Displaying Leadership

How does your comprehensive school counseling program provide leadership resulting in systemic change? This is a question I had to answer each time I applied for the Recognized ASCA Model Program (RAMP) designation. The first time, I must confess, I had to take a long pause and reflect on what I did as a school counselor. I advocated for students, collaborated with stakeholders and used data to drive my counseling program. But how did I demonstrate leadership at my school? Thankfully, I was able to answer the question after exploring the many resources ASCA has available on its website. The answer was that much of what I did daily was considered demonstrating leadership.

Leadership is displayed when school counselors:

• Actively participate on school committees such as the School Improvement Team, PBIS, RTI, crisis team, etc.
• Organize and lead crisis response
• Have difficult conversations with teachers, administrators and parents on behalf of a student
• Build relationships with community stakeholders to obtains resources for students and their families
• Provide professional development/trainings for teachers and parents that will foster student success
• Create an inclusive, safe environment for all students
• Greet students each day as they enter the school
• Are visible and accessible to all school stakeholders
• Empower others by being a calm and caring role model
• Advocate for disadvantaged students
• Mediate conflicts between students, staff and parents
• Implement a comprehensive school counseling program

Bringing about systemic change through leadership is not limited to the school level. Have you ever thought about how you can advocate for students and school counselors on a larger scale? School counselors can help bring about positive changes at the district, county, state and national levels. I encourage you to join committees or teams in your district that promote student success and the role of school counselors. Mentor new school counselors. Be an active member in state and national level associations that support school counselors. Serve on an association’s executive board or a committee. Attend state and national school counseling conferences. Advocate for school counselors with your school board and state legislators.

School counselors are advocates and leaders. When school counselors accept the responsibility to lead, they transform the lives of students, the climate of their schools and their school counseling programs. I challenge you to reflect on how you are creating systemic change within your school by being a leader.

Judy Pelto is an elementary school counselor and has earned the RAMP designation for her schools three times. She serves as a lead RAMP reviewer for ASCA and is the 2019–20 president-elect for NvSCA. She can be contacted at judypelto@gmail.com.   

Upcoming leadership opportunities:

• NVSCA Annual Conference: March 6–7, 2020, in Reno, NV
• Voting for NvSCA Executive Board Members: March 9–20, 2020
• Nominations for 2021 School Counselor of the Year: March 25–April 20, 2020
• ASCA National Conference: June 27–30, 2020, in Seattle, WA
• Advocate for school counselors with 81^st Nevada Legislative Session beginning February 1, 2021
• Committee participation for NvSCA and ASCA conferences in Las Vegas: 2021