district role a but you actually have been a district for a long time and you've actually been in this position for the past year as our internet budget director so i know you've done a lot of work already with this position but tell me a little bit about what your position entails and what you're doing with k through twelve so it is a district wide position in addition to that you know when it comes down to anything from you know overseeing the facilities and getting repairs to help work with the director of facilities i also will make certain that playing surfaces are safe i have a middle school athletic order i collaborate with but as far as the scheduling planning transportation of athletics after school supervising of coaching personnel those coaches and the evaluation of those coaches at the middle school and high school that always compass is what i do and then in addition to that also the k through twelve health physical education stuff supervising them and area i grew up in hamilton and from a very young age you know i was involved in three sports three sport athlete and i played soccer to really high level in the area and you know frequently we would practice and go for runs and princeton and i started doing soccer camps you know once i was fifteen or sixteen you know working with kids as a coach counselor soccer camps with the state in new jersey actually traveling with the state new jersey with all those locations and working at worst county community college with a of the athletic directors at the time that would have summer camps and work over the summer so they loved working with the kids you know so that's what was that was my passion you know teaching the kids play and soccer and doing all sports and in the camp so when i went to mercer county community college and then i transferred i went to see hall majored education and then i went back to ride and i got my master's in educational ministration and supervision i was at the middle school for josh i guess it was sixteen or seventeen years and then my first four or five years i taught summer school at the high school also taught driver's ed i coached at the high school level for my first four years with wayne cyclists and are doing boys soccer and then i also coached middle school baseball and middle school basketball so after about six or seven years i went back on my masters and then i ran the middle school athletic program for twelve years and then i went for a change at the high school was there a short while six months and then i became the intern director of athletics there so it's been it's been a great ride even as a wide background in both athletics and education lead to first want to become a teacher and work in education while i think you know making a difference and connecting with the kids you know at the end of the day you sure are tired but you know you go home you put your head on the pillow and you are rewarding in seeing the kids you know progressing get better and connecting with them and i think you know for me you really don't know how the kids how they do after they turn into a teenager because you know the middle so long after eighth grade you don't really see them too much but when i was at the high school you know it was really rewarding seeing the kids and say hey mr day we're glad we're here and it was like that was really an eye opener for me you know so it was great to see you know those kids that i had for three years you know seeing them an additional you know two or three years which throughout the course of the last two years to reshape the of our athletic program the strategic plan for athletics that's been implemented and it's been an exciting and rewarding to see these things take shape in addition to that this philosophy for the program what it is and what this program really looking at now moving forward or right now we're we're identifying you know the social emotional needs of our students you know k through twelve yeah that's a big component when we talk about wellness and you know we're meeting with the parent focus groups that we did throughout the process it was really an eye opener to see you know parents convene talking to them and realizing the dangers of screen time that we didn't have in the curriculum examination is an experience a state and the exact so we also had you know we also looked at silicon as we looked at you know other pieces of the puzzle but basically put in the students first putting their health and wellness first encompassing the health and wellness of our teachers as well and families so you know the main outcome as far as you know the technology goes i think it was to use innovation and technology to spend more time with family and friends get those meaningful relationships not overburden athletic program and we looked at you know other programs and other districts and what our goals were here and you know should we cut it the middle school should not cut right what's the maximum number of what's our goals here  doing why are we doing what we're doing at each level yeah you know and you know we found out that you know joy of sport is is really profound here district so you know we want those middle school kids to make every team possible they can to play and create those connections with their peers so they have that social emotional connection so get away from the electrical devices and have meaningful friendships you know establish them at the middle school because that's the most important place to be but still be able to compete you know on the playing field so you know a lot of coaches where we're in different places interpreting that you know you know should we win you know it win or should we carry more people wri focusing on player development but more more on person development yes you know as opposed to winning games so i think after that we had a you know we had our mission and vision and sharing it with coaches now we're moving it's like you know second phase we're incorporating a new online registration system for athletics we're piloting at the high school we want parents to not have to push all those papers around and sign the papers and hand them in really when they can you know registered their child on their phone and submit their their forms using the technology so they don't have to worry about it all so they can subscribe to their schedules on their i counter google calendars you know we're getting there the coaches are learning how to put their practice schedules and yeah and hopefully by the start of next year you know we'll have every freshman j v varsity team will have their practice schedule in the system and if they cancel a game parents will get on a text message or email notification and then we're working very company with closely with the company that's developing the app and actually creating recommendations and they're making those recommendations based upon you know the work that we're going so now we're on the cutting edge so great so looking ahead you're officially now the director actor and what are you looking forward to in this role and within the next year well i'm looking forward to working with all of our great coaches you know at the middle school and high school they've been really supportive it's been terrific you know working with them on a one on one basis you know  of feel like i'm also one of the how to put on is like you know a tech support where they say why is my phone not you know updating mice my practice schedule is you have to swipe down and you know people are learning as we're all learning together so i felt like i went from the important for our community needs now but especially our families to know if we and we are to be a lot of change that i did you know i think i think it's important you know moving forward as we as we embrace you know the technology and we're moving in the direction of putting children  first you know that we're also being caucus and of you know fiscal responsibility finance responsibility and i know we're going to be planning for a referendum yeah and you know we're putting the kids first and you know it's not we're not going to be asking for too much but you know  the resources the faith meant to be safe to practice and to really thrive exact think i think you can correct me if i'm wrong but i think we want to kids to both thrive in the classroom but also learn how to thrive in life and i think that medics can often play a part in learning a lot of life skills and want to give this position just the summer before that you were one of our school complainers i was telling a little bit about what your position entails yes so my position was as a school counselor at the high school level where we worked with our eight through twelfth graders on a variety of social and emotional needs that they had now is the supervisor i'm working with all of the schools so it's now a k through twelve position which is really exciting because i'm able to effect positive change for our little ones all the way i really are graduates which is a really nice change for me so we have a nice amazing team of school counselors k through twelve each of our buildings at the elementary level have a professional school counselor ok and there are three at the middle school and then we have a larger team at the high school regulating a college counselor and a student assistance counselor so it's a really fantastic team that's wonderful i think the school counseling is one of those phrases that we hear we sort of have a d a about what that  means but what do our school counselors do and as you're supervising them what is your role in sort of shaping that work that's a wonderful question so it's really interesting and i know we've talked about this in the past that the historical roots of school counseling were called guidance and that's why you hear those term interchangeably so the guidance counselor was an individual who would assist students with things like scheduling so do i take biology or do i take chemistry ok it's really shifted in the last i'd say twenty to twenty five years and especially in the last ten years so originally our school counselors were all certified teachers and then they would receive an additional certificate in guidance counselor x where they could assist really the idea was with just academic yeah but we know there so much more that goes into learning and to have our children thrive which is really well we're going for and so they shifted the laws so that all of the school counselors now are actually licensed school counselors they have completed a master's degree an chip experience and they are able to address a wide variety of our student population actually and our families and the greater community in social emotional i always say pretty much anything goes on in a child life to help them be successful so if a student is struggling emotionally or with some issue in their life they could go to a school counselor just like someone who is trying to figure out what classes to take based on what they'd like to major in college they could go to a school counselor for that so  really is a person who helps them and lots of different areas so that if i always think about it and many people have heard me say this at the school counseling department it's like the heart think of the school as the body every bit about blood pumps through that heart and that's really what our school counselors are when you think about it they touch every single child in these buildings so it's really important that they're advocates for the students that the families know that they're available that they're there and they're people that are really like their best friend yeah well what are you most looking forward to in you new role what am i not living up to its you know i have enjoyed every second of my new role i was very fortunate to inherit a department that is fantastic but really i've been spending some thoughtful time in reflection looking at areas of programming that we can increase i feel that any time we can increase our student engagement that's a good thing so i spent a good portion of this summer kind of looking at our overall size systemic programming and see what were some areas that i could take back from the counselors and maybe piece of that with our wonderful orientation run by diana like us our dean of students where all of our counselors met with their ninth grade students so it was one of the first points of contact that our students had and i felt that set a great expectation for what we a team that's wonderful i know that you're also a believer working on some things making more connections between the eighth grade ninth grade so reaching out more to do with having your counseling staff which are more to those eighth graders when they're in eighth grade so when they come over to the high school they already sort of feel comfortable they already have a person or they know they can go to and they have started developing a relationship with absolutely so the building principal and i actually even met today and we talked about that and how important is that those connections are made every single level so that's another i guess shift  thinking of professional school counseling as k through twelve it's right one department so bringing in people with their expertise and that doesn't have to be just based on grade level so having our counselors going down to eighth grade and maybe there's one of our counselors who has an expertise in food and they say why don't i go down to the elementary cafeterias and say hi to some of the students so again just kind of playing with the wonderful personnel that we have using their strengths to try to touch more children and the more we can be connected as a team the stronger we can be for all of our students but again that vision exactly what is the other things that you're looking at with your new role of sort of taking on or changing more shaping yes so definitely transition is something that we're talking a lot about we want to make that as smooth as possible it's funny the other component of that is as a parent too so i'm a parent and i remember that first time that i put my daughter on a school bus and i thought to myself what is going to happen she's going to go off to she going to have lunch with who is she going to talk to so i'm trying to be conscious of that piece and bringing the parents into the conversation more so making sure that we're working as partners in that child's success and a big part of that is increasing our communication ensuring that our services are transparent and that every child knows and every parent knows about the services and we don't want to rely on individuals either hearing through the grapevine or coming to us by really looking at ways that we can connect with the community at the community level so i'm really exactly and looking at some of our established community partnerships and really utilizing them again to get that information out right right so much of the work that we do in education i feel like just generally i really about making those connections making sure that we're communicating clearly making sure that people have the tools they need this to navigate the system the best they can exactly and i think about it again i go back to being a parent myself that first time there is so many first times when it comes to school and even if it's your third or fourth or fifth child you know again you may have different experiences a new teacher a different sometimes different buildings exact shuras so there's just so much of that transition for everyone involved in that child's life and i think the school counseling department can do to try to minimize that i feel like it's a good thing absolutely so as we talk about all these connections what should parents know about school counselors about the resources are available for students again kindergarten through twelfth grade i think we often think about school counseling as middle school or just high school but it really starts and can i go and go through twelfth grade what your parents know and what's available to them that's a wonderful wonderful question and part of the work that i am moving toward is ensuring that we have that equity from building to building looking at different character education programs looking at different ways to encourage the counsellors to run different parent education programs and that's more in the elementary levels because we want to make sure that the parents know right from the beginning and again if you're looking at a long term vision if they understand and utilize their school counselor frequently and early on then that kind of helps as it builds upon right there as school becomes more complicated right as a parent has the tools in their t box out early on then that helps them build later right that's exactly so what first got you interested in working in education being a school counselor that's a great question too so i lived all over the world and when we moved to the united states i was in eleventh grade but i came from the british system and so my transcript was evaluated by a school counselor and i was placed into eleventh grade in my public school which meant that i graduated high school at sixteen years old  really reflected upon that and i've always been a helper i've always been someone who's been interested in kind of the psychology side of counseling so i originally actually pursued becoming a psychologist but then i realized that in school settings a lot of the time psychology focuses on testing and what i really enjoyed it was going back to those roots of the helping having conversations and i felt like school counseling was just the perfect fit for that i come from i guess a family of educators my brother was an elementary school teacher of mine husband is a high school special education teacher so education is something that we hold very very dear and just really believe him absolutely and you've been in the district for a number of years six years as a school counselor what did you do before that right so i actually worked in business i worked with a fundraising company for goodness almost twelve years where i worked on sales and going into different elementary schools and actually helping them with their fundraisers when i had my children and i said i want to do something not that i didn't find meaning in my work but i wanted to do something more meaningful for the greater good and i often think to myself both as a school counselor and definitely now as a supervisor i think what we're providing i always think from the lens of what i want my child to have and that was what i did in my own career as well i thought to myself like what is something that i can contribute to the greater good  school counseling was just the perfect fit that so wonderful so as we're starting at the beginning of the school year there's a lot of pieces in play for you know sort of the first month of the school year what should students be knowing again we regardless of the elementary middle school or high school about school counseling about their school about some of those transitions i would talk about right so i think if the one key word i can get out is advocate so your school counselor is your advocate if you are concerned about a class if you're concerned about  relationship with a peer if you're concerned about the time the bus is dropping you want you know really anything like that you can go to your school counselor some of the things that we've implemented in the high schools we're going to ensure that school counselors are actually going out into the halls and into classrooms and just say hey we're here again it's back to that transparency of services to make sure they know i'm sitting in an office where they're doing their work they're doing paperwork but the kids don't actually know who that person exactly and i feel again i have to give a nod to our former supervisor and to our department themselves because they really are very good at bat out piece but we can always do things better yes so just trying to increase that exposure and making sure that our counselors are down on the an assistant principal say to me like go out with kids and it was a really good eye opening piece because you know students there was always a line outside my door saying to a student you know what if you come for a walk with me i would not only see that student but i would also next week for another episode