School Counselor, Manheim Township School District

>> So my name is Michelle Pollis. I am an intermediate school counselor at Landis Run Intermediate in Manheim Township School District. This year I am working with the entire class of fifth graders in this school district, all of the entire graduating class comes together, six elementary schools come together in the fifth grade. So, I have about 450 fifth graders that I am working with. I will loop with them. So, I'll be their school counselor next year as well and then send them on to the middle school. A typical day for me, as a school counselor, I'm working with students, teachers, administrators, nurses, parents, community agencies. Everything that I do is with the goal of helping the students improving their wellbeing, their education, academic success, personal, social, emotional career aspirations. So, there really is no typical day. Every day is different. That's one of the things that I like the most about it. When I'm working with the students, sometimes I'm working with them one on one or in small groups. I may be running groups, support groups of seven to ten students based on different themes or I'm also going in and doing classroom guidance lessons as well. So, there's a lot of different things that I'm doing a lot of different hats I'm wearing all at the same time. So, students will come to me for one on one sessions for a lot of different issues. It could be something going on at home that's making it difficult for them to focus in school or something that's going on at school that may be interfering with their education, it could be academic problems or concerns helping them review their grades, get themselves organized, figure out what they need to do to be more successful academically. It could be, if it's an issue in school, it could be something with a peer or a classmate, students being unkind to each other or bullying, or just friend conflicts, you know, a lot of times we see that, just kids who are friends are just not getting along or not communicating properly. And then, you'd help learning how to navigate that so that they can maintain that relationship. So, depending on what the kid comes for, the sessions can look pretty different. I mean, if it's an academic concern, I would be checking in with the student. I always make sure the student knows they're not in trouble when they come to see me. You know, I don't punish, I don't handle discipline. I'm here to help and I want the kids to know that that it's a safe place that they can come when they talk to me. But, if they're coming for an academic session, we might look at their grades, might talk about why those grades are what they are or what's missing. Are you not doing your homework? Did you fail a test and not take advantage of the retake? How could you study differently next time? Can you talk to your teachers? Can you join the homework club after school so you can get work done? So, it's kind of brainstorming, understanding what the problem is, and then also looking at resources that could help that kid then to be successful as they move forward with that goal. If I'm meeting with students for some sort of personal, social issue, you know, there might be two kids that aren't getting along, they have to work together in a group. We can talk about what's going on. Why isn't it working? We might meet with the one kid first separately and then the other and then bring them together for a type of mediation where they can talk about what's working, what's not, how can we solve this. My job is not to tell them how to solve it but to guide them to that solution on their own so that they can find something that works for them.