For those of you in New England, I’m sure you’ve heard all about the snowstorms hitting the Boston area. As a result, we’ve had several snow days. However, all this snow in the beginning of 2011 has reminded me how fun snow days can be! While I may not be saying that in June, getting up and checking the TV for cancellations does have a certain thrill to it. The beginning of 2011 also marks my last semester here in Suffolk’s School Counseling program. My internship at Watertown High School continues this semester and it’s been busy and exciting…when we’ve been there!

As we wrapped up 2010, the guidance office was filled with high school seniors getting college applications submitted, checking that transcripts had been mailed and that teacher recommendations had been completed. As an intern, I had several seniors on my caseload and worked with them starting in September on the college process. Some knew exactly where they wanted to apply and had spent the summer visiting colleges and working on their college essays. Others were less sure about their post-secondary plans, so I was able to work with them on searching for colleges using the school’s Naviance system, brainstorming essay topics and eventually hitting the submit button. I have been able to practice my counselor recommendation writing skills with the students I worked with and now we’re all anxiously awaiting those college letters.

Aside from college counseling, I continue to meet with students about a wide range of issues from transitioning to a new school to family life concerns to academic performance. I also have the opportunity each week to sit in on our department meetings and student support meetings. As the year has gone on, I’ve become less of an observer and more of a part of the conversation – a great feeling.

In conjunction with my Action Research class last semester, I worked with the assistant headmaster to look at attendance trends at the high school. It’s been really interesting, and helpful, to have our coursework overlap with our internship site. It’s nice to think that our internship sites are benefiting from the work that we are required to do for class!

As we begin our second semester, we are all thinking about what sort of helpful tools we can leave with our internship sites. Some of us will leave lesson plans, some will leave new programs and resources, some will leave helpful data analysis. I continue to brainstorm what might be most helpful for the high school – more evaluations of the programs they offer? Updated resource guides for students and parents? Helpful tips on applying for jobs? Resources for counselors on college counseling for students with learning disabilities? A new system for working with new/transfer students?

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be ironing out the details and putting together a final project that will hopefully be beneficial to the school and be something I can add to my portfolio. As a department, we’re also preparing for our sophomore class visits where we begin working with them on career exploration and really introduce them to the Naviance system. Soon after that, we start talking to juniors about the college process and the cycle begins again…until it’s interrupted by another snow day!

Remember the SATs? While thankfully I don’t have to take them ever again, there’s a good chance as a school counselor I will be running or proctoring them at some point during my career.  Over the weekend I had the opportunity to work with one of the counselors at WHS and run the SATs. While not every school is a testing site for the SATs and not all school counselors are the ones running the SATs at their school, understanding the ins and outs of the College Board and the detail involved in running the SATs is an important tool for any school counselor to have.
From assigning rooms to ensuring that there are enough proctors to cover all of the reasoning tests, subject tests, listening tests and non-standard tests (for students who are eligible for accommodations) to counting and recounting test books and answer sheets, the tasks themselves aren’t anything to write home about, but they are a part of the process. Before test day, we had to assign students to different rooms and then print room lists. We had to ensure that each room had the proper number of desks. For students with accommodations, we had to ensure that their accommodations were similar enough to be in the same room as students with different accommodations (most students needed extended time). We had to determine whether or not we could take stand-by students on the day of the test and see if we had tests for students who may not have registered noting that they needed accommodations. We had to make sure the building would be unlocked and the rooms would be open. All of this before the test even started!
At 7:15 on Saturday morning, we began SAT testing day. We were rechecking lists and registering stand by students. We were answering questions about taking more than one subject test and helping kids who had forgotten their ID or their CD player for the listening test. Once they had all made it to their rooms, we were answering calls for more test booklets or questions about students who weren’t showing up on class lists. And once the test began, we were giving breaks to the proctors and beginning to complete all of the information for the College Board – proctor information so they could be paid, number of students taking the test, number of students who were absent, number of students who were stand-bys…lots of numbers and data.
Once the students were finished with their tests and had been dismissed, we began counting and recounting answer booklets and test booklets and inputting the numbers into the College Board’s system. We had to make sure the proctors had completed seating charts and had returned whatever they had taken at the start of the day. Finally, we packaged the materials up and shipped them off.
While it’s not the most exciting way for a school counselor to spend their Saturday, it certainly is a task that I’m glad I was exposed to during my internship. Not only is the understanding of how the process works important if I ever find myself supervising the SATs, but the experience of having helped run the SATs is certainly something I can mention when I begin the job search process! And, it reminded me just how glad I am that I don’t have to take them ever again…

It’s 6:00 AM and my alarm starts beeping. I think to myself, “What am I getting into?” So begins the first day of my internship at Watertown High School. It has been 2 months since I started my 3-day a week internship at WHS and while I will never enjoy hearing my alarm clock go off before the sun is up, I do look forward to my internship each day.

My name is Adrienne Eaton and I am in my second year of the combined M. Ed School Counseling  and College Admissions Counseling Certificate Program here at Suffolk. My coursework last year and over the summer provided me with a great foundation for the work I am now doing in my internship.  I have been pleased to see my coursework come to life this year – from counseling theories to adolescent development, from group guidance to college counseling, my internship is exposing me to the issues, programs and responsibilities I learned about last year and continue to learn about this fall.

For example, fall in a school counseling department is filled with schedule changes, new student registrations and college counseling. Over the summer, as part of the College Admissions Counseling Certificate coursework, I took a course on the Fundamentals of College Admissions Counseling. In this course, we covered everything from searching for colleges to financial aid to the transition to college. As I begin to work with students who plan to go to college next year, I find that the information I learned over the summer is invaluable to the work I am doing in these senior meetings. Another summer course for the certificate required me to visit 10 different colleges or universities to learn more about the school, their admissions policies, their support services and their diversity programming. This required meeting with representatives from the different offices and gave me a glimpse at what these ten schools are all about. Certainly as a beginning school counselor the challenge will be knowing what schools are known for what programs and who might fit in there, but the course gave me a good place to start and some great contacts in the higher education world.

While my internship is giving me the hands on experience I need to be a school counselor, my coursework at Suffolk has given me a great foundation and prepared me well for my internship and responsibilities there.