What Not to Do Over Summer Break

By:  Patrick O'Connor Ph.D

It isn’t unusual for counselors to experience several “last days” of the school year.  From the last day the students come to school, to the last day the teachers are in the building, to the last day we are in the building, there are ample opportunities to reflect, review, and plan ahead.

It’s time for all of that to stop for a while, according to two experts.  The first one is my school principal, who concluded the end-of-the-year luncheon with this advice: “You’ve worked hard, and we’ve worked you hard.  Now it’s time to stop working.” The second expert runs an online blog I subscribe to that addresses social justice issues. About once a week, she posts something that says “It’s time for self-care.  What are you doing to take care of you?”

Counselors aren’t always the best clients, so it’s likely more than a few of you are trying to sort out just how much work you need, or want, or (dare we say it) should do.  If the first few days or weeks of vacation have been more unsettling than unwinding, consider these key steps to making the most of your summer:

Voicemail Most phone systems don’t allow you to turn voicemail off.  Even if yours does, you may want to consider keeping it on, since many people who call over the summer are looking for help they need right away.  If your voicemail is active in July and August, your outgoing message should be helpful and clear:

“I’m out of the office until late August.  If you’re calling for a school issue, please call the main office at (phone number). If you’re looking for counseling resources, look on the counseling website/community mental health website at (web address). If you’d like to leave a message for me, please remember I’ll be listening to it in late August.”

Once that’s done, don’t check voicemail.  Trust the system you’ve set up, or you’ll be checking every day—and that’s not restorative.

Email  The same message on your voicemail goes on your email autoreply, since parents and students might be reaching out to you for help, and need direction.  Since I’m on several professional committees that meet year-round, I check email over the summer, but only respond to professional commitments—if I weren’t on these committees, my summer would be both email and voicemail free.  A clear autoreply gives students and families the help they need.  Once again, it’s time to trust your ability to guide them to the right resources. ( I also scan email for spam and advertisements and delete as I go.  It saves all kinds of time that first day back in the office.)

“Dropping By the Office.” The simple rule here is that if you don’t have to be in the office over the summer, don’t go in.  The temptation may be strong to go in for “just a minute” to develop that one lesson plan or answer that one email—and then, somehow, you’re there for the day.

If you just have to spend some time developing new units or presentations, find a way to do it at home, or at the local library.  Schedule the time, and once the time is up, head back to vacation, and pick up where you left off later.  If your contract requires you to be in the office, save all of your preparation for the office time, and let the rest of the summer be about you.

Five Counseling Trends to Watch for This Fall

By:  Patrick O'Connor  Ph.D

Last week, we looked back at this school year, and talked about five trends and issues that shaped our world of work, and the lives of our students.  This week, we look forward to the fall, and anticipate what new challenges lie ahead—and make sure you read to the end for a special announcement!

ESSA changes could affect counselors and counseling  Few counselors shed a tear when the federal government finally retired No Child Left Behind last year, since the program put an incredible emphasis on testing—testing generally left to counselors to administer.  Replaced by the Elementary and Secondary School Act, states were asked to develop their own plans for how they would use a lump sum of federal money known as Title IV funds, and if they planned to use that money to continue to support counseling programs.

Most counselors don’t know what their state proposed to the federal government—and those that do likely know that President Trump has proposed giving states no Title IV money at all.  It’s worth a moment of your time this summer to find out who your state’s ESSA contact is; the money you may have been getting for your program may not be there, come fall.

Return of Year-Round Pell  On the other hand, the federal government has done students and counselors a huge favor by restoring the right for students to use Pell grants and other federal funds to pay for college throughout the year, including the summer.  For the past few years, students using Pell funds in Fall and Spring terms received no Pell funding for summer.  With summer funding restored, more students can return to a year-round, part-tine approach to college attendance, allowing them to work year-round as well.

Return of IRS Retrieval Tool Thousands of students completing the FAFSA got a huge boost this year by checking a box that allowed the federal government to use IRS data submitted by the student and their parents to verify FAFSA eligibility.  This verification tool was taken down for security reasons this spring, but it will be back and ready to go come this October 1—good news for counselors and families alike.

Earlier Applications Counselors are reporting an increase in students asking for high school transcripts as early as June of the junior year, since some colleges are now accepting applications that early.  What’s going to happen when panicky parents find out school records offices are closed for the summer?  Stay tuned, and be ready to remind parents that any application submitted by October 15^th must receive equal consideration.

Free College Programs on the Rise  Counselors may also want to plan on using part of August to get caught up on the many free college programs springing up throughout the country.  Most are only for in-state students, most only cover tuition, and most have lots of details to follow—but it’s clear your families will want to know more. Make sure you’re ahead of this curve, and remember that free isn’t always free.

Finally, a big thank you to Gene Kalb and the readers of this column.  Word about Counselor’s Corner has   spread, and Counselor’s Corner has been named one of the top mental health blogs for 2017 by Online Counseling Programs.com.  This is due to the loyalty and active engagement of our readers, and the enthusiastic support ofHS Counselor Week editor Gene Kalb. 

An interview about the column can be found here, and more information about the organization granting us this recognition can be found at https://onlinecounselingprograms.com/ .  Thanks for reading, and it’s gratifying to know the column is making a difference in your work with students.

The Big Five—What Shaped Our World This Year

By:  Patrick O'Connor Ph.D

This isn’t the last column of the year, but this is the last column when at least a few counselors still have students in the building. Since that’s often a time when computers get closed to focus on year-end activities, here’s a review of what made a counselor’s life more interesting this school year.

Renewed interest in career development dominated the second half of the school year, as increasing college debt and a shifting need in workforce have led society to reconsider the “four years of college is for everyone” mantra of the Great Recession. Economists still insist jobs that require four-year degrees will improve a state’s bottom line, but the message that plumbers are important is alive and well.

Testing trends also kept counselors on their toes, as College Board announced the first August administration of the SAT in about 50 years, and ACT announced plans for a July administration in 2018. What this will do to the testing plans of future juniors and seniors is anyone’s guess, but it does suggest a shift in test prep to the summer months. How will high schools respond?

Test prep managed to make its own headlines late this year, as a College Board report suggests students using the free online SAT prep through Khan Academy for 20 hours of guided tutoring can see impressive gains in their SAT score. If these findings stand the test of time, these 110 point increases will be a game changer.

Politics made a rare impact on the affective element of the counseling curriculum, as legal actions from travel bans to immigration raids have put man first generation families on edge. Counselors were asked to walk a fine line between supporting students without making political judgments—as a whole, they walked that line with dignity and professionalism.

Early FAFSA Filing allowed a record number of students to file for the FAFSA this year. By moving the filing date up to October 1, families were given more time to file the form, and to shop colleges by price. While some of these efforts were diminished by the removal of the IRS Data Retrieval Tool this spring, the new attention that was focused on FAFSA served its purpose, as the ability to pay for college continues to be on the minds of students, counselors, and policymakers alike.

Summer Melt: A Step-by-Step Guide

By:  Patrick O'Connor

It’s an all too familiar situation. You see your seniors off at graduation, they thank you for all you’ve done, you wish them luck at college, and you wonder when you’ll see them again—until you see one of them at the local grocery store on a Tuesday night. In October.

Welcome to the world of Summer Melt, a mysterious world where new high school graduates swear in June they are college bound, but never show up for class in the fall. As is the case with too many things in our world, Summer Melt affects more low-income student and first generation students—as many as 40%.

This leads counselors and researchers to believe that a big part of Summer Melt occurs because students don’t complete some of those crucial steps in the summer that are needed to begin their college careers. If they don’t check their emails (and they don’t), students will miss the summer notices about orientation, requests for tax returns, notices of scheduling, and more little things—little things counselors remind them to do during the school year, but now school’s out.

Several research studies on reducing summer melt are easy enough to find. There are also plans out there about creating summer melt drop-in centers and getting colleges to do more to prevent summer melt (and that’s the real answer). But if you’re looking to slow down summer melt right now, here’s your three step strategy:

Open a Remind account. Most counselors are well aware of the great programs that are out there where you can text your students without knowing their cell phone numbers—and, more important, where they don’t know your cell phone number, either. Remind is likely the most famous one of these accounts, but look around, start one, then invite all your seniors to sign up with their cell phone numbers. Better yet, ask around—someone in your school may already have the senior class on their Remind account.

Buy a disposable cellphone. Summer Melt is the ultimate problem for school counselors who really want to help kids, but need their summer to recover—and let’s face it, we all need recovery time. The happy compromise here is to buy a disposable cell phone, the kind you put a certain amount of minutes on with a charge card that doesn’t require a contract. You want to make sure you can text on it, but that’s all the frills you need—and let’s face it, a texting cellphone isn’t exactly hard to find.

Schedule your messages. The first day school is out, send a text on your disposable cell phone that tells your seniors what’s up. “It’s Mrs. Jones, and school’s out! Look for weekly reminders from me this summer that will help you make an awesome start to college.”

After that, your task is to put the phone in a place where you’ll be able to find it every Monday (or pick another day). On the appointed day, turn the phone on, text the message of the week, and turn the phone off before you hit the pool. If you’re looking for a comprehensive texting curriculum:

Week 1 “It’s Mrs. Jones. Have you signed up for college orientation? Check your email and see what to do. Still not sure? Call the college.”

Week 2 “It’s Mrs. Jones. Does your college have everything for your financial aid file? Check your email and see if they’ve sent you something. Not sure? Call the college.”

Week 3 “It’s Mrs. Jones. Does your college need a health form from you? Check your email and see. Not sure? Call the college.”

Week 4 “It’s Mrs. Jones. Are you rooming with someone at college? Do you know who it is? Have you been in touch? If any of these are no, it’s time to reach out!”

Week 5 “It’s Mrs. Jones. Do you have a schedule of classes yet? What about books? What about money for books? Check your email and see. Not sure what to do? Call the college.”

Week 6 “It’s Mrs. Jones. Will you be working at college? If so, are your job plans all set. Are you sure? If not, call the college.”

Week 7 “It’s Mrs. Jones. We’ve sent your final transcript. Does your college have it? Are you sure? If not, call your college.”

Week 8 “It’s Mrs. Jones. How are you getting to college? Is your ride all set? Will you be commuting to school? Confirm your plans—especially if you’re car pooling.”

Week 9 “It’s Mrs. Jones. You should be starting college soon. Have fun, and let me know what you need!”

You’ll want to talk with nest year’s seniors about Summer Melt in March and April, and you might want to put together a plan for how students can get hold of you, since Remind won’t let them text you. Then again, you might not, if you really want students to test their wings over the summer. Either way, these 9 texts will help get them on their way to what’s next, without doing serious damage your time at the beach.