Part of our Counselor’s Corner series. Click to read other posts in the Counselor’s Corner.
National School Counseling Week is February 4–8. This year’s theme is “School Counseling: Liberty and Learning for All.” School counselors work every day to support students’ academic success, personal and social well-being, and career development needs. They do this by providing individual counseling, group counseling, classroom lessons, school-wide programming, and consultation with parents, teachers, and staff, and much, much, more!
In part one of this series, I shared ways that school counselors could use National School Counseling Week as a way to advocate for themselves and their roles. For part two, I will give ideas for how teachers, administrators, and school staff can celebrate school counselors.
Have Students Give School Counselors a Hand
A simple and easy way to celebrate school counselors is to have students share how school counselors support them in school. Have students trace their hand on construction paper and cut it out. Allow them to decorate their hand with markers or crayons and write a message about how their school counselor supports them. Create a bulletin board with the hands or present all of the hands to the school counselor at once. This is a great project for a classroom or whole school to do to celebrate their school counselor.
Treat School Counselors to Lunch
Many school counselors do not have a specific lunch time scheduled and tend to eat lunch on the fly at some point during the day (if at all). Order lunch in or take your school counselor out to lunch one day during National School Counseling Week. Treating a school counselor to a distraction-free lunch is great way honor him or her.
Give School Counselors the Gift of Relaxation
School counselors deal with a lot of stress on a daily basis. They have many demands facing them and often have a very high number of students to serve. The national average ratio of school counselors to students is 1 school counselor to every 459 students, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Give your school counselor the gift of relaxation by presenting a gift certificate for a massage or a spa day. You can have the staff collect money toward a gift certificate. Your school counselor will enjoy being pampered and will come back to school feeling rested, relaxed, and rejuvenated.
What does your school do to honor your school counselor?
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