From the Chair: When Flying Solo, Make Sure You Have a PLC

School counselors are a solo act. Even in a department with other school counselors, we operate mostly in private, sharing the feelings and experiences of our students, their parents and sometimes our teachers. Because of this, our job is often misunderstood, leading to inaccurate assumptions about who we are and what we do. As much as we may love our work, it is easy to feel isolated, especially if you are the only counselor on campus. Building a network of support with your counselor colleagues through a professional learning community (PLC) is a way to provide leadership, self-care, collaboration and the support school counselors need when handling the plethora of situations encountered daily. Whether a solo act or a counseling department, leading a PLC will enrich you personally and professionally.

For years, the elementary school counselors in my community met for breakfast monthly. These counselors were my mentors, collaborators and lifeline when I was inexperienced and overwhelmed. Over the years, I watched as they retired. People I used to call with questions or to discuss ideas were gone. In their place were names and faces I didn’t know and a feeling of loss. I had lost a connection with others who understood what it meant to be a school counselor. But if I was feeling disconnected, how were my new colleagues feeling? It was evident when we met as a district that my new colleagues longed for the opportunity to talk with other school counselors. Our lunch breaks and after-meeting conversations were filled with questions, ideas and the support you only experience from others who "get" what you do.

At that time, PLCs were becoming popular in our district with teams of content area teachers meeting regularly and earning in-service points. So why not a PLC for school counselors? With support from our administrators, our group took the lead in forming the first school counselor PLC. Our first year we had a small group who met faithfully every month. These meetings would sometimes last two to three hours because of the sharing, problem solving and opportunity to process. Each meeting we focused on class lessons and school-wide programming as it pertained to our curriculum map. Lesson plans, books, activities, websites and ideas were shared. We discussed our evaluation system and its rubric and offered support to our newest counselors. In the end, we learned a lot together and earned 25 professional development points toward re-certification. But that was not the best part.

As a result of our time together, we grew personally and professionally in our roles as school counselors and in our relationships with each other. Our comfort with one another created a trusted support system that enabled us to reach out and consult in the difficult situations we encountered in our schools, and our lives. The feeling of isolation was gone and in its place was the support we had built with each other. Best of all, these once unfamiliar faces are now my trusted colleagues and friends.

Contact Jeannie Maddox, FSCA board chair and a middle school counselor in central Florida, at jmaddox@volusia.k12.fl.us if you are interested in starting a PLC in your area.