Counseling Program Manual

Counseling Department Contacts and Information

Social Worker:
Sherri King
sherri.king@raytownschools.org

Registrar:
Erin Hudgens
erin.hudgens@raytownschools.org

Counseling Department Website:
www.raytownschools.org/rhscounseling

Counseling Office Hours:
7:05 am - 2:20 pm, Monday through Friday

If you are experiencing a crisis of mental or emotional health or well being, please text "HELP" to 741741.
If your are experiencing an emergency, please dial 911.



 

Structural Components

DREAM to reach great heights.
ACHIEVE in academics and activities.
SUCCEED in life.

Department Vision and Mission

Vision

The vision of the Raytown High School Counseling Program is for students to depart the school with the tools needed to enter the next phase of their lives as responsible, respectful, and well-rounded individuals within a pluralistic society.

Mission

The mission of the Raytown High School Counseling Program is to promote achievement and personal growth by decreasing or eliminating barriers to success in the areas of academic, personal/social, and career/college through student advocacy, school leadership, and effective interventions that are equitable and accessible to all students.

Department Belief Statements

Counselors at Raytown High School believe that...

• All students can learn and deserve to learn.
• Students learn best when their basic physical and emotional needs are met, and when they are in an environment that feels safe.
• All students deserve to work with adults who value and honor their individual experiences.
• Counselors are an integral part in the establishment of a school culture that promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion.
• Relationships are paramount to the academic success of students.
• A positive, collaborative relationship between home and school is essential to student success.
• Students must be given the opportunity to identify their strengths and explore post-secondary educational and/or career paths that align with their skills and interests.
• The counseling program promotes the development of skilled, independent, healthy, life-long learners.
• An effective counseling program is developmental, sequential, and comprehensive, and responds to individual and group needs.
• Students who are able to utilize critical thinking skills in all situations are able to make healthy decisions and become productive citizens within the school and the global community.

Department Goals

• Behavior: RHS counselors will work to increase positive relationships in students by promoting emotion regulation, communication skills, and conflict management. These skills will be addressed individually, in small groups, and in classroom lessons. Progress will be measured by teacher and administrator survey responses at 85% reporting improvement at the culmination of programming for the 2026-2027- school year, as well as a review of discipline data from the 2026-2027 school year.
• Attendance: RHS counselors will work to increase attendance by implementing a range of interventions in collaboration with the school social worker. Interventions will include parent support, addressing school climate, culture, and morale, and individual student planning for students who have lower than 80% attendance. Progress will be measured by overall student attendance data at the culmination of programming for the 2022-2023 school year.
• Academics: RHS counselors will provide meaningful academic planning and advisement to students using the ICAP as a baseline tool and assessment. Counselors will present classroom advisement lessons to help students make informed academic planning decisions. Counselors will also have individual conversations with students. Progress will be measured by student completion of the ICAP at the culmination of the 2022-2023 school year with the goal being 100% completion.

The Role of the School Counselor

A fully implemented comprehensive school counseling program has been proven to provide far-reaching benefits to all students. These benefits include increased academic achievement, attendance, confidence, socioemotional relationships, and an overall increased positive school experience. Implementing an equity-centered, trauma-informed comprehensive school counseling program that is part of a school-wide system of care will allow for students to have access to support for any barriers to success. This will reduce the number of personal/social/behavioral issues in class, so that teachers can focus on teaching and students can focus on learning.

The counselor provides both direct and indirect services to students in order to help them succeed. Direct services are interactions between school counselors and students. Indirect student services are interactions with others, on behalf of the student, including referrals for additional assistance, consultation and collaboration with parents, teachers, other educators and community organizations. It also includes management activities and services required to support the comprehensive school counseling program, as well as the other educational programs of the district.

Benefits of a Comprehensive School Counseling Program

Adapted from the Missouri Comprehensive School Counseling Program Manual (2017)

Raytown Quality Schools Board Policy

Board Policy JHD requires the full implementation of a comprehensive school counseling program to meet the needs of all students. More information can be found at this link.

Benefits for Students

• Focuses on all students
• Enhances students’ academic performance
• Centers on students’ needs
• Seeks students’ input
• Encourages more interaction among students
• Provides a developmental and preventative focus
• Promotes knowledge and assistance in career exploration and development
• Enhances life coping skills
• Helps students feel connected to school
• Enhances students’ social/emotional development
• Develops decision-making skills
• Increases knowledge of self and others
• Broadens knowledge of our changing work world
• Increases opportunities for school counselor-student interaction
• Develops a system of long-range planning for students

Benefits for Parents/Guardians

• Enhances students’ academic performance, and their social/emotional and career development
• Encourages outreach to all parents/guardians
• Provides support for parents/guardians regarding each child’s educational development
• Increases opportunities for school counselor interaction
• Encourages input of parents/guardians
• Provides parents/guardians information about available resources
• Assures parents/guardians that all children will receive support from the school counseling program

Benefits for Teachers

• Contributes to a team effort to enhance students’ social/emotional, academic, and career development
• Provides relevant curriculum ideas using school counseling grade level expectations

Benefits of the school counselor

• Establishes the school counselor as a resource/consultant
• Encourages teachers’ input into the delivery of the comprehensive school counseling program
• Encourages positive, collaborative working relationships
• Defines the role of school counselors as educators

Benefits for the Board of Education

• Enhances students’ social/emotional, academic, and career development
• Encourages greater school-community interaction
• Meets the school counseling standards found in the Missouri School Improvement Program
• Provides a rationale for including a comprehensive school counseling program in a school system
• Provides program information to district patrons
• Provides a basis for determining funding allocations for the program
• Provides ongoing evaluation data concerning the full implementation of the program, the work of school counselors within the program, and the attainment of relevant school counseling student outcomes

Benefits for Administrators

• Enhances students’ social/emotional, academic, and career development
• Provides a clearly defined organizational structure for the comprehensive school counseling program
• Establishes a clearly defined job description for school counselors
• Provides a way to supervise and evaluate school counselors
• Encourages administrative input and involvement in the implementation and evaluation of the comprehensive school counseling program
• Provides the way to meet Missouri School Improvement Program standards for school counseling
• Provides a means of accountability through comprehensive school counseling program, personnel, and results evaluations
• Enhances the image of the comprehensive school counseling program in the school and community
• Promotes the work of school counselors as providers of direct services to students and parents, as well as being a consultant and collaborator with teachers and administrators

Benefits for the Community

• Encourages input from business, industry, labor, and other community partners including community mental health and social service agencies
• Increases opportunities for collaboration among school counselors and business, industry, labor, and other community partners including community mental health and social service agencies

• Facilitates the development of students as active responsible citizens

• Increases opportunities for business, industry, labor, and other community partners including community mental health and social service agencies to actively participate in the total school program

• Enhances students’ academic performance as well as their social/emotional and career development

• Supplies a future workforce that has decision-making skills, pre-employment skills, and increased worker maturity

Counselor Accessibility and Referral Process

Counselors are available to assist all students at any point a need arises. Anyone can refer a student to receive help from the counselor (parents, teachers, administrators, student self-referral). Students, parents, and teachers should familiarize themselves with the counselor assignments so that the correct counselor is notified when a student is referred.

Based on the student needs, the counselor may make a referral to the school social worker, the school therapist, or to outside agencies as appropriate.

For most needs, students should request an appointment in one of two ways:

1. Coming to the counseling office in person and signing up for an appointment on the provided sheet.
2. Scanning the QR code or clicking the link to fill out the appointment request form.

Counselors will call students out of class when available. This helps to eliminate excessive traffic in the counseling office as well as minimize time spent out of class. Students must have an ehall pass to be admitted into their appointment. Students will be seen by their counselor immediately only if their needs are deemed urgent by counseling center staff.

Advisory Council

Raytown High School will seek the input of an advisory council to meet once per semester. The council will consist of all counselors, building social worker, school based therapist, at least one student, at least one parent, and at least one community member. The assistant principal supervising the department will also attend. During the meetings, the council will review the department goals and seek input from members as to how to grow the effectiveness of the program.

Facilities, Budget, and Resources

The counseling center is located on the main floor of the building and is centrally located for easy access to students. Each counselor has an individual office with closing doors to allow for confidentiality when required. The counseling center houses the Counseling Secretary, Registrar, Social Worker, and Real-World Learning Coordinator.

Counselors will seek approval from administrators when funds are required for program needs and activities. Additional funding of $250 per counselor will be allocated per year from the district counseling budget.

Staffing Patterns

Raytown High School utilizes a looping cohort (grade level) model in order to best support the unique needs of our students. Benefits to this model include relationship building, stability, and student advocacy (Ekos et. al, 2009). Additionally, counselors have an in-depth level of understanding of the specific needs of each grade level, both on a developmental level and an academic level. Finally, RHS parents have indicated a general preference for the cohort model as it makes it easier for them to recall who their students’ counselor is, and they perceive that equal emphasis is able to be placed on grade levels in a cohort model versus some grade levels being put on the “back burner” when counselors have a mixed case load. We believe that this model provides equitable access to all students to receive the support of their school counselor and the comprehensive school counseling program.

The counselor assignments are as follows:

Chandra Fells, Freshman Academy
Jim Brady, Business, Innovation & Industry Academy
Jennifer Mullen, Health & Human Services Academy
John Bain-Wysocki, Lead Counselor

Community Engagement and Resources

Raytown High School’s Comprehensive School Counseling program will engage the collaboration of many community resources. The organizations frequently accessed include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Preferred Family Healthcare
• Swope Behavioral Health
• Research Behavioral Health
• ReDiscover Mental Health

• Raytown REAP

• Drumm Farm

Additional community resources can be accessed through the support of the school social worker.

Program Components

School Counselor Curriculum

Counselors develop lessons presented to help students attain the desired GLEs in the areas of social/emotional, academic and career development. The school counseling curriculum is systematically presented by the school counselor in collaboration with teachers and administration.

Individual Student Planning

Counselors provide ongoing systematic activities designed to assist students in establishing personal goals, transitioning through school and developing future plans.

Responsive Services

Responsive services are activities designed to meet the immediate needs and concerns of students. Responsive services may include counseling in individual settings, small-group settings or crisis response.

System Support

System support includes the management and evaluation activities and services required to effectively support the comprehensive school counseling program.

 

Program Content

Social

Counselors will advance the social skills and experiences of students by providing indirect and direct services to students to enhance their ability to relate to others. Examples of interventions include individual counseling to problem solve peer issues, small groups to promote peer relationships, and assisting administrators with conflict resolution as appropriate.

Emotional

Counselors work to provide emotional and mental health support to all students. As trained mental health professionals, RHS counselors will utilize research-backed counseling theories including Solution Focused Brief Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and Motivational Interviewing to assist students who are in need of help for

anxiety, depression, and other mental health needs. Referrals will be made as necessary, starting with the in-school therapist and social worker and branching out to the identified community partners. Counselors will be considered the first step in screening students for more intensive mental health support.

Academic

RHS Counselors will support students as they enter and matriculate through high school. During individual planning sessions, counselors will review credit acquisition, graduation progress, grades, attendance, and help students to identify and address issues in their academic learner behaviors. Counselors will collaborate with teachers to help specific students when needed. Counselors at Raytown High play an integral part in the development of the master schedule, as well as have an in-depth knowledge and understanding of the Career and Educational Planning Guide and the academic requirements of Raytown Quality Schools and DESE. Counselors will lead the Grade Level Support Team for their grade level, reviewing data and pulling in students to have conversations and plan interventions for academics and behavior.

Career

RHS Counselors will facilitate the development of career planning through individual student planning. Counselors will assist students in completing and updating their Individualized Career and Academic Plan (ICAP) and select courses based on their career goals. Counselors will assist with the implementation of the Real World Learning initiative by connecting students to opportunities for internships and other career trainings in collaboration with the Real World Learning Coordinator. Counselors will work to assist students in planning for their chosen post-secondary educational setting, including finding the right school or program for them, assistance with their applications, and scholarship help.

Program Evaluation and Improvement

In order to track progress, the program will be evaluated using the following metrics:

• Student planning survey at beginning of year
• Teacher planning survey at beginning of year
• Student surveys after small groups and classroom units

Data will be collected to gather the following information:

• Number of classroom lessons presented and students participating
• Number of small group sessions held and students participating
• Number of individual counseling sessions held, broken down into categories:

• Crisis response
• Academic
• Social
• Other

Goal progress monitoring will consist of regular review of attendance, discipline, and academic data. This will occur primarily in grade level team, but during DRT meetings the departments will share their progress within their grade level and will work to analyze goal progress for the student body as a whole.

Data will be reviewed and shared with the administrative team quarterly.

Component	Time*	Roles/Responsibilities	"Counselors will..."
Guidance Curriculum	15-25%	Core Counseling Lessons	Prepare asynchronous lessons (Zoom, Nearpod, etc.) and post on the website for students to access and engage with at their discretion Collaborate with Advisory teachers to create and co-teach lessons as needed/requested Deliver enrollment/guidance lessons to assist students in completion of ICAP and enrollment
Individual Planning	25-35%	Academic Appraisal	Conduct credit audits and appraisal of graduation progress and inform students of progress concerns in individual counseling sessions Develop graduation plans with students who are below grade level Monitor progress of grades and work completion, and reach out virtually to struggling students and their parents Provide guidance on coursework and career/educational planning
		College and Career Planning	Electronic document sending to colleges (SendEdu) Assist with and encourage ACT registration Assist with and encourage A+ participation to eligible students Collaborate with College Advisor on scholarship information and questions, college application process, and other college planning activities
Responsive Services	30-40%	Individual Counseling	Provide individual counseling  to students using short term research based therapeutic interventions Respond to crisis following district protocols
		Referrals	Continue to assess and identify students who are in need of community referrals for mental health supports Collaborate with the school social worker and therapist to increase communication regarding referrals for students and families
		Group Counseling	Develop and conduct optional student groups based on need
		Consultation	Weekly counseling team meetings to collaborate and consult Consultation with teachers for individual student concerns
System Support	10-15%	Program Management	Engage in the planning and assessment of program components Identify goals and establish action steps to complete those goals
		Program, Personnel, and Results Evaluation	Engage in planning program activities for when school returns to in-person Collect data on student and family website and newsletter engagement using metrics provided by the website and Smore Maintain an electronic record of student appointment requests and contact; analyze most frequent/needed interventions and use to plan for future
		Fair-Share Duties	Assist with tasks as directed to support the function of the school as a whole including hall duties, service on committees, etc.
		Professional Development	Participate in a book study to grow skills pertaining to diversity, equity, and inclusion Attend virtual PD provided by MSCA as it is made available Engage in professional development opportunities when not directly working on program management or student support
		Staff/Community Relations	Provide periodic staff mental-well being resources Provide support to teachers for students as needed
		Community Participation and Outreach	Engage with parents and community via email newsletters, district-monitored social media, and the RHS Website Engage in opportunities to assist with community outreach activities as appropriate
		Research and Development	Establish a plan for data collection, and determine what will be done with that data Participate in Individual research related to personal and professional goals (PGP, personal interests, counseling skills, etc.)

*Percent of time guidelines are based on recommendations from American School Counselor Association and the Missouri School Counselor Association.

Department Yearly Calendar
 

	Counseling Curriculum	Individual Planning	Responsive Services	System Support	Other
August	Introductory counseling lessons via advisory	Review transcripts and adjust schedules as needed based on summer school and past semester grades New student enrollment	Mental health/crisis counseling as needed Small groups as determined by student need Grade Level Teaming	Schedule pickup event Open house event District counseling department meeting Duties as assigned
September	Advisory pop-ins (micro lessons determined by student need)	Grade checks and individual academic counseling	Mental health/crisis counseling as needed Small groups as determined by student need Grade Level Teaming	Super Test Day Newsletter Financial Aid Literacy Night Duties as assigned	College Colors Day College Fair
October	Advisory pop-ins (micro lessons determined by student need)	Herndon/CAPS and Summit Tech Recruitment Grade checks and individual academic counseling	Mental health/crisis counseling as needed Small groups as determined by student need Grade Level Teaming	PSAT Duties as assigned	Parent Teacher Conferences
November	Career planning/course planning lessons in classrooms Advisory pop-ins (micro lessons determined by student need)		Mental health/crisis counseling as needed Small groups as determined by student need Grade Level	Duties as assigned	Signs of Suicide prevention program
December	Career planning/course planning lessons in classrooms Advisory pop-ins (micro lessons determined by student need)	Enrollment Review transcripts and adjust second semester schedules Grade checks and individual academic counseling	Mental health/crisis counseling as needed Small groups as determined by student need Grade Level Teaming	Holiday programming (Harvester’s, Donor Tree, McKinney Vento Shopping) Duties as assigned	MO Scholars MO Girls and Boys State KC Scholars
January	Advisory pop-ins (micro lessons determined by student need)	KC Scholars Applications Open Enrollment Grade checks and individual academic counseling	Mental health/crisis counseling as needed Small groups as determined by student need Grade Level Teaming	Duties as assigned
February	Advisory pop-ins (micro lessons determined by student need)	Grade checks and individual academic counseling	Mental health/crisis counseling as needed Small groups as determined by student need Grade Level Teaming	Duties as assigned	Enrollment Conferences
March	Advisory pop-ins (micro lessons determined by student need)	Grade checks and individual academic counseling Summer School Enrollment	Mental health/crisis counseling as needed Small groups as determined by student need Grade Level Teaming	Development of master schedule Duties as assigned	Academic Awards Night
April	Advisory pop-ins (micro lessons determined by student need)	Grade checks and individual academic counseling MCC Mobile Enrollment Summer School Enrollment	Mental health/crisis counseling as needed Small groups as determined by student need Grade Level Teaming
May	Advisory pop-ins (micro lessons determined by student need)	Graduation Events Grade checks and individual academic counseling Summer School Enrollment Middle School Transition Meetings	Mental health/crisis counseling as needed Small groups as determined by student need Grade Level Teaming	Support in graduation/senior events such as Senior Awards Night, Decision Day, Graduation Rehearsal, and Graduation