MIDLAND, Texas — School counselors are vital to student success and the Midland Independent School District is setting the standard for how they can maximize their impact.
The Texas Education Agency has taken notice of a special tool created in West Texas to help counselors focus on what matters most - the students.
Mental Health Coordinator for MISD, Taylor Harris, explained that there is a lot of work that goes into having a successful counseling program and making sure the district is meeting the needs of all students across the district.
Harris said there are 90 counselors across the district and between the director of guidance, counseling and herself, they monitor TEA 80/20 rule requirements.
“The TEA 80/20 rule requires that school counselors spend eighty percent of their time working directly with students," Harris said. "That is with individual planning for academics, providing guidance lessons, responding if there's any situations where students need additional support and then also making sure that their counseling program is running smoothly.”
Harris also said the job can get challenging with just two people. She had to figure out a way where counselors and administrators were not, "spending the whole day going one by one through counseling logs."
It's also important to note that the 80/20 rule wasn't always required by the TEA. So, MISD said it was all about being proactive instead of reactive.
"It wasn't required three years ago, counselors and counseling staff were recommended to start following the rule last year," Harris said. "It was the first year where the state of Texas did require that, and MISD decided to adopt that policy before it was required to get our counselors sued to having not only to track their time, but spend the majority of their time with students."
That's where Harris' new tool came into play. She created a system that will allow counselors to put their focus more on students and less on paperwork - a system that the TEA has chosen to adopt.
"Each week, counselors will go in and put their hours and at the bottom [of a spreadsheet], it automatically will give the counselors their percentage for not only the school year, but it breaks it up by six weeks as well," Harris said.
The TEA also suggests that elementary, junior high and high schools have different percentages for what they think is guidance curriculum, individual planning, responsive services and system support. So, Harris added that feature for counselors so they can easily look and quickly check to see where they are with their program and make any adjustments as needed.
Harris felt that this was an important tool because, "a lot of times, counselors have additional administrative duties like paperwork and we don't want that to take away from them being able to directly support our students."
When asked why she thought the TEA found an interest in her project, Harris' answer was the simplicity of it all.
"It takes less time for counselors to have to go back and add how many times in the day they had to help with administrative tasks or how many students they saw that day," Harris said. "They can easily put in a number and the sheet already does that for them. I can see that being useful across the state because our time is precious and students need that direct support."
The log tool made by MISD will now be used across the state.
"I think it's amazing that they're using our document that we created," Harris said. "I don't do it for the attention or for any recognition. I just want what's best for our students and what's best for our counselors and anything I can do to make their job easier is important to me.
Now, the TEA and MISD can shape the minds of the future - one counselor at a time.