2013-2014 Year In Review...In Pictures

Since I only made one blog post last school, here is my year in pictures.

12th Grade Counselor's Office

Acceleration Counselor's Office

Working on schedules on a Saturday before the first day of school.

The 10^th grade counselor put together a great and thorough safe room (crisis) kit.  Everything was ready to go when we needed to use it this year.  THE KIT HAS EVERYTHING!!

Parking Space Painting.  The 9^th grade counselor and I paid for the right to paint our parking spaces.  It’s one of the fundraisers the PTA has to raise money for the after prom lock-in.  We spent two Saturdays painting our spaces.

Homecoming Week: Superhero day…we joked about us being super counselors and decided to make it real.

9th Grade Counselor

10th Grade Counselor

11th Grade Counselor (ME!!!!)

12th Grade Counselor

Acceleration Counselor

Homecoming week: Tacky Tourist Day

Homecoming Week: Nerd/Geek Day

Those suspenders though! LOL!!!!

Homecoming Week: Hall Decorations.  The homecoming theme was Dr. Seuss.  These are pictures of 2 hallways

Homecoming week: Pep Rally Stage…This set was impressive!!  The students came out a door on the balcony

Gotta love the kindness of students.  We joke with our students that they need to have snacks to see us. Of course we let the students see us without snacks.  One of my students brought this for me because we would ask for twinkies. LOL!! We laughed so hard. 

Christmas Decorating.  Since we all love Christmas, we decided to decorate our doors and the counseling suite.  We even hung stockings, but no one left us candy. LOL!  We adopted an angel tree student from our feeder elementary school too.

9th Grade Counselor's Door

Close-up Picture

10th Grade Counselor's Door

Close-up Picture

My Door.  I know the penguin didn't match, but I liked it :) 

Close-up Picture

12th Grade Counselor's Door

Bulletin Board in Counseling Suite

Board with the lights on

File cabinet in counseling suite.  Our counseling clerk/administrative associate had us use leftover wrapping paper to make gifts.

With the lights on

Counseling Clerk/Administrative Associate's door 

Close-up Picture

Acceleration Counselor's Door

Close-up Picture

 Valentine Singing Telegram from The Choir

Teacher/Faculty/Staff Appreciation Week

Cup was filled with candy

Teacher/Faculty/Staff Appreciation Week: I had to spin the “wheel of fun” to win this Sonic gift card….it will come in handy next school year (14-15 year) during my late nights at the school.  (I rarely take work home.)

"Wheel of Fun"

Student “incentives” from me.  I only did it once.

Inspiration (from Pinterest, of course)

Bought mine (fruit roll-ups) from Sam’s…thought they were the kind like the picture above

My office…I will post updated pictures in August because I made some changes. My office theme was the Lotsa Dots collection from Mardel.

Inspiration

My version.  I only ended up using one set of the drawers: new/returning students, fax cover sheets, history update forms (transcript update forms)

Created my contact logs during the summer (using the documentation I had throughout the year) but didn't do a good job of completing them during the 13-14 school year.  That is one of my many areas of improvement.

And the highlight of my year....

This still makes me laugh!!!

Summer is over

My summer was officially over August 1.  My main goal was to finish my credit checks and update my senior spreadsheet. I accomplished both of those, even though it was after July 4.  How did I do on my summer to-do list???

Here is my to-do list:

• Complete credit checks
• Complete senior year spreadsheet (this will take the longest because it will be very detailed)
• Check schedules for accuracy 
• Lesson Plans: 
• soft skills
• life skills
• college application bootcamp
• returning students/college student panel
• HBCU/HSI panel
• admissions panel
• OCI lesson plans (for my rotations)
• Finalize senior conference checklist
• Update counseling forms and handouts
• A few other things I'm leaving out

I did a lot but not all.  I started the ASCA lesson plans but after the credit checks and spreadsheet, I was tired and confused.  I need to get together with one of the other counselors and finish those.  I updated my binders and binder spines (might post those later).  I am ready for this school year to begin!!  c/o 2015!!!!!!!

Summer Vacation

Wow!  The year has gone by really fast.  I intended to update my blog regularly, but I failed :-(  I WILL do better next year (2014-2015 school year).  I say that knowing I will be the senior counselor (deep breath). I've had this group of students since their sophomore year, so I feel somewhat prepared....but can you ever really be prepared to have seniors??!  I want to update my blog every week or every two weeks.  We shall see :-)
Today was my last contract day.  I don't have to report back to work until August 1.  I am going to enjoy my summer, but I have a summer work to-do list.  Our department is working on aligning with the ASCA model and not just the state (Texas) model...and I will have seniors (did I mention that already. LOL!)

Here is my to-do list:

• Complete credit checks
• Complete senior year spreadsheet (this will take the longest because it will be very detailed)
• Check schedules for accuracy 
• Lesson Plans: 
• soft skills
• life skills
• college application bootcamp
• returning students/college student panel
• HBCU/HSI panel
• admissions panel
• OCI lesson plans (for my rotations)
• Finalize senior conference checklist
• Update counseling forms and handouts
• A few other things I'm leaving out

I want to get most of this done before July 4.  **Fingers crossed**

2013-2014 Office Tour: Co-Workers

My Co-workers said I could put pics of their office on my blog 

9th Grade Counselor 

 10th Grade Counselor 

 12th Grade Counselor 

(she's still working on hers)

I am the 11th Grade Counselor

here's the link to my office: http://highschcounselor.blogspot.com/2013/08/my-office-2013-2014.html

My Office (2013-2014)

I finally finished my office

On the outside of my door 

Outside of my door 

My students (and some faculty/staff) love playing in the Zen Garden 

I love how these turned out.  Got the inspiration from Pinterest (http://funinfifth.blogspot.com/2012/08/getting-organized.html)

Pinterest is so addictive!! :-) 

Decided to do something different this year.  (another Pinterest find: http://1happyteacher.blogspot.com/search/label/birthday) I usually give a birthday card and a pencil. 

The students can trade the paper in for a treat.  Not sure what treats I will have, but it will probably be snacks, pencils, etc.