School has just started in many districts, and the counselor chat rooms are already rich with concerns about the subject we love to hate in the fall—schedule changes. No sooner do we get through with orientation sessions where we tell the students how much we care about them, and we’re saying no to a schedule change that “will ruin their lives.”
It's a little late to change the rules in the middle of the game, but there will always be more schedule changes with the next trimester or semester. Giving some thoughts now about how to change the schedule change process can be invaluable with the next round of changes.
Schedule changes are really not your job Unless you are required to do so by contract, there is nothing—and I mean, nothing—about being a school counselor that suggests you should be changing schedules. Administrators who try and sell schedule changes as an outgrowth of academic advising are confusing a counseling duty (academic goal setting) with a logistical need (someone to move classes around. Think about it: Once you get past “Why do you want to make this change?”, what skill set is unique to counselors that teachers, administrators, or parapros don’t possess—or could, with practice?
It's important to remember this so you’ll stop beating yourself up about “not doing my job.” Once you realize this has nothing to do with counseling, you can leave any impressions your students have of you as Schedule Changer behind when it’s time to be a Counselor—and keeping that in mind can make the paper shuffling infinitely more manageable.
Review your process I worked at a high school where schedule changes were done without any student-counselor interaction. The student filled out a form, indicating what they wanted to change, and why. It was submitted by a particular deadline, and counselors processed the changes in the order they were received. The counselor’s response to the request was written at the bottom of the form, and returned to the student through their first hour class. Unhappy students who wanted to press the issue could always set up an appointment after that, but the vast majority of schedule changes were executed by the counselor, at the counselor’s pace, without the pressure of having armies of students waiting in line. Changes were made more efficiently and effectively, giving counselors more time to do, well, their real job.
Administrators will overrule you. So? Counselors often feel undercut when they deny a schedule change, using the established guidelines, only to have an administrator approve the change when the student—or, more likely, the parent—appeals the decision.
It’s easy to see why this may be bothersome, since this could appear to undercut your authority—except this isn’t your job in the first place. Administrators set the schedule changing rules, and if they decide there’s an appeals process, let them own it. You don’t need to.
Give families a heads up Review your scheduling paperwork, and look for where—and how—you tell families the ground rules for schedule changes. The information needs to be clear, brief, and distributed frequently. That way, if someone fumes about a No, you have a strong process to fall back on.
Get schedule changes out of your office Principals don’t know what a time killer schedule changes are. Point out what else you could do with all that time, especially in the name of student mental health. That may get them off the dime, especially if you have a suggestion about a different process (like hiring temporary parapros).
Disagree with this wholeheartedly. Working with students on schedule changes provides an opportunity to build relationships. You can discuss why a particular class is required and/or discover what is of interest to the student. It would be a missed opportunity to just process schedule changes without working directly with the student. Especially those students who may be reluctant to visit your office. That same student will gladly meet with you if it means making a desired change to their schedule. I cannot begin to tell you how much I've learned about students from these informal chats. Rather than seeing schedule changes as beneath us, maybe consider how you can turn these low-risk interactions into something valuable?
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