New School Counselor Survival Guide

What to do During the First Week of Work

Look, whether you are a new or experienced school counselor or even an intern, some direction on starting the school year on the right foot is essential. Read this survival guide below to get some tips!

Day one has successfully completed

You explored your new school from the inside out or your virtual school system clicking through the different headers on the website. You saw your new office space or perhaps you saw what online platform you will create your own office space in. Finally, you met your colleagues and other staff you will work with either in the hallways of your school or through a video hangout. Now, here’s what will happen next. 

For the remainder of your first week working as a new Professional School Counselor, you will be assigned, given, told, provided, and recommended to do a variety of tasks. Depending on your school, this will vary. Usually, however, you will need to catch up from the past, prioritize your present, and prepare for the future.

This survival guide will provide essential information on these three overarching actions. By doing these actions during your first week of work, you will be equipped to have an amazing first day of school in your new position!

Catch up from the past

In your new position, catching up from the past will allow you to get a more sturdy foundation for you to design your school counseling plan for the present. Catching up from the past means re-reading, re-learning, and reviewing necessary information.

Consider reviewing your mindset during this first week in your new career. 

• The summer has come to a close and you’ve graduated from your master’s program. Take some time each morning to shift your mind to this new career you will be starting. You’re no longer a university student; you’re someone’s role model.

Ideally before you started your first week and definitely now, if you are experiencing minor anxiousness or severe imposter syndrome, consider reaching out to people to re-learn the amount of competency and preparedness you have for your new position. You can consider counseling support as well.

• Collaborate with past professors, internship mentors and supervisors, cohort members, and social media pages on Facebook or Instagram to continue strengthening your mindset.

Another step to take is re-reading material from the ASCA National Model textbook.

• This will help stimulate your thinking toward your define/foundation, management, delivery, and assessment plans. 

This next group consists of additional actions to do in order to catch you up on your school’s data from the previous year(s): 

• Student records (sensitive student information)

• IEPs or 504s (there may be more depending on your school system)

• Conversing with the Principal or Assistant Principal on school-wide growth

• Academic scores (by subject or by grade level. For example: 9th-12th grade math scores or grade 9 math scores)

• Behavior files (from the previous school counselor, past teachers, interventionist, restorative justice committee, or advocates)

• Discipline reports (detentions, truancy, suspensions, expulsions, calls/letters home) 

• English as a second language (ELL/ESOL) students

• Students with special educational needs

• Additional files from the previous school counselor (paper and digital)

Prioritize your present

After or while catching up from the past, you will recognize areas where you need or want to prioritize for the present. For instance, if your grade rosters consist of ELL students, you need to identify how you will support them. 

• Will you require a translator? What are their current English language skill levels? Are their socioemotional needs being met by the school? How will you communicate with their parents/guardians? 

Another example regards the discipline reports you looked through. How can you support students and teachers with this information?

While you may need to take some time to think about these questions and many more, you can streamline areas where your attention is needed by creating a needs assessment. 

• After introducing yourself to your colleagues in-person or virtually, ask them to complete an optional but highly desired needs assessment to help you know how to help them.

• A needs assessment is a form you create to survey school and/or grade level staff on problem areas throughout the school. Bullying, study skills, and depression are some examples. I recommend a digital format like Google Forms.

During your first week at work, you send this assessment out through email. Once staff members complete it (1-2 days), you can gather the data and see where you may need to do tier 1, 2, or 3 interventions.

Depending on the size of your school, the teachers you share students with will make up your data collection pool.

• For instance, an elementary school counselor assigned third to fifth students in a large school will send out an email to all teachers, assistants, and aids of those same students.

After doing this round of meet and greets to invite teachers to complete your needs assessment,  remember to extend your meet and greets to every person you see regardless of their position.

• As you read from the “New School Counselor Survival Guide: What to do on Day 1 of Work,” you are gradually building your reputation at work with your colleagues - they don’t know you and first impressions are significant.

• It’s okay if you’re nervous or your confidence is shaky. Initiate your “hellos” with your colleagues to gain some momentum to keep going.

Continually, prioritizing the present will also include:

• Reading and updating your counselor binder with up-to-date IEP and 504 plans

• Reading and filing additional sensitive student information

• General computer files and organization

• Your school calendar or planner to include... 

• State testing dates

• SAT/ACT/IELTS/TESOL/GCSEs and additional standardized test dates

• National holidays, religious holidays, school breaks

• Any awareness days, weeks, or months you want to create school events around

• Do you have access to computer folders, academic websites, logins and passwords that work? Make sure you have IT support to assist you with this prior to the kiddos coming.

There will be some fun this week as well:

• Decorating your physical or virtual room

• More meet and greets via meetings and classroom pop ins

Prepare for the future

While you are prioritizing your present, you will realize that preparing for the future will need to happen concurrently. 

• For instance, after gathering the data you received from your staff needs assessment, you’ll need to first categorize their responses in tier 1, 2, and 3 intervention plans. 

Next you will then need to plan your curriculum of individual, small group, classroom, and whole grade level/school wide lesson plans. 

• For this same example, it is highly recommended that you schedule meetings with your school counseling team to curate your school counseling program and curriculum.

• If you are the only School Counselor, seek collaboration and consultation from your principal, assistant principal, School Psychologist, School Social Worker, or an outside mentor

• Best practice is to use the needs assessment data as well as information you have collected from student records and conversations with the principal and assistant principal. (There are more data collection sources, these are two examples.)

• The goal within this first week is to at least have your curriculum laid out for the first semester (3-5 months).

• You can then start creating your first round of lessons for the first month of school.

• Suggestion: “Meet the Counselor” lessons for the first week is a must!

Schedule meetings with grade level and subject group teams to coordinate the calendar dates of your counseling lessons for students. 

• If you are included in specials rotations or have an actual counseling subject class then no worries with this.

• In these same meetings with the teachers, touch base with them to get to know their teaching styles and their class curriculum. 

• Suggestion: When you start making connections with your colleagues, reach out to them and ask about their lesson planning routine and classroom management procedures.

Continue any additional training sessions and meetings. 

Set goals for yourself, your curriculum, and your overall school counseling program.

• Use the SMART Goal method to set goals for the first month, quarter, semester, second half of the year or the whole school year.

• (This can be adjusted as the year goes on)

Create a letter for the parents and guardians of your students to introduce yourself to them.

• This letter can be an email, paper letter to mail out, or paper letter to provide in an open house/back to school event. 

• Let your principal or a counseling department member read the letter before it is sent.

Give yourself grace

And just like that, your first week as a Professional School Counselor is done! Feeling overwhelmed, anxious, afraid, or even mentally paralyzed may occur.

Feeling positive, optimistic, and excited is also likely as well. During this week you were completing many tasks.

Give yourself grace.

Some of these items can be completed over the weekend or during the first week of school with students. It’s okay.

In your new position and as you navigate this new system, you will recognize what you have to catch up on, prioritize, and prepare for the school year.

• Re-read this guide as an additional resource for you to depend on.

You got this.