Roll out the red carpet for National School Counseling Week with some popcorn and advocacy! ??  For Open House and outside of the School Counseling Office at my school I have a Popcorn theme. Last year, I decided to carry over the popcorn theme into National School Counseling Week. This post contains everything you need to host a ? Popcorn Themed National School Counseling Week. These are some pictures of the displays I made to share information (and treats!) with staff. More treats and information. ?? What's Poppin'? Sign  This idea was inspired by Dr. Sarah ..read more

The days leading up to winter break can be stressful! To help students and staff cope with the stress of the season, the Positive Behavior Intervention and Support (PBIS) team at my school is hosting a daily self-care challenge for the 12 days leading up to winter break. Each day, students and staff can take a selfie featuring them doing the daily self-care prompt. Students and staff who submit a self-care selfie, will be entered in the weekly prize drawing.   The challenge starts on Wednesday, December 6th and continues through Thursday, December 21st.  I am sharing everything y ..read more

Are you looking for virtual professional development? Are you looking to up your technology and advocacy game? Check out the virtual professional development,  Empower Your Practice, hosted by Magnolia State School Counselor Association on March 30th from 8:30am CST/ 9:30am EST - 2:30pm CST/3:30pm EST. Members and non-members can attend! MSCA planned a day packed full of sessions to help you use technology and social media in your school counseling program! Empower Your Practice  Hosted by Magnolia State School Counselor Association (MSCA)  Cost: $25 for MSCA memb ..read more

For our February Inservice, school counselors in my district were charged with hosting a social-emotional wellness session for teachers in our school buildings. My co-counselor and I decided to do something experiential. We wanted teachers to experience various self-care activities; not just talk about them. We decided to call this event a “Self-Care Fair” since teachers would have the option of trying different activities during the event. Overview of the Self-Care Fair For our Self-Care Fair, we had a two-hour block of time where we hosted six, twenty-minute sessions. We had multiple act ..read more

The days leading up to winter break can be stressful! To help students and staff cope with the stress of the season, the Positive Behavior Intervention and Support (PBIS) team at my school is hosting a daily self-care challenge for the 12 days leading up to winter break. Each day, students and staff can take a selfie featuring them doing the daily self-care prompt. Students and staff who submit a self-care selfie, will be entered in the daily prize drawing for that prompt.   The challenge starts on Wednesday, December 7th and continues through Thursday, December 22nd.  I am shari ..read more

I can't wait to present at the 2022 Pennsylvania School Counselors Association Conference! This year the PSCA Conference will be held December 8th and 9th in Lancaster, PA.  I'm presenting two sessions:  ? Get Funding for Your School Counseling Program - December 8th at 9:45am  ? 10 Tech Tools to Save You Time with Lezlie DelVecchio-Marks! (@schoolcounselordm) - December 8th at 1:45pm  I'm so excited to connect and share with other PA school counselors! Will you be there? Here is a link for the PSCA conference registration ?: https://bit.ly/psca22register. Follow along ..read more

This will be my fourth year attending the ASCA Virtual Conference. I absolutely love attending ASCA in person, but I haven't been able to attend in person for the last few years.  A great option to still get top notch professional development and connect with other school counselors across the country is to attend the ASCA Virtual Conference! Below I share tips that Andrea Burston (@jyjcounselor) and I compiled to help you optimize your ASCA virtual conference experience. Make a Schedule Familiarize yourself with the conference schedule and determine what sessions you want to atte ..read more

Heading to Austin, TX for the 2022 American School Counselor Association Conference?  Below Andrea Burston and I share tips to help you make the most of your ASCA Conference experience! ✨  PLAN AHEAD ✨ Do some research ahead of your arrival so that you are prepared for your trip.   Check out the following: - Health & safety guidelines - Weather forecast - Hotel location - Conference location  ✨  PACK FOR WORK AND PLAY ✨ When you're packing your bags, think about what you will wear to conference sessions and what you will wear during downtime. If you ar ..read more

This Wednesday, April 6th at 3:30 pm EST, Andrea Burston (@jyjcounselor) and I are presenting Get Funding for Your School Counseling Program as part of the 2022 ASCA Webinar Series. ASCA Members can register for FREE at this link: bit.ly/getfundingasca. We will share practical tips about how you can get funding for your school counseling program. We will provide examples of how we sought out funding and how we use our school counseling budgets.  We can't wait to connect with you! Join along the conversation on social media using #scgetfunding. Want to learn even more ..read more

I love using Canva to make digital images to share with students. Last year I created a digital state testing tip image to share with students and families.  In Pennsylvania our state standardized tests are called the PSSAs and Keystone Exams. I created the image below and sent it to students in an email and shared them on my school Twitter account. My principal also shared the image in his weekly Schoology update. The State Testing Tips Digital Image contains the following tips: Get a good night's sleep Eat a healthy breakfast Come to school on time Know your testing location Bring ..read more