School Counselor Responsibilities: Interview with School Counselor, Ms. D’preta

 After speaking with Ms D’preta, I learned about the various responsibilities that she has here at P.S. 105. She is the counselor for grades 3, 4, and 5 and services 300 students. She runs the Attendance Program at our school. This means that she reviews the daily attendance forms to monitor students’ attendance and lateness. In addition to her personally monitoring the attendance records, if a teacher calls her with a concern about a student’s recent lateness’s and or absences, she will make a call to the parents or guardians to find out what is going on.  If she finds a student that has a pattern of absences and or lateness, she contacts the parents. She must track the opening and closing of 407 reports which are made automatically by city system (ATS) after 10 consecutive absences or 20 sporadic absences. Identifying abuse and neglect ties in with attendance, and she must make reports for educational neglect when a child is not in attendance and parents fail to take action. Also if there is physical abuse, she will talk to the child, and look for marks. If the child discloses it was done by the parents, Ms. D’preta has to call in the mandated report.

  She is also the Attendance Ceremony Coordinator at our school. She tracks the attendance of students, and organizes the assembly where students with perfect attendance are awarded a certificate. Parents are invited to share the experience of the ceremony where their child is being recognized for their attendance.

  Ms. D’preta is the co-chair of the child study team, where she provides support to  

the team to assist in identifying academically at-risk students, and implement interventions such as AIS (Academic Instructional Support), resource services, Wilson, and special education.

  This year, Ms. D’preta has lead in the implementation of a Student Advisory Program for grades 3, 4, and 5. The program was developed to address the social issues that students were experiencing in their lives.  The advisory explores common issues and feelings that students need assistance working through. Discussion topics include: anger, working out conflicts, prejudice, cyber bullying, respect, communication, empathy building, and patience.

One of the things that she says takes up a lot of time is the attendance paperwork. It takes time away from meeting with children and actually being able to counsel students. If she could change one thing, it would be allotting more time to devote to counseling her students. Interfacing with teachers takes up an average of one hour a day. Another aspect of her job that takes time away from direct counseling is the unannounced, daily visits made by various ACS (Administration for Child Services) workers. Between the paperwork, middle school applications, and planning the attendance assembly, Ms. D’preta has less time to focus on the emotional wellbeing of the students. She said that she also devotes about three hours a day to “putting out fires.”

Fatimah Ali

Professor Kaufman

March 26, 2011

School Counselor Responsibilities: Interview with Mr. Eustace on the counselor responsibilities

 I met with the school principal, Mr. Eustace to learn about the school counselor responsibilities at P.S. 105. He first explained to me that a Mandated Related Service Provider is a required position that is currently filled by one of our school counselors. Ms. Yates is a school counselor that falls under this title. She provides counseling for students in grades K-5 based on IEP mandates. She is also included in any updates, or changes made to IEPs. She meets with students on a weekly basis to work on addressing the issues that they are experiencing.

Our school also has a title 1 counselor. Ms. D’preta is our title 1 counselor and has been appointed by the school. Since this is not a mandated position, her position could be cut. Her responsibilities include supporting the teachers and interacting with parents. She often works with students that have specific behavioral and emotional issues, and provides necessary, non-mandated individual and group counseling to students. At times, students with severe problems are given referrals as well. Ms. D’preta works closely with children to instill good work habits.  She also meets with teachers to provide conversation prompts for confrontational parents.  

   In addition to working with the students, Ms. D’preta must make parent outreach a top priority, especially for educational neglect related to excessive absences. Many of the students have open cases (ACS), and extenuating circumstances that require diligent attention, monitoring, and at times, reporting. Our school counselor serves as the school liaison for ACS child protective services, which means she must be available to meet with them, share information, and answer questions. She is also responsible for updating the Title ORS (Online Recurrence System) which is a living database filled with anecdotes of all serious incidents involving students. When there are behavior incidents at school, she must facilitate the protocol for the school suspensions. Ms. D’preta meets with parents regarding concerns such as conflict resolution. Often times, parents need support with raising their children and dealing with issues their child may be experiencing at school and at home. For example, many parents are raising children in single family homes, and need help talking to their children about the transition from two parents to one.

Ms. D’preta is also the co-chair of the child study team, and must attend meetings on students that are under review. Any referrals (at-risk services) made by the teachers must be submitted for review to Ms. D’preta. She then will provide interventions and resources that support the teacher and the student.

 Middle school applications must be processed by Ms. D’preta, who personally collects the forms from all the fifth grade students and submits their top three choices for middle schools. She provides information sessions for parents. The student information is entered into the SEMS database for the student enrollment management system.