A Mock School Counselor Interview with Rachel from Bright Futures Counseling | TOP EPISODE FROM 2022 [Episode 54]

Lauren
It’s the last episode of high school counseling conversations for the whole year, Episode 54. I’m going to leave you at the end of the year here with a replay of our most popular episode of the year. And that was episode 20. With Rachel from Bright Futures counseling.

Lauren
It was a longer episode and we had some good laughs throughout it. But let me set it up for you. In this episode, Rachel comes on with her elementary expertise and me with the high school perspective. And we walked through some sample interview questions from the asker website, and then some situational questions that we came up with. And then we talked about how we might answer them.

Lauren
Now, this is in no way a comprehensive interview process that we’re doing right here on a podcast. And we cannot guarantee that you’ll get a job just because you listen to it. But I bet it’ll get you thinking about ways how you can answer these questions with confidence for yourself in your next interview. I would say that not only do the numbers show that this was the most popular episode, but I still continue to get the most messages from y’all the listeners about this episode.

Lauren
I’ve had so many counselor listeners reach out and tell me how helpful it was which absolutely makes my heart sing. It makes me so happy. If you’re looking to switch levels of school counseling at some point, move districts or schools or maybe you’re entering the job force as a high school counselor for the first time. I know that you’ll find the sample interview questions and answers helpful.

Lauren
I’ll also add that if you want more help with interviews after listening to this podcast, I have a free three day video challenge for high school counseling interviews. And then you can sign up for that by going to counselor click.com forward slash interviews.

Lauren
Once you nail that interview and you’re in for your new job, I want to make sure you know about the continuing support services I offer inside my high school counseling membership. The Clique Collaborative. I opened up doors to the click collaborative twice per year with a next time coming up so so soon, I want you to mark your calendar for January 18. When doors open again and put your name on the waitlist at cliquecollab.com.

Lauren
I want to make sure you don’t miss any of the fun that’s happening in January leading up to those doors opening so put your name on the waitlist so you can hear more. Let’s roll the intro for the last time in 2022. And re listen to episode 20, a guest show with Rachel Davis from Bright Futures Counseling.

Lauren
High School Counseling conversations is a podcast where we talk about exactly that a casual potpourri of school counseling topics intended to grow us as school counselors, but also give us space to enjoy each other’s company. I’m Lauren from counselor click and I’m sharing my experiences and perspectives as a high school counselor. No topic is off limits. And I’m certain we’ll cover it all. I’m 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. Whether you’re just getting your feet wet as an intern, or you’re nearing retirement, you’ll feel like you’re just popping in to catch up with your school counseling bestie. Let’s go.

Rachel
We decided to grab some questions off the ASCA website. So I gotta be straight from the asker website. Again, I’ll link to that in the show notes. So you can practice. It’s a really great resource. There were a ton of questions. So we only pick some we still have a lot. So hopefully we’ll have time to get through all of them.

Rachel
But I thought it would be fun to do like a mock interview. And we can kind of say how we would answer the questions to give you some ideas. And that’s why I wanted to have a guest on because I thought if it was just me, you know, I don’t want to be responsible for giving you your interview question answers.

Rachel
But that being said, we are not experts. These are just our personal opinions and how we would answer the questions. But please don’t be mad at us if you use these answers, and you don’t get a job.

Rachel
But first of all, welcome Lauren and tell us. Tell us what about your interview process? Or if you have like a funny story when you were interviewing or something like that.

Lauren
Yeah. Hey, Rachel, thanks for having me. I feel honored to be here a second time. So yeah, I’m super excited to talk about interviews, kind of my background was coming right out of grad school, I had a ton of different interviews and I was ready to take a job wherever.

Lauren
I knew that I wanted to work in high school. But you know, I interviewed anywhere there was a job because you can never have too much practice. So most of mine when I got turned down from places they were because I didn’t have enough experience. So I’m sure some listeners will be able to relate to that.

Lauren
But when you asked about a funny interview experience, I don’t know that I personally had a really funny one or you know, something super memorable. Thankfully, I guess that’s a good thing. But one of my very best friends she was a grad school friend of mine was in my wedding.

Lauren
She would not mind me sharing this though I did not ask her permission. She was she was not getting a job and it was like she is so personable. She has never met a stranger like you would immediately feel warm and welcomed like the moment you meet her and it was like, I thought it’s hard to believe that you are not good at intreviewing, she’s like, Oh, I don’t know, it’s it has to be the only reason I haven’t gotten the job.

Lauren
And she was like, Well, this one time, she said, I want to tell you about what happened because they maybe they’re all like this, like, Okay, what happened, she said, You know, when you just go into an interview, and you feel like every sentence out of your mouth, it just gets worse and worse, and you can’t put the words back in.

Lauren
She’s like, that’s how this interview was. And she wanted to work at a high school. She was interviewing at a middle school. And so I think she was just spiraling. And she said, the absolute worst part was when she went to leave. And she said, there was a hallway, she like stood up to walk out of the door.

Lauren
And they put out their hand to shake their hand and they said, Thank you for your time. It was so nice to meet you. She shook their hand and said, How are you? Oh, my God, she turned away. And she was like, I can’t I can’t even acknowledge like, it was so painfully awkward. She just like continued down the hallway and was like, I’m not getting that job that I’m just not gonna get the job.

Lauren
Yeah, like just the awkwardness of the moment. Like, what do you do next? Just leave? Yeah, just leave.

Rachel
And it’s the worst when you realize that you’re kind of like getting worse and fumbling, but you can’t really make up for it. You know,

Lauren
And I think that’s what happened to her. It was like, she was just in her mind like, this is getting worse and worse and worse. And by the time it was over, she was like, I just gotta go. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. That is pretty bad.

Lauren
Yeah, the listeners listen to last week’s episode, I shared a lot about my own personal interview experience. Again, I was interviewing everywhere. And I don’t mean countless interviews.

Rachel
But I do have I’ll revisit this one story. I think I shared it last week. But it was so bad. I was in the middle of an interview. And then they were like, Yeah, I’m Mr. Seven. So I couldn’t speak highly enough of you. And I had no idea who they were talking about. And I was like, Oh, great. It’s kind of like playing along. And then the other person like, looks at your paper, and she’s like, Wait, Rachel and said, like a different last name. And I was like, Oh, I’m Rachel.

Rachel
Which was like my maiden name. And then they’re like, oh, no, look how confused. Oh, okay. Well, I guess we’ll continue the interview. Like, Oh, right. Well, yeah.

Lauren
So were you even supposed to be there? Like what happened?

Rachel
I don’t think so. I think they like asked the wrong Rachel for an interview, because I just applied like blindly online. Like, I don’t know when you went up the school. Yeah. So awkward. So of course, from then on my confidence, it just like plummeted. I wish I’d be here. What is this? Yeah, I feel like they already want to die or the other Rachel.

Rachel
Yeah, so that was pretty bad. And then once we had a student panel, so I have students, which is a cool concept, but I just remember this one girl on the panel, her like glare, and they I’m like, Oh, my God, she hates me. And it was like, she doesn’t even know me. Yeah, you’re like, okay, maybe I shouldn’t work in a middle school. I’m intimidated right now.

Rachel
Yes, I was so intimidated. Oh, my gosh, it was funny. So there are definitely some funny stories there. But then I wanted to ask if you could remember, and you might not, but if, from your interview, maybe like the job you currently have, or most recently had.

Rachel
But if there was like a good interview question that you were like, Ooh, yeah, rocked that. So I’ll share mine. It was at the job. I loved and I was working as elementary school counselor at public school in San Diego. And they asked if you could have one word that describes your best quality, what would it be?

Rachel
And it threw me off guard because I’m like one word. So I said determination, because I feel like I’m really good at like getting things done once I’m determined, but you couldn’t even just say, you couldn’t even like elaborate, you know, give them one determination.

Rachel
Then they said, If you could say one word to describe your weakness, and so and you know, how does an interview like you want to elaborate on? Yeah, and you want your weakness to be like a positive weakness, you know what I mean? Like over committing or some, you know, too much?

Rachel
Well, I said the same word, as said, determined. And then I think I did elaborate a little bit I was saying, and they kind of laugh, but I was like, Well, I feel like my creative spin on it. Yeah. I was like, I think my colleagues kind of get, you know, maybe like overwhelmed that I’m like, so determined, like working with me could be hard at times, I guess. But I don’t know. Anyways, I got the job.

Unknown Speaker
Question, you can draw that answer?

Lauren
Well, a lot of times, it’s just like asking a question to see how well you can respond in the moment. So I had a principal that I worked for, who would always ask, tell me about something you recently read. And he did not need to know that you read like the ASCA National Model book, or, you know, you were reading journal articles about school counseling before you walked in.

Lauren
He just wanted you to say something that you read. He was like, I honestly didn’t care if it was a novel. If it was a tweet. If it was an article you saw on Facebook, like tell me about something you read like anything recently, and just tell me about it and he was like, just hearing people think on their toes and being able to elaborate on something that they read.

Lauren
I mean, he was like, I just love hearing that about their personality. It’s like, oh, yeah, that’s not gonna be on the ASCA list of questions, you know? Right. Right.

Rachel
Yeah, that’s a great one. And it would be helpful, I think, in conjunction to this ASCA list, maybe just to look at like, general interview tips, because there probably are some questions like they’re like the, you know, one word to describe your strengths than weakness.

Rachel
Or like, yeah, what something you just read that you could use it like the corporate level as well. But I’m so glad you’re here, Lauren, because not only are you a counselor, but you have been on the other side of the pan, all right, other side of the table as interviewing people.

Lauren
Yeah, not the most important person in the room, definitely a person on a panel who is not going to make any final decisions. But that has been a fun experience to be part of a counseling team that gets to give some input on the interviewees. And so I’ve seen some good and some bad.

Lauren
And just, you know, I hadn’t been on that side in a while I interviewed at a bunch of places, but then I worked at the same place for almost 10 years. So I didn’t have to interview after that for a long time. So it was kind of put me back in my place to see people be interviewing again. And honestly, when you sent me 100 questions that we’re going to talk about, for this interview process.

Lauren
I really felt like, Oh, I’m going through the interview.

Rachel
I know, I know. I think they’ll like well, we’ll keep it casual. So no stress. Again, listeners don’t take everything we’re saying with a grain of salt. Okay, so let’s dive in.

Rachel
So like I said, I took these off the AsCA website. So they’re categorized by different headings. So we’ll start with role of the school counselor. And we’ll both answer, but I’ll just ask the question, because I have it here in front of me, so we can alternate who goes first.

Rachel
So you’re up first, describe your ideal school counseling program, include some specific examples of what it will include, or how does the school counseling program support schools improvement plan.

Lauren
Awesome. So I don’t know how we’re answering this. Like I’m, I’m sitting in the interview. And I’m kind of like describing how I would describe you can describe Yeah, okay, well, it would really be my my dream to start my ideal school counseling program, like from the ground up, but most of the time, you’re not going to step in getting to, you’re just you’re describing the ideal situation.

Lauren
So specifically, from the start of the school year, I would love to have a team meeting because usually in a high school, you’re working with more than one counselor and lay out our plan for the year because if we don’t have a plan, then we’re doing everything really responsively and not proactively. So looking at data from the year before setting some smart goals, setting those in conjunction with the administrators goals that they have for the school.

Lauren
Those are some things I want to include from the beginning. And we would look at where there are gaps in the school’s data. So whether it is in very specific categories, like in terms of students, like maybe our English language learners are struggling somewhere or our special education students are struggling, we’re going to notice where there are gaps in academics, attendance, behavior, and discipline.

Lauren
So it needs to be proactive, diligent, like just not haphazard, like we need to go in with a plan. So my ideal program is serving students, you know, as much as we can, ideally 80% of the time and the other 20% of the time coming up with programs or extra supports for those students in the program. So that’s ideal.

Lauren
Yeah, that’s that’s kind of what I my my spitball of my ideal school counseling program. What about you?

Rachel
Yeah, I love that. And I love that you started with like, this is what I’m going to do from day one. I actually, it made me come to mind. And I think I have a freebie for this will link to in the show notes. But I have like a 3060 90 day plan, like a checklist for counselors.

Rachel
And that would be something cool to bring to an interview actually got that idea from my husband who worked in sales. He said they had to do that, like he was asked that one time. So just kind of like in the first 30 days overdue this 60 days, do this 90 days do that be at the elementary level, I think I would just really touch on MTSS the three tiers and how I would plan to go into all the classes to do class lessons, then to run small groups based on referral data based on student needs.

Rachel
And then to see some students individually who need more support. So I remember kind of explaining that in my interview of the job I got and they were like nodding along like yeah, that’s what we were looking for.

Lauren
Well, and I think that they want someone who’s gonna come in with some direction, not like, well, the first 30 days, I need to be trained by someone with more experience than me. It’s like we just need someone with some ideas who’s going to come in and be independent.

Rachel
Right. And sometimes I think you know, interviewees think the best answer is like, oh, whatever you guys told me to do, like I’m trying to learn and like that’s a good quality but at the same time, I think they do want you to have a clear vision. Yes. Awesome. We did good. Okay.

Rachel
So next up is strings and interest. So I’ll answer this one first. Tell us about a successful or satisfying Oh, no, this one. Okay. The question is tell us about a successful or satisfying case you’ve handled one that was not so successful, what would you have done differently?

Rachel
So we weren’t really going to answer this one because us telling you about our cases aren’t really going to help you. But we were just kind of talking about this one off air earlier. And how it is important to talk about times you have not been successful as well.

Rachel
So you can talk about, you know, a success story or a win that you had with a student like kind of when they had that light bulb, click moment, and progress that they made. But it’s also important to talk about a time that you struggled with a student where they didn’t progress, and then how you would change it, or what you could do differently.

Lauren
What do you think about that one, Lauren? Yeah, I think you can also highlight all the things you tried to do, you know, to help that student. So in the high school setting, the examples that come to my mind are a student who’s about to not graduate, like a senior who is you’re pulling across the finish line, and it either goes really well, you worked really hard, and they do graduate, because of a lot of effort that you put in, or on the other hand, they didn’t graduate.

Lauren
And like that’s the reality, it happens sometimes. But these are all the things you did to help them or whether you’re coming, maybe you don’t have the experience of like being in high school yet. But you saw that as an intern, I mean, you get to talk about that about all the ways that you help that student, even if they didn’t graduate.

Rachel
Yes, I think that’s great, showing that you have a plan of all the different ways that you could support students. Okay, next question. How do you handle stress?

Rachel
Stress is part of schools, how does the Eska national model help you to manage it? This is like a multi part question. And school counselors are confronted with a lot of stressful circumstances and stories, how will you maintain your professionalism, and your personal wellness when confronted with these?

Lauren
Yeah, I think that outside of school, obviously, having balance to take care of yourself mentally, physically, emotionally, when you’re not there, it’s going to help you out when you are in school, because especially working in the high school, there are really stressful seasons.

Lauren
Like, I can think of the times that I was most stressed in my entire life. And they it was like spring when I had 421 seniors that I all needed to graduate and I would be awake at night like stressed for them. So the way that I handle stress, personally, is I mean, I’m trying to get it done. I’m trying to stay organized, have a calendar, have all my To Do lists and checklists, and going for the most important things first, and then I also would ask for help from people.

Lauren
So from my teammates, from administrators, from other stakeholders in the school, who are invested in these students, I would definitely be asking for help and not trying to do it all on my own.

Rachel
Yes, I think that’s a great answer. And you said to me earlier that you would ask in interviews, right, like, if how you could tell if your teammates are stressed?

Lauren
Yeah, because everybody handles stress differently. You know, I honestly, I don’t want someone on my team who’s gonna be really mean when they’re stressed, or someone who’s just gonna shut down and panic and not do anything like we are all going to run into stress. And so how will I know that your stress? How will I know to ask you, Hey, are you feeling stressed? What can I take off your plate?

Lauren
So people manifest that in different ways, and some open communication would be really important in a teammate so that we can know when we can help each other out?

Rachel
Yes, definitely. I love this question. I too, yeah, I think it’s important to talk about how you how you have your own plan for personal self care, stress management. So you know, you can tell them maybe like, exercise or whatever you do at home to help relieve stress.

Rachel
But then also, I love that how you were talking about how you can, you know, have those good organization qualities or work skills that help manage your stress. So you’re not going to allow yourself to get to that point of overwhelm if you can prevent it, because you know, you are very organized or you use systems or you use your colleagues for support when you need help.

Rachel
I think those are all really good things to mention, as well. And then I like the second part of the question, it’s talking about hearing about your students, stressful situations and stories and how that can help you. Or, I mean, how will you maintain your professionalism.

Rachel
So I think again, just saying that, you know, as a counselor, you kind of have that filter on you know, you have like your counselor face where you’re just like, and you’re just like listening very neutrally, no matter when you’re even when you’re hearing like the craziest stuff.

Rachel
And then having that space in between sessions are accurate, where if you need to take a break to process that you can handle that.

Lauren
Yeah, like it’s definitely okay to eat lunch outside that day, but you just have like a really heavy conversation or go for a walk around the school like you got to know yourself to know when you need to take a break

Lauren
Or you’re not gonna take any work home like you’re gonna go out to dinner with your partner or something to to chill and get away from school because we have to compartmentalize which can be really that can be stressful in itself, like not being able to talk about what you experienced at work, like when you’re at home.

Rachel
Yeah, I have one memory I still remember is like, in December something years ago and the Student It was like an abuse situation and it was just really, really tough.

Rachel
It was one I had both the students and the older student had like taken pictures on her school iPad of the younger student being abused, it was just crazy. So obviously we call the reported to authorities and everything.

Rachel
But it was just such a heavy day. But then that night, I had plans to watch like the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show with my friend. And I remember, like still going, I kind of talked to my husband about it a little bit like on the way because I was just like really upset about it.

Rachel
He’s like, we don’t have to go. And I’m like, we have to go. Like we have to. Even though I was stressed, I was like, determined to like, maintain some normalcy and like, do something normal that evening. It was just kind of random, funny memory.

Lauren
That’s tough to be able to separate that I know a lot of times.

Rachel
So our next one and this one, this question is challenging. And you and I both were like, What is our educational philosophy? But the question asked, What is your school counseling or educational philosophy?

Rachel
So if you Lauren and I were just thinking, we should probably write this down in like a sentence form tab on the fly. So if you are interviewing, that might be a good idea. I think when I was in grad school, we had to write this down. But I was reflecting on mine and just, you know, be sincere and think about what you truly, you know, feel is most important.

Rachel
And so, I would say that my educational philosophy or school counseling philosophy as to, you know, I believe in educating the whole child. And then I always like to refer to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and how it’s really important that students first have their basic needs met, and then their social emotional needs met, before they we can expect them to thrive academically.

Rachel
So I always like to reference that and just talk about how I think that’s why the role of the school counselor is so important.

Lauren
Yeah, I love all that. Because especially in high school, when they they are more independent, like sometimes the parents aren’t feeling like they need to provide those things like the food, the shelter, or students feel like I can walk away from that. But then when they realize they don’t have all the things and all sudden school starts crumbling and relationships start crumbling.

Lauren
But that’s besides the point, I guess I would say that kind of stuff. Plus just being student centered and being an advocate for students, because I don’t know, you just you feel for students, you hear their stories, you want to help them. And sometimes even though everyone ideally is at the school, to be on the students team and to be helping them through to graduation, sometimes other stuff just gets in the way.

Lauren
And, you know, the administrator just sees the discipline side of things, or the special ed teacher is like really trying to get them to meet these goals. But there are so many other things that we get to be this aerial view, like zoom out and see the whole student kind of that language that you were using.

Lauren
I love thinking about just being student centered, in everything that we do, like everything was stripped away, or I had all the lunch duties and bus duties in the world, if I was still caring for students and making them the center of what I was doing. I think I would feel good about that.

Rachel
Yes, definitely, definitely. So that was under defining your school counseling program, the next questions under the category of delivering your school counseling program.

Rachel
So how do you develop a positive relationship with students through individual counseling, small group counseling, and what’s the role of the school counselor to student relationship in individual and group counseling?

Lauren
I think just starting out, this is going to be really important. Like if you are a new person in the school, you need to be visible. So you need to be in the hallways, you need to be popping into classrooms, introducing yourself in places in a very, like superficial way. Like they just need to know who you are and what your name is and where you’re located.

Lauren
But then you get into that individual counseling and small group counseling, like, you’re really gonna get to know students, especially depending on how your caseload is set up, like you might be with them for four years. And the more you see them in individual counseling, and the more you see them in small group counseling, and even classrooms, they are going to keep coming to you because you’re a safe person in the school.

Lauren
And so just reassuring them that you are the safe person, you you know, explaining to them what the confidentiality looks like that you are really on their team and giving them examples of reasons they can come see you I think you’re only going to see positive relationship building

Lauren
I have had like tough relationships with students who just they didn’t want to be there, or they don’t know why they’re there either just like putting up a wall. But ultimately, and I think counselors maybe don’t give themselves enough credit, you’re probably in this because you’re good at that.

Lauren
Like you’re good at building relationships. And this is something you can highlight in your interview that you’re good at developing positive relationships, it probably comes natural to you whether that’s in an individual setting a small group setting or classroom like you have skills and so remember that and highlight those.

Rachel
Yes, that was an all star answer. I can barely think of anything to add to that the only thing I was thinking that I might say differently or to add to it is just that I know sometimes especially if you’re a new counselor or first year and you’re trying to you know you want to make sure that it looks like you’re doing everythinking you have all these outlines and objectives and you’re, you know, meeting all the standards.

Rachel
But sometimes before they know you, you just need to have a few sessions where you’re you’re simply building rapport, getting to know them. And just making that really clear that that’s your goal is to first build that relationship, and then everything else will fall into place, not because I know sometimes I’m like that, where I have the end goal in mind.

Rachel
And it’s like, the first five minutes, I’m like, Okay, let’s practice coping strategies, you know, and it’s like, Whoa, let’s back up a second, you know, how, like, take a lot longer than just the first five minutes to get exactly, exactly.

Rachel
Okay, and the next category is managing your school counseling program. So I’ll start with this one. How would you divide your time between meeting the immediate needs of students and keeping up with all the paperwork? How is your use of time spent to address the needs of all students? And how will you effectively plan and manage your time as a school counselor?

Rachel
So I love this question. I’m great, I’m really you’re the planning queen, you gotta go first. I’ll go first. And then you it’s nice to have your high school perspective, because it’ll probably be a little different. But yeah, I would say, and you kind of touched on this earlier, like an 80/20 thing. So we want to be delivering those services to students.

Rachel
And we want all of our time to be spent on counselor duty. So I do think that’s important to touch on that advocacy role. You know, right off the rip in your interview on how, you know, there are certain counseling duties, and those are things are going to take priority, and then delivering your student services are the priority. So that’s your individual sessions, your class lessons and your small groups.

Rachel
And then you can say how you have a plan for like in between sessions, you know, you have an organized like digital counseling log where in between sessions, you can quickly jot down your notes so as to not save until the end of the day where it’s going to take like two hours to catch up everything. And then you can talk about how you have a plan with your schedule.

Rachel
So first, you’ll schedule in those tier one, tier two and tier three interventions, but then you will have some buffer space, or some space where you can schedule in, like, you know, to respond to parent emails and phone calls, or to do any paperwork or fill out any forms that you have to do.

Rachel
You know, I know a lot of times people are doing like 504s or you have like, parent data forms or anything like that. But just making sure that the person who’s interviewing you knows that you have a clear plan for when you’re going to tackle these tasks. But that you also have the expectation that you only, you know, want to work on those counseling tasks, make it clear that you have a huge load, you’re not just this person that can like dump anything on that you have a clear plan, and a big workload already.

Lauren
Definitely, that was awesome. I would say I’ve been on the inside of an interview when they kind of took this question, but made it a scenario. So they were like, Okay, there’s an angry parent in the lobby yelling to see you, you have a suicidal student in your office. And you have a classroom lesson coming up like it’s been on your calendar, like, how do you handle it? What do you do first, and it’s kind of one of those, like I said, before, with my principal about the reading something like, I don’t know, if there is a ABC, this is how you do it.

Lauren
But if you can explain how you would handle it, you know, like, you’re gonna have another counselor come in and sit with the student in your office while you go out and explain to the parent that you are in the middle of something and you calm them down, or maybe pull them somewhere else and explain, hey, we need to set up a time to meet.

Lauren
And then you call the teacher in the classroom and you know, apologize, whatever it is like pick what your plan of action is going to be and even take a second to think about it before you start word vomiting, you know, in your interview, but they do want to know that you are going to be meeting student needs, like if you are the person who can handle the crisis, how are you going to handle it?

Lauren
And then it’s real in high school that you’re going to have paperwork, you’re going to have transcripts that need to be sent or you know, should have been sent yesterday, or a scholarship deadline that you have, you have a lot of deadlines that you do have to meet.

Lauren
But you have crises all the time, everything stops for the student. And I think that that is a lot of what they want to hear that even if it’s going to take me 30 minutes after school, maybe to catch up on some paperwork or some emails, I can do that. Like, you know, I don’t honestly, I don’t want to do that every day, I want to be keeping my time in check. So that that doesn’t happen.

Lauren
But if I need you like the student is gonna come first, right?

Rachel
No, I think that’s so, so important. And I also it made me think that it’s something I’ve talked about on the podcast before is this is when you can bring up ideas you have for like a crisis response team. So that’s something you can have in place ahead of time.

Rachel
So if you do have a commitment, like a class lesson or something and then there’s a you know, angry parent or a student who’s having a meltdown, you can there will be like an assigned designated person to kind of step in for you. So we’ll try to find that episode and link to it. But I kind of talk about how you can establish a crisis response team at your school to kind of avoid these situations. But yeah, that’s a great question to ask but the scenario

Lauren
I’m pausing this episode to let you know something fun and valuable that’s coming towards the Clique Collaborative, my high school counseling membership are opening again to welcome new members on January 18.

Lauren
During the month of January, you could expect regular weekly episodes of high school counseling conversations. Plus a challenge to help get you ready for the new year. I’ll offer three live workshops throughout the month to help set you up for success as the second half of the year starts, be sure you’re on the clique collaborative waitlist to be the first to hear of all of these plans.

Lauren
Go to cliquecollab.com to join the waitlist today.

Rachel
And then we have assessing your school counseling program. So this is all about data, which type of data would demonstrate an effective school counseling program? How to use data to reflect on your program goals? And how to use data to form school counseling program growth? And how will you convey this impact to your stakeholders?

Lauren
So I think this can be really intimidating for a new school counselor coming in, like, I don’t know what data these counselors are already using. And you can say that, hey, I don’t know what your you know what data you’ve used before. But this is some stuff that I might look at.

Lauren
So I would look at the school profile, because that’s I would look at that, honestly, before I went into an interview, because that’s usually public somewhere, you can see what the graduation rate is, you can see, you know, if they have any special magnet programs at their school, you can see how many students there are like if you have some sort of knowledge of what the framework of the school is like, you want to have that instead of just asking, like how many students are at your school, like, Oh, you didn’t do any research.

Lauren
So look at the school profile. And you can do that ahead of time. But I would say that, I would want to, like I mentioned this before, examine academic attendance, behavior data, and then even like subgroups, and then look at how many classroom lessons are we doing?

Lauren
And what kind of data are we getting from that? What is the graduation rate? And like? How has it trended in the past? And like when you talk graduation rates, you an administrator, their ears are perking up, that is very important to them.

Lauren
I talked about the subcategories before. So it’s like if it’s graduation rate, and our students who don’t speak English are the ones who are not graduating, like we need to do something about that. So noticing the gaps and meeting the needs. And then the second part of that you asked was about like how do you share that data? Or who do you tell that to? So I would say everywhere.

Lauren
So website social media, and Advisory Council PTSA, open house, any opportunity that you have to share the data, you share it? And from a like veteran standpoint, like the department you might be stepping into or that you might be interviewing with, maybe they don’t do data? Well, right now, maybe that is that kind of language, if you have a good answer to this, you could really fill a gap in their team that they’re looking for it because I think of you know, just old school counseling, like it’s not super data driven.

Lauren
And so you coming in as a new school counselor who is passionate about doing data, like most counselors are numbers, people. So if you can come in and have a direction with that that’s a huge win for a team.

Rachel
Yes, I love that. Absolutely. And you know, and I was thinking for like our elementary school counselors, if they’re not focusing on the graduation rate as much, but things like the attendance rate, or those like behavior, statistics, things like yes, that’s great. I love the idea of looking at the existing data and looking to fill those gaps.

Rachel
I was kind of thinking on the flip side of like tools that you could bring in that what your plan is to measure data in your program. And that would give some really practical examples to them. Yes, you could say things like, Oh, right. When I get there, I want to do like a needs assessment to find out, you know, where the current gaps are, or where the needs lie.

Rachel
And then I plan on doing, you know, self assessments before and after groups and individuals, I plan on sending behavior surveys home to parents, and to the teachers, you know, to get like a full circle picture of the child I plan to do student rating scales with the students in my sessions, like just throwing out and they may already be doing these things. But you’re showing that you’re like, knowledgeable, you have ideas, and you have a plan, I think is really great.

Rachel
And like you said, they may be surprised, they may be asking this because they’re desperate, they need someone new, you know who’s ready to do data. And then as far as conveying it to stakeholders totally agree with what you said, just displaying it, a school website, you can if you do like a parent newsletter, you can say you’re mentioning it there, do a data wall into the report all of those things.

Lauren
I would also say, if you are a new person coming in this question could sound like well, I don’t know what they already do. And I would honestly hate when someone would sit down and be like, well, you know, I don’t know what you already do already. So it was almost like they were trying to back out of the question.

Lauren
Like maybe I’ll just say something that you already do, but kind of what you just said it’s like, then say it let them know, even if you’re talking the same language as they’re talking internally about their data, like at least you’ll be on the same pages and be like, I don’t know what you do every year or every semester already, but here are the things that I would do and just go for it.

Rachel
Yes, 100% agree

Rachel
Next up is a question about leadership. So how do you see the word leader fitting into your role as a school counselor had a school counselors model leadership? And how is leadership a part of the school counselors role in schools? Where can school counselors be leaders? And now that I’m reading these out loud, I’m like, okay, these are like four questions per,

Rachel
but basically leadership. So, yeah, I think it’s really important just to say how the counselor I was thinking leadership in terms of, obviously, we want to be a good model to our students. But I was thinking in terms of staff. So the first thing that came to my mind, which I wouldn’t actually say this part in the interview, but just to kind of paint a picture is, you know, how, like, if you’re in the staff lounge, and the conversation can get, like, kind of toxic in there, like talking about kids and stuff.

Rachel
So I think just as a school counselor, you know, modeling, just kind of that, like restraint and confidentiality and modeling how we want to be a good example to our students, and to our colleagues, and then just being a leader in terms of like, making changes at the school. So you can reflect on that previous question.

Rachel
So using any data that you’ve collected to, you know, make changes in the program, so you’re not afraid to see like, what’s not working, and then to use the data to make the appropriate changes. So that would be a way that you could assume a leadership role as well.

Lauren
Yeah, using your leadership abilities to advocate for your students and your program that’s huge, like not being afraid of, you know, showing an administrator something and saying, Hey, I think this needs to change. Yeah, here’s the data that I have to prove it.

Lauren
I also thought along those lines of, you know, keeping that confidentiality, like being professional, and showing that we do abide by our ethical code, you know, that ASCA puts out there because I think it’s easy for teachers to be like, well, just tell, you know, tell me what’s going on. Yeah. And, and, and I want to be an advocate for the student, and I have had to have hard conversations and say, hey, when the student is ready to tell you, or if they’re ready for me to tell you, I will, but just trust that, like, we’re handling it.

Lauren
And that’s really hard to to be a leader like that in terms of your confidentiality, and like your professionalism, but it’s really necessary.

Rachel
Yes, that’s exactly what I meant, because those conversations are tough. So it’s so important to maintain that professionalism.

Lauren
And then I just think like professionalism in terms of like, you’re at an IEP meeting, you’re showing up on time you’re prepared, you know, you’re speaking at open house, like if there is an opportunity to be in front of people to advocate for your role, like you want parents to see you as a leader in the school and as somebody that they trust. So any opportunity where you can show where you can demonstrate that you’re a leader, like do it, take advantage of it.

Lauren
And then one other thing, I think that like, being a good teammate, on your team, like if school counselors also shows leadership, like, you can say something like that, like, you might not be the person who wants to speak in front of a large auditorium or something, and that’s okay. But you’re still willing to be a leader amongst your team in the way that you work hard or fully, like finish your job or take responsibility, like when other people don’t want to take responsibility or something bad happens.

Lauren
And you just own it like that is that’s being a leader too.

Rachel
Mm hmm. Yeah. Demonstrating that responsibility. Definitely. So under advocacy, we’ve kind of already touched on this, but how did the school counselors advocate for students differently than other school staff?

Lauren
Yeah, I thought of a an example, in this where I had an administrator who was just, he was over the student like, she was weeks away from graduating, and she got in her face, and she started yelling at him. And I was like, oh, like, I’ve watched it, this is not going to end well.

Lauren
And then she stormed out, she like walks out of school, and he stormed out, and he’s yelling at her. And I was like, What do I do in this moment? I go, I like, sent him back inside. This is like, awkward too, because he is like a leader to me too. But I’m like, Okay, y’all both need your space.

Lauren
And I go, and I have a good relationship with a student. And she’s, she’s rough around the edges like she is. She has pushed a lot of people away. But for some reason, she would listen to me. So calm her down. And then he kind of went his way for the afternoon. And then he came back to me later and was like, Hey, I’m really sorry. I acted like that. And I said, I think you need to apologize to her too.

Lauren
I mean, like, just, he was coming forward saying, like, Hey, that was I shouldn’t have acted like that. And I was like, I think you can still earn that relationship back with her like, she knows that you care about her. And like, I had to be like the Peacekeeper, but also to advocate for the student to like, I was like, hey, you need to let this go because do you want to suspend her because she’s about to graduate.

Lauren
And like, you didn’t think she was going to graduate and she’s made it so like, let’s come together.

Rachel
That’s great. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I think that’s showing leadership as well. So it’s perfect follow up question. I think yeah, but the advocacy piece, like you were saying, you just know that student on a more personal level, you know, of course, the teachers have a class of 20 or 30. Or if they’re at the high school or middle school level, more than that, you know, they have six classes of that many.

Rachel
So just you’re able to advocate for the students on that personal level, because you know them really well from that one on one. So I think that’s how you can do that differently than the other school staff like the administrator, like you were saying,

Lauren
Yeah, and you can kind of take a deep dive, you know, if your day needs to be committed to helping the student like, you can do that, because you’ll have a classroom of 35 other kids so that it’s like a way that we really get to care for kids differently than other school staff. Like, obviously, my day is not gonna, I’m not gonna get everything done if it’s all dedicated to one kid.

Lauren
But if I’m trying, like, I also thought of a kid who their special ed services were, like, messed up, or the, the parent had denied services a long time ago, and I felt like an investigative journalist, like I was going back through paperwork, and the special ed teacher wanted to help but it was like she couldn’t stop her day and dig like, I was like, Okay, here’s what I found. Now, I’m gonna like pass it off to you, but that we get to work together.

Lauren
But counselors have a really unique way that we get to advocate for students.

Rachel
Yes. So I think you went first on that one, but I’m gonna have me go first, again, because I want to go first on the next.

Rachel
Looking ahead, but so I’m gonna let you pick this is like a choose your own adventure, both regarding parents and collaboration. So how would you address either an irate that’s your option one irate parent or option two passive and uninvolved parent? Which one do you want to answer?

Lauren
Okay, the irate parent is more fun. Not fun in the moment, more fun to talk about. Right? Okay.

Lauren
So I would say when I saw this question, I laughed because it is common. Like I had an intern one time, who heard a voicemail on her first day, that a parent left me and it’s still the worst, voicemail, meanest voicemail I’ve ever received in my whole life. And the intern was panicked. She was like, Does this happen all the time? No, no, not this bad. Not this bad.

Lauren
But in that case, I mean, the worst one of all time was sent to my principal, and he returned the call and was like, You can’t talk to anyone on my staff like that. So you know, sometimes when you realize this is outside of my realm, somebody else needs to step in. And, you know, things are taken care of that way.

Lauren
But I would say, you know, if someone calls on the phone, and they are angry, because that does happen, just using your counseling skills, listening and reflecting what you’re hearing, like, I am so sorry, it sounds like you’re really frustrated about this situation, like you can hear it in their voice.

Lauren
And I always would reassure a parent that, you know, we’re on the same team, I want to see the best for your son or daughter, like, I really hope that we can come to a resolution on whatever the situation is. I don’t know that I’ve ever had to do this. But I have a colleague who definitely has hung up on a parent before, but not after, you know, she was very calm, had a lot of grace and poise and said, You know, I really want to continue this conversation.

Lauren
But I cannot if you’re yelling like this, so we could either meet in person, or you can call me back when you’ve had some time to think about this. And, you know, in a really calm voice telling them I would love to talk more about this, but I need to do that when when we’re both more calm. And you know, if they continue to yell like, hang up, I have not had to do that anymore. But I know someone who has because we we don’t get paid enough. I say that is above my paygrade to be sitting on the phone having someone screaming.

Rachel
Yes, no great answers. The other thing just to add on that, that I was thinking is if it is obviously in person, you could always you know, ask someone to come in with you that way. It’s not just like one on one battling.

Lauren
You need a witness. Yeah, yes, exactly.

Rachel
So you could ask like your admin, or you know, if you have a co counselor or someone just to like one moment, let me see, I’m going to have them step and maybe they can help us resolve this or something. And maybe they can’t help you resolve it. But if not, maybe they can just kind of like defuse the situation or be a buffer or a witness like yes, definitely.

Lauren
And sometimes you know, who those people are, you know, they’re most likely not just going to storm in angry and you’ve never met them or heard of them before. Like, you know, you know, someone who just comes in hot headed all the time and like, Okay, we’re gonna schedule a meeting, I’m gonna make sure my administrator is there as well.

Lauren
Yes, yes. Or you can always like, CC them on those nasty emails.

Rachel
Okay, so the next question, and when I said I wanted to answer because I thought of a specific case that came to mind. But how do you see yourself fitting in with school counselors who have many years of experience as veteran teachers? What strengths do you bring as a new school counselor to department? So now that I just read this out loud, I think I did miss read it when I was reading it in my head.

Rachel
But I was thinking of you joining a team where there’s veteran teachers because I’ve never really been on a counselor team. It’s like always just me typically. So I’ll answer that way. I know you work on a counselor team, so we’ll let you answer that part. But I was thinking of when I went to this primary school and the staff had literally been there, oh my gosh, forever, like 40 years because they had students who had they had been their parent’s teacher.

Rachel
Yeah, like that was very common there. Oh, I taught your dad and I’m teaching you. So it was like they were old school and it was the same. They had all worked there forever, like very small turnover, which is great. But they had the principal and the counselor both left the year before.

Rachel
So I was the new counselor, and there was a new principal. So it was like, what we were like disrupting their ecosystem. They’re really nice. So they just been doing the same thing for years. So this one, the principal actually came to me and wanted to like completely redo the class lessons. And he wanted to base them all on this new book, curriculum. And like not on second step. He like had this book, it was from John wooden’s, like pyramid of success.

Rachel
And he’s like, we’re gonna do the pyramid. He’s all pumped on it. Because He’s new. And I’m new. I’m like, Great, let’s do it. So he’s like, can you introduce it at the staff meeting? So I’m like, Sure. So I’ll go into like, this is what we’re gonna do this year. Everybody

Lauren
Oh, you were the sacrifice.

Rachel
Yeah, man. It’s messed up. And then they were like, wait, what? And it was like, not received? Well, there. And we’ve been doing second set forever. That’s what the old counselor did.

Rachel
So I ended up like, so I would say just be capture new ideas and, you know, be confident and your ideas, but also, you need to be respectful, you know, to the people who have a lot of experience, you know, and don’t just completely shut them out, like, oh, well, they haven’t been to grad school in 20 years, you know, like, listen to them, because they have years and years of experience that you don’t have.

Rachel
So we ended up compromising. And I was able to, like, integrate, like, keep the topics from the period of pyramid of success, but uses like the methods of second step, like there were some lessons that overlapped. So we’d still do like, the songs and stuff from second step, but to reinforce these other topics, so that was just an idea that came to mind.

Rachel
And it did just take some time, honestly, and like some warming up. So I would just say go and slowly, you know, don’t be like too cocky, right off the rip.

Rachel
Yeah, navigate those situations that would grace. But I am interested in knowing if you have worked now that I read the question with counselors who were previous teachers, and you like, you were not a previous teacher, correct?

Lauren
No, I was not. So. I don’t know. I don’t think that, you know, I’m picturing counselors who are I don’t think that they would be like, Oh, you weren’t a teacher? Like, we’re all counselors. Now? I don’t, I don’t know. I guess I was interpreting this question. Like, if there were all these veteran counselors on a team, like, how are you going to come in and you don’t even you can’t match their years of experience? So like, what are you going to bring to them.

Lauren
And I mean, to me, as like a new school counselor, like, I’m excited to learn from you, you have years that I don’t have, that you have wisdom, and just all the experiences and I think veterans they discount themselves for, for all of that, like, they don’t think that it’s as valuable as it is.

Lauren
And then just reassuring them that as a new school counselor, like you’re coming in, I’m coming in with energy and excitement and new ideas, which is hard, because I think that can be interpreted as rose colored glasses, like you want to come in and have this ideal school counseling program. So like you said, knowing that, I mean, you can have ideas, but it’s probably not going to change for at least a year or two, I mean, a year to figure out the school, and then another year to like, kind of figure out what might work or whatever.

Lauren
But your high energy level and your commitment to learning and growing and incorporating yourself into the school and like what all the good things that are already going on. Like, that’s huge. That’s something you want to highlight. And this is me personally, but like, I am just a positive person. So I’m not gonna like sit there and be like, Oh, this is I just have all this excitement, because I’m brand new, and it’s gonna fade away, like, what you’re seeing right now is what you’re gonna get. So if you want that, like, Great, I’m a good fit. But if not, like, I might not be the best fit, but

Lauren
Right. Also know that, like, if you get hired, and maybe this is like, pass the interview process. But if you get hired, and that’s who you are, you are the new school counselor, like be confident, because I know that on the other side, like there were some years where that’s what we were looking for, we were looking for someone brand new, who was going to be there for a long time, who is going to bring some energy and new ideas.

Lauren
And then there were other years where it was like, We need someone who’s just a really good teammate who has like done this day in and day out, and you can trust in like those crisis situations and like, you’re not really gonna have to train them that much like different years, you need different things to fill your department.

Rachel
That’s such a good point. That’s a good point. And then I was thinking if it is a counselor, who was a previous teacher, yeah, ask them about you know, they probably have that like classroom management piece and wisdom that we don’t necessarily have. So definitely tap into that.

Rachel
Okay, now on to the fun questions, and then we’re gonna wrap it up. So these are like, what would you do? Yeah, so well, they’re not fun.

Lauren
Okay, this is about to be not a fun question. Okay. They’re not fun at all. They’re actually horrible, but I’m just what would you do? I like that type of question. Right. Okay.

Rachel
So what would you do if one of your students talked about wanting to kill himself or herself?

Lauren
So all of these questions that you have listed here, administrators always ask because I think they’re paying it obviously to like handle a situation like this. But everything that you’re about to ask like happens all the time. So, you know, you just give your protocol of like what your experience has been, because it might vary from school to school.

Lauren
So for this one, I would say it is always taken seriously, like this happens a lot in high school, even if it’s just a joke, like, I’m going to follow up with whatever the school is protocol is. So in my past experience that has looked like remaining calm and reassuring the student that they did the right thing to tell you, or if it’s a friend, that the friend did the right thing to tell an adult and like a safe person,

Lauren
I would ask a lot of questions like, Do you have a plan for killing yourself? Do you have access to whatever that plan is? And then, you know, probably before we’ve gotten even this far, I’ve already told them about the confidentiality in my office. And then we get to a point where I tell them, hey, this is this is bigger than you and me, like, I need to bring some other people into this situation to make sure that you stay safe.

Lauren
And I’m going to stay with the student until we have like seen this all the way through. So it could be all day, especially if a parent doesn’t answer the phone or something like that. So the student is going to stay in my sight, I’m going to let the appropriate people know like maybe if there’s a mental health counselor on campus, a school resource officer, I would follow up with the principal if they’re someone who is needing to know about that.

Lauren
But I would call the students parents immediately. Let them know, hey, you need to take your student to the hospital, I’d call ahead to the hospital, let them know that they’re coming. If a parent is against that, if a parent doesn’t answer the phone, like, but a lot, sometimes it doesn’t go as smoothly as you pick up the phone the answer, they can get their kid.

Lauren
The student might sit there all day because the parent is at work, or sometimes the family doesn’t speak English. And I mean, that happens. And it can be really stressful as a counselor, but you’re just thinking, stay focused on the student, keep the students safe, and get them the help that they need.

Rachel
Yes, yes. And I’ve even had parents because listeners might be thinking, What do you mean, the parent doesn’t answer and show up right away. But a lot of times if the student has, you know, said this before at home, a lot of times sometimes they’re not taken seriously.

Rachel
So yes, I agree, super heavy question, but an important one that you need to be prepared to answer. And again, it is going to vary on school protocol. But I would say something like, Well, I would follow the school’s threat assessment. If the school didn’t have, you know, one, we would develop this during my right when I start, I want to develop a threat assessment process where we would go through.

Rachel
On the threat assessment, I will say things like that list of questions that you’ll come up with, with your team to ask like, Do you have a plan for carrying this out? And do you have the means, you know, to carry this out? Did you say this, like in a joking way? All of those kinds of questions that are hard to come up with in the moment. So just having that clear threat assessment plan that you would go through those questions, and then you would take necessary next steps.

Rachel
So you know, calling the parent getting administrator involved, depending on the severity, it may be like they’re getting admitted to the hospital, you know, that’s happened before.

Lauren
I would also say if a student did say it, like as a joke, I still call the parents and the kid is sitting right there with me, because like, we all need to know that this is not a joke. I guarantee they won’t be doing that again. Right?

Rachel
Yeah, absolutely. The next question, what would you do, and I’ll start with this one, one of your students tells you that they’re being abused. So again, I would say in your interview, you know that you’re a mandated reporter. So you’ll likely go through some kind of mandated reporter training early on.

Rachel
But then it’s your responsibility that you’re going to report that to authorities and then take the next steps. So again, just you’re going to have a plan. So don’t feel I don’t want you to feel like super overwhelmed that you’re not gonna know what to do when these things come up.

Rachel
Because the school likely already has like a process in place. But you want to make sure that you’re learning with their processes. If they don’t have one, you’re helping them to develop that process. And then, you know, again, just letting the student know that yes, confidentiality is the rule in your office. But there are exceptions to the rule. Like if someone’s being hurt, if they’re hurting someone if they’re getting hurt, things like that. What about you, Lauren?

Lauren
Very similar, I would say very similar to the suicidal threats, I’d ask a lot of questions and let the student know that I have to let others into this conversation. We in our district have like a Department of Social Services at DSS Form and I’m familiar with that paper so I kind of know the questions I need to ask but they’re gonna ask me on the phone, and then I’m going to need to fill out like, even like, Are there any other siblings that are in this family are in the home.

Lauren
How old are they what school because you know, I’ll be stuck on the phone like, what’s, what school do they go to? Like? I gotta, you gotta know those things ahead of time. But once I call and report it and fill out the paperwork, then I would make copies for a resource officer and principal and keep that in a safe place like in a locked folder.

Lauren
And then I usually tell the students that, hey, Someone’s probably going to come follow up with you, you know, at school. So don’t be like surprised if someone calls you down and you like go talk in a conference room or something. But these are people that are here to ask you questions and keep you safe.

Lauren
And then they’ll also ask on the phone to like, if home is not a safe place, like we’re going to come up with an alternative plan or DSS is going to act faster. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of turnover and DSS and you know, with caseworkers and stuff, and things seem to move very slowly.

Lauren
So you know, if it is a very serious situation, like you let them know that and they’ll move it out quickly on it.

Rachel
Right. And I think you touched on this with the suicide one. But I think it’s important, again, to tell the student that they did the right thing, telling you that, you know, they’re not in trouble at all, they definitely did the right thing. You’re there to support them. You just really want to stress all those things.

Rachel
And definitely talk about those next steps, if you know what they’re going to be. Yeah. Okay, so now I’m off the hook, it is just you, I have three questions for high school, do you want two or three?

Lauren
Are you trying to I don’t care if you I don’t care

Rachel
For a high school only because these just are more for you. And then we’ll wrap it up. So okay, first step, a student says a teacher doesn’t like him or her and request a teacher change.

Lauren
So this happens all the time, depending on the policy at the school, your answers are gonna vary. And this might be something that’s kind of hard to figure out when you’re interviewing. So you can either base it on, you know, what it was like at your internship, or I think most of the time, it’s going to be a very similar thing that I have to explain that I have to do what the procedures are at my school.

Lauren
So it definitely this kind of conversation turns into more of like, an individual counseling situation if the student has like, come in. And, you know, I tell him, like, hey, we don’t change classes, like just for teacher preference, not just, this is a big deal to them for teacher preference, but like, I’m happy to listen to your concerns.

Lauren
And we can see what we can do about that. Because sometimes it’s like, they don’t like me, or sometimes it’s I don’t like their teaching style, or most of the time, it’s like my friends are in a different class, or I heard this teacher is really hard.

Lauren
So really kind of trying to like, uncover the why we need to change teachers, I would change a student’s teacher, if they have had that student, or they’ve had that teacher before and they failed the teacher’s class. Like, that’s not fun for either one of them.

Lauren
And so if that is an option, and they need to take the class, and there is another teacher, I would always try and make that an exception to that rule. But you really have to stick with it. Like you cannot change one kid schedule, even if he says he’s not going to tell his friends, because he’s gonna tell his friend really have to decide, you know, if this is a rule at your school, like we can’t change it just because of a teacher, but we can talk about like, what else could we do to make the situation better?

Lauren
Is it you know, you, you need to figure out how to come under their teaching style, or this is great practice. Ultimately, I usually leave this as like, this is great practice for your future, because I might work for a boss that I don’t see eye to eye with. Or I might be part of a team where I don’t like, you know, the other people I’m working with on the team are like, we work very differently.

Lauren
So it’s good practice right now. And they don’t want to hear that. But but usually we have to, like spin it to like you’re staying in this class. So how can we make this better?

Rachel
Right, right. And yeah, like you said, if it’s, you’re still willing to work with them, like if it’s the learning or teaching style, you know, maybe chatting with the teacher that they’re concerned about that. And then yeah, possible accommodations or something. Yeah.

Rachel
And what about if it’s a parent that what if a parent asks you to switch their child’s teacher? Yeah, so I thought first, I thought that conversation with the student usually turns into a phone call from the parent like later that afternoon, like they’ve texted their mom, and then their mom calls you?

Lauren
And then I would say, like, hey, yeah, yeah, we did get a chance to talk like was he able to tell you, you know about our conversation, because it might be the same day and like, they haven’t actually talked about it is just, she wouldn’t change my schedule kind of thing.

Lauren
So ultimately, like I kind of share, I’ll tell the student you know, or I’ll share with a parent, like, these are our policies, and this is why I couldn’t change it. And this is kind of what I said we could do or could concentrate on. And if they still insist on wanting it changed, I just tell them, Okay, like my hands are tied as it is because these are the procedures like that come from above me.

Lauren
So if you want to talk to someone higher up, I’m happy to give you your grade level administrators phone number email, and you can you’re definitely welcome to reach out to them. And I usually do warn them I say, I’m going to warn you I don’t usually see it change but you’re welcome to start that conversation.

Lauren
And so you know, they are they already see me as the bad guy because I won’t change it right then and there. But I and our administrators were usually very supportive of us they were because like we all have to be in agreement that these are the rules.

Lauren
And so I would say, usually with confidence, knowing like, it’s not going to change, but you’re welcome to go talk to someone else. Like, you don’t need to be mad at me. You can go like be mad at the administrator, I guess.

Rachel
That’s great, really good answer. Okay, last one, one of your students wants to drop out of school or your seniors is not going to graduate.

Lauren
Whoo This is so good. So again, this happens all the time.

Lauren
When they want to drop out of school, I would say there’s usually a lot more to this, like they didn’t just come to your office and just decide this one day, like maybe there are things going on at home, you can ask questions about like, How is school going? Like? What do you like? And what don’t you like? Who are your friends? Are there good parts of coming to school? Or is like all of it terrible? And why?

Lauren
Or what are you doing when you’re not at school? Like, are you working to provide for your family, like sometimes that’s a very real thing and a very real need. And so kind of understanding who the student is, and why they’re saying they want to drop out is important.

Lauren
I would look at how close they are to graduation, like, because then you can frame it, you’ve been in school since kindergarten, and you only have one more semester left, like you are so close. And they don’t realize like, Hey, I have put in a lot of work to this.

Lauren
If they’re young enough that it’s not like you know, maybe they’re in ninth or 10th grade, and they’re saying this, maybe there’s an opportunity to explore a career center or like some sort of vocational skill or hands on technical skill, that they could be up and moving for half of the school day and get elective credit for it.

Lauren
Then when they graduate high school, they have a certification, they have a job, they’re making more money than I am like, they could be in a really good place if they find something that really anchors them to school like something where they’re gaining real world skills, and then their motivation is newly sparked again.

Lauren
And then if we’re getting to the end, and a senior is like looking like they’re not going to graduate. I mean, you’re doing everything you can to keep them in school and to get them across that stage and get them their diploma. So really, you want to make sure I think that’s the most important part to highlight is that this is not a surprise, when you get to the end, like we would always talk about between counselors and administrators like no surprises.

Lauren
If there are people that you’re worried about, like you’re in constant communication with their teachers, their parents, the administrator that’s over them, like we are bringing in parents, we’re trying to have meetings, we’re telling the student this is what you need to do to graduate.

Lauren
And ultimately there will be students who don’t hold up their end of the bargain and they don’t graduate. But none of it should be a surprise. And I hate to say like there are students who won’t graduate and that’s really hard to do or like to come to grips with when you’re used to helping students but you’re collaborating with so many people that it will come down to them doing the work.

Lauren
And you just you want to have no surprises and you’re gonna be exhausted by the end. But knowing that you did everything you could to get them to graduate is all you can ask for.

Rachel
Yes, I think that’s perfect. You sound like such a good counselor.

Lauren
That could have been his whole podcast episode, like a monologue about getting a kid to graduate.

Rachel
Do it on your podcast.

Rachel
Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you, Lauren. This has been fun and I hope helpful for the listeners.

Lauren
If you enjoyed this conversation with Rachel and I want to give you one more free resource, head to counselorclique.com/interviews to get a three day video challenge for free straight to your email inbox. Inside these videos, you’re going to find powerful tips for interviewing for those high school counselor jobs with confidence.

Lauren
I want to read you a quick little message I got from Micala in my Instagram DMS. She said hi, Lauren. I just want to let you know I accessed your high school counseling interview series in preparation for an interview I had today. They opened up with tell us about yourself. And I think I nailed it.

Lauren
Your series of podcasts with Rachel on the Ask a sample interview questions made me feel super confident. And that’s all I can ask for at the end of the day. Just wanted to pop by and say thanks. Well thank you Micala for letting me know about that.

Lauren
And you’re not the only one who has nailed the interview process after listening to this podcast and using the three day free video challenge. So go to counselorclique.com/interviews to get that video challenge to your email inbox today. Good luck.

Lauren
Thanks for listening to today’s episode of high school counseling conversations. All of the links I talked about today can be found in the show notes and also at counselorclique.com/podcast. Be sure to hit follow or subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast so that you never miss a new episode. Connect with me over on Instagram, send me a DM @counselorclique. That’s C-L-I-Q-U-E. Thanks so much for hanging out with me. I’ll see you next time.