Looking Forward by Going Back: A School Counselor Educator's Return to School Counseling

As school counselors and counselor educators, it is imperative to remain knowledgable of trends and changes in school counseling. With the current emphasis on the ASCA National Model[R] (American School Counselor Association, 2005), the transformed role of the school counselor (Education Trust, n.d.), and school counseling program accountability (Green & Keys, 2001; Paisley & McMahon, 2001), the focus on the role of school counselors is more prominent than ever. While school counselors experience the daily events and relationships in a school setting, school counselor educators stay informed about trends or changes in school counseling by reading relevant scholarly literature, attending professional conferences and workshops, and supervising school counselors-in-training in their field experiences in schools. However, counselor educators cannot truly emulate the experience of being a practicing school counselor, despite interaction with or supervision of graduate school counseling students in the field. In the late spring 2004, I was given a unique opportunity to return to the school counseling field. As a counselor educator, I had not been involved in schools as a practitioner for 5 years. I accepted a position to substitute during the maternity leave of the elementary school counselor in the building where I had previously served as a counselor for 8 years (1990-1998). The decision to return to this position was based on two questions: (1) What changes have occurred in elementary school counseling over the 6-year period? And, (2) would my return to school counseling result in insights or observations that might have implications for school counselors and school counselor educators working with school counselors-in-training? I worked three full days per week in the elementary school during a 6-week period (beginning of May through mid-June). Approximately half the faculty had been faculty in the school when I was previously the school counselor. The current school principal was the assistant principal when I was there before. Prior to beginning the substitution period, I met with the elementary school counselor who was leaving and we went into each classroom so I could be introduced as the counselor who would be in the building while she was gone. While the younger students had no familiarity with me, the fifth graders in the building were in kindergarten when I left the position in 1998. Returning to the same site where I had been the school counselor provided a good basis for comparison about changes over time. THE SETTING The school in this study is an elementary school (K-5) in suburban Northern Virginia with a total enrollment of 574 students in the 2003-04 school year. Students represented a wide range of socioeconomic status groups, and the racial composition at the time of the study was 44% Caucasian, 16% African American, 35% Hispanic, 4% Asian/Pacific Islander, and 1% American Indian. The school employs one full-time counselor and an itinerant for one day per week. During the time I substituted in the school, I conducted 35 classroom guidance lessons (K-5), met with approximately 15 students individually (5 on a weekly basis), and served 16 students in small-group counseling (three small groups). Data collection was through personal journal writing about a day's activities and events. Over the course of 6 weeks, there were 11 journal entries and I wrote when I felt there was a point of comparison or observation and insight I wanted to document. The journals reflected the concrete activities of the day, personal reactions to those events, and recollections of my earlier experiences as an elementary school counselor in the building. School counseling roles and activities during the 6-week study included classroom guidance; small-group counseling; individual counseling; consultation with school personnel, parents, and the community (Child Protective Services and law enforcement officers); and coordination of Career Day. …