you feel like you’re not getting the stuff done that you already kind of committed to or that you have to get done. And then someone else is coming and putting more things on your plate. If you say, Hey, these are my goals that I established. These are the goals that I already talked with you through how do you see them fitting together, if they don’t align, it’s going to be easier to filter those things out.

7:55
Next, I’d encourage you to really think through your program with a multi tiered system of support model in mind. It really does help everything not feel like an emergency room. Go back and listen to podcast episode number 77, with guests who wrote the book on it, which I’ll link to, this gives you a starting place. Dr. Jake Olson and Dr. Peg Donahue share a lot of strategies about MTSS, which I think is a buzzword more in elementary and probably middle. I just feel like it was not a buzzword in my grad school program. And so I didn’t really have the language for MTSS until I was listening to them talk. And I was like, Yes, this makes so much sense. We need to be running this in a high school setting. So that we’re not putting out fires all the time. And we’re not acting like an emergency room. So this gives you a starting place, especially if you are the sole high school counselor in your building, or maybe even in your district.

8:49
I got another question. How do you land the job in the district you want to work for? Again, my personal experience was I worked in a huge district. So to work outside of the district, I really would be driving somewhere else. There were 15 high schools in the district that I worked for. So you really could drive a good distance from one that was in the same district as another. So it wasn’t like I was really looking outside of my district for jobs. But I would say keep applying. Don’t get down on yourself if you don’t get a job the first time, the second time, the third time you interview. If this district is the one that you want to work in, then don’t only think about high school. I don’t know like how big of a district that you’re thinking about applying to or you know what’s in front of you. But if the district is the most important thing, then you might have to broaden your search from just high school to maybe elementary to middle, just to get your foot in the door and start making some connections.

9:48
When I mentioned just keep applying and don’t getting down on yourself. I really do think that you will be the right match for the right school. If somebody doesn’t want you. It’s hard to say when you’re getting rejected or you’re not getting called back. I know, because I was there, I interviewed for jobs. And I was told, Oh, you’re a great candidate. But, oh, you’re a great candidate, but somebody had more experience than you. But we already had an internal candidate that we wanted to fill this position with. But I mean, the list goes on and on and on. You can’t get down on yourself, you just might not have been the best fit for that department at that time.

10:24
Thinking outside of you having all the control, Is there a gatekeeper at the district office? Is there somebody who you are having to submit an application and a cover letter for that filters through all the applicants? Do you know who this is? Have you gone in person and dropped off your resume there? I encourage you to follow all the procedures, all the red tape, because if you’re not following them step by step, if you’re not emailing the right person, or following the instructions correctly, you’re just one more person that they can move to another pile, in a giant pool of applicants if they have those.

10:57
So research and investigate, do you have connections that you could utilize somewhere I know it really is about who you know, especially as you’re applying to jobs, I mean, I hate to say it, but if someone can find a connection with you, or you can find a connection with somebody else, utilize it. Can your old supervisor put it in a good word for you? When I did my internships in the district and in the area where I eventually got a job. I always said I could not imagine trying to apply for jobs outside of the district. Just without knowing anybody. I just think that that would be really hard. And you’d have to fight extra hard to be known to get your resume and cover letter seen. And to just get your foot in the door even for an interview.

11:42
My last piece of advice or my thought for landing a job in a specific district you want to work in is subbing or being a long term sub in the districts that you want to be in just to get your foot in the door. If you are a long term sub, say for a maternity leave candidate, like a counselor is going out to have a baby, and you do a good job there. What if that counselor doesn’t want to come back and return to work after they’ve had their baby, then if you did a good job, you can step into that role. Or on a big team of people. This has happened on my team, somebody doesn’t come back, but somebody else was just doing a long term sub, maybe not necessarily for that counselor who’s not coming back. But this is the first person that we’re going to ask if they did a good job there. They already know our systems, they know our students, they know our administrators, they’re a natural fit to come in next. So I would say keep your eyes open for subbing short term or long term positions to get your foot in the door at the district that you want to work in.

12:39
Is it a goal of yours to get some small groups up and running at your high school? Are small group the tasks that just keep getting pushed down on your to do list and never make it to your actual calendar and then out into the world. I want you to check out my curated podcast playlist just for small group counseling. The episodes featured cover topics like overall benefits of small groups, partner buy in student buy in facilitation tips, and more. Head to counselorclick.com/smallgroupplaylist to put this playlist in your Spotify lineup and get inspired to run some small groups this year. That’s counselorclick.com/smallgroupplaylist. Now let’s get back to the episode.

13:23
Okay, another job related kind of question. How do you balance a one hour commute? Now I’m not sure about the word balance. But maybe it’s more like the question was asking like how do you enjoy your one hour commute? I don’t know, how to be productive during it? Use this time for what you need. I mean, when you look at your one hour commute, what do you want to use it for? Do you need silence and quiet and reflection? This is me now, I would have not been a person who needed silence and quiet and reflection in a lot of other seasons of life. So maybe not in those seasons, I would listen to music or listen to a podcast, a podcast does not have to be this one that is you know, work related. It could be a crime podcast. It could be a podcast where you’re learning about people in history, whatever your interest is, you can find a podcast about it.

14:18
Should you use that time as your commuting to catch up with a friend over a phone call? I think if I had a really long commute, I might make it a goal that one way, once a week, I would pick up the phone and call a friend and try and catch up. And you know, even if that friend didn’t answer the phone, I would leave a message and I would say just thinking about you wanted to catch up. I think there’s something about keeping up with those out of town friends, the ones who you know maybe you’ve never even lived in the same city as that. You get that time in the car that’s uninterrupted by kids or partners or just the hustle and bustle of everyday life that in the car. It’s quiet you get some uninterrupted time with that friend.

14:59
Maybe you listen to an audiobook? If you haven’t dove into the world of audiobooks, I think they’re fun to me like podcasts are fun to me. And you can download books for free from the Libby app. Well Libby is reading, Hoopla is the audio book version of that, where if you have a library card to your local library, you can listen to books for free. You can also listen on Audible, of course, you have to pay money for those, but just the thought of an audiobook or a podcast, something that can captivate your imagination or challenge you to learn something new, could be really fun. Maybe thinking something nonfiction, you know, challenge yourself, if you always listen to one thing to pick something else. You will revolutionize the way you spend your time in the car, you will read or listen to a lot of books in a year if you change from either sports radio, or just radio to actually listen to something.

15:56
When I had kids and my drive got a little bit longer, I always drove in silence, which like I said, would even surprise me nowadays. Like in the past, I would always have something going music or something to have noise. But now I love the silence. I love being able to process and think and just zone out honestly and decompress from the day in silence by myself. So I don’t know if I answered the question correctly, how to balance a one hour commute. But there are a lot of things that you could do depending on what kind of balance you need in your life during that season. And it’s okay for that to change. It’s okay to identify what matters to you in a certain season and lean into whether that’s noise or quiet or learning or connecting with somebody else. There are a lot of options. And I’d encourage you to do that until it doesn’t work for you anymore and then be okay with changing it up.

16:50
Okay, Darcy Kay has a statement and more of like a problem solving situation. She said, I’m getting ready to be in a situation where we are going to have two high school counselors. This is brand new to our school as we’ve only had one counselor before, we are a school of about 200 to 250 high school students, what do you think is the best way to divide up responsibilities? She said social emotional versus academic or a little of both. So I’m going to interpret this. I mean, you gave me a lot of information, Darcy, so I appreciate that.

17:23
First, I love your small caseload size, who would not kill to have 200 to 250 between two counselors. That’s so exciting. I would personally do alpha, I would do an alphabetical split. And here’s why. If your number of students grow, this is easy to keep divided up and pretty much on track with keeping an even caseload between two councilors you can always kind of shift, you know, A through M and through Z. And you can move here and there to make sure that you both have pretty realistically similar case loads. This is easy to do with alpha. If you are alpha and your number of counselors grows, I think this is the easiest way to make a transition. Yes, maybe your student has to go to another counselor. But at least you can always make caseload sizes smaller, which I think is ultimately the goal. Because smaller caseloads, mean better relationships with students and families.

18:23
And if we’re thinking in the lens of what is best for students and families, it’s going to be access to a counselor, and a counselor who is not overrun with responsibilities or only around for just academics or something like that, when you were saying, Should we just be focused on one topic or another? I think alpha is helpful if you are a new counselor, and you are coming into a team. So you know, say there are two of you and your partner leaves and somebody else new comes in. If you’re already divided by alpha, you are basically training this other person in the exact same job that you’re doing. Yes, you might have different responsibilities, but you’re gonna be doing the same thing at the same time of year. And I just feel like it’s easier to train someone or to have somebody step in to an alpha position.

19:11
You might not fully know all of your passions yet. So when you suggested does somebody just do social emotional, does somebody just do academic, you can get really burnt out by doing that kind of stuff. Like even if you do know you like the college stuff, doing all of the college stuff can get really overwhelming at certain points of the year. But if you’re alpha and you divide the responsibilities, you’re not gonna be locked into one thing. You might divide and take the lead on certain responsibilities anyway, and you can swap those things and take the lead on different ones from year to year or change it up if you’re tired of it.

19:46
Your communication between the two of you will be better with alpha, you will be on the same page. Like I said, you’ll be doing the same things, at the same time of year. So again, I could dive into this, I love talking about case loads. I love like thinking about all different types of case loads and the ways that it works. I know there’s not a one size fits all for everyone, there’s not even research that this one way works better than all the other ways. So I’ll link to an episode and some blog posts that I’ve done about different case load models, and which one is my favorite. Obviously, you can tell alpha is my favorite. I’ll kind of lay out some different case load models, and I’ll share with you the pros and cons depending on the layout of your school, the number of counselors, that kind of stuff. So head back and listen to that Darcy, if you’re more interested in hearing about some different case loads, or anyone else who’s listening.

20:38
Katy B had a great question. She said, What is the number one challenge you hear from new counselors? And then how to help them with that? It’s a great question. I wonder if Katy like works for her district office or something or just has a heart for new counselors. So I think it’s a few things. First, a lot of new counselors struggle with uncertainty, like can I do this? Do I have the confidence to do this? So an overwhelming amount of imposter syndrome, with lots of fears around specific situational things like suicidal ideation, what to do when a student tells you they’re pregnant? What you’ll do when you have to write up an abuse report, when a senior might not graduate, all of these things will happen. And they’re all things that you will have to deal with.

21:25
But now, as you step in, as a new counselor, you are the adult who’s in charge, and you don’t necessarily have a supervisor who’s going to tell you exactly what to do. I know all of those vignettes feel like interview type questions that people always ask. So it’s like you get intimidated with these situational questions, even from the interview process. But listen, it doesn’t have to feel that way. There will be a lot of learning and doing as you build confidence and you’ll make mistakes, you will encounter all of those things and you’ll live in the gray. Some of them will feel like okay, I’m going to take this direction when a student tells me they’re pregnant. And in another situation, I’m going to go in a totally different direction.

22:04
I have a whole podcast playlist for new high school counselors. This is like how I’m going to help the second part of your question, how to help them with this. So as your new high school counselor, as you’re thinking about, panicking about the mistakes you might make, but also dreaming about the successes that you might have. I have a whole podcast playlist for you new counselors, and I’ll link that in the show notes. It is perfect to share with new high school counselors. Or listen to yourself if this is you. So that will be counselorclique.com/newcounselorplaylist easy enough to remember but I’ll also link it in the show notes.

22:39
I’ll also put in a plug here for my new counselor audio course it’s called the high school counselor kickstart audio course is an eight episode private podcast that addresses all the things new counselors are nervous for. I did a lot of research on this and crowdsourcing for what new high schoolers were wanting or needing to know. And it’s eight episodes of private podcast, which means you have to have a special link to get to it. And there’s a lot more inside. But you also get an exclusive curriculum map to help you plan your year. And a sample needs assessment with a walkthrough of what I would do if I were you in this situation. In under two hours, a new counselor can build their confidence and their competence as they start their new role. So this one can be found at counselorclique.com/newcounselor and that’s the high school counselor kickstart audio course. In under two hours, you build your confidence as a new counselor. I hope I get to see you inside there. This is a great resource for new high school counselors.

23:36
Another question that was so good that after I got the question, I went back and recorded an episode. So full disclosure. This question inspired an episode that is already out there that maybe you’ve already listened to. So the question was, what should a counselors role be in the AI conversation right now? We’re seeing a lot of plagiarism. And although we’re not disciplinarian, admin wants us to get involved. What are your thoughts? So I went and recorded an episode about AI, Artificial Intelligence in school counseling in Episode 96. So pause, go back, save that episode, go listen to it after this.

24:13
But I love this question, because it’s been something that I had been thinking about a lot lately and wanting to have more discussions about it honestly. I love the place that you’re taking this question though, about asking about disciplining and what our involvement should be in that. So I think the part about discipline is that it’s not your role. And it sounds like you already know that and just wanted some reassurance behind that. And then just overall, I think technology isn’t bad, and it can really bring something to the table for high school counselors.

24:43
So going back to that episode, because I explore a few ways, actually a lot of ways I just kept going and thought wow, there are a lot of ways that high school counselors can use AI right now. One of which is writing letters of recommendation and another is writing emails but I think we should stack hands that AI will not replace humans or counselors. Because human counselors have the ability to truly think and emote like real humans do and robots do not. So I love that you pose this question. It really helped me flesh out an entire other episode, Episode 96. And really start the conversation. And I would love to continue the conversation. So be on the lookout. I’m hoping maybe I can have a guest on the podcast and talk more about this. But there has not been a lot of talk about it yet in school counseling world and so I know it’s going to be something that I’m sure we’ll see magazine articles and scholarly journal articles come out about in the next couple of years.

25:42
Okay, our last question, what are the biggest challenges for elementary school counselors? I’m thinking of moving to the elementary level, I think I need a break from high school and I’ve been doing it for 10 years and elementary seems more appealing lol. I had to include the LOL because it sounds like okay, this might be my option. And so I’m putting it out there. Well, let me tell you, I am not the right person to get perspectives on elementary and middle since my experience was about 100 years ago in my practicum in my internships. But I’m glad you trusted me for that source of information. But I will say in Episode 86 of the podcast, I talk to Kim and Laura from counselor accents. And we compare all of the school counselor roles with their similarities and their differences from elementary to middle to high school. So go give that a listen.

26:29
Also, I would just say maybe you’re just experiencing some burnout in your day to day responsibilities or your administrators or your school setting. So do some digging, do some soul searching, see what is pulling you in a different direction. Of course, it could totally just be wanting a different change of scenery. And my advice there is just to remember that everything is for a season. So if you’re burned out from high school and you go to elementary and you’re like I don’t like working with little kids, you can come back. We’re always gonna be here for you with open arms. It does not have to be a forever thing. If you make a decision to switch levels.

27:05
Thank you for all of your questions that you submitted. Hopefully getting all those Q’s in, I gave you some A’s. It was a fun episode with a lot of variety. Before we sign off for today, let me ask you a huge favor. If you’ve been a loyal listener to the show, I would ask for your support in this way. Do you know what I’m going to ask for? I bet you do. Will you head to Apple podcasts and leave a review for the show. I read each and every review and I swear it keeps me going y’all. But more importantly, it helps other high school counselors like you find this podcast and become loyal listeners too. So don’t move on to your next thing before stopping and leaving a review in honor of episode 100. It’s like a little birthday treat for the podcast. I’ll see you next week for a really fun guest episode.

27:55
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 podcast so that you never miss a new episode. Connect with me over on Instagram. Feel free to send me a DM @counselorclique. I’ll see you next week.