Fall 2023 – Kate Becker-Mowery
This past semester, I had the honor of working alongside the school counseling department Bluestone Elementary School. Bluestone serves students K-5 and is part of Harrisonburg City Public Schools (HCPS). Bluestone’s mission reads “We are every-moment learners who actively seek joy; rely on one another; choose to be present and participate; make meaningful connections; courageously fail, learn, and try again; we care for ourselves, each other, and our world.”
My direct supervisors were the two school counselors Robin Zombro and Whitney Kinkead, although the entire staff at Bluestone work together and support one another, so I also worked with multiple admin and teachers. This year, Robin and Whitney decided to split their caseload of students by grade. Robin worked with students in grades 1st, 3rd, and 5th, and Whitney worked with students in K, 2nd, and 4th. This made it easier for both the students to know who they should go to for assistance, as well as for the counselors to keep up with their specific caseload. The school counselors not only provide individual check-ins with students in need of support, but they also serve as studio teachers. Bluestone offers five studios: art, music, library, movement (P.E.), and community. Community is taught by the two school counselors where they provide lessons on how the students can be kind, effective, and successful community members with an emphasis on social-emotional learning. The counselors also have the opportunity to put together small groups, typically 4-5 handpicked students, to provide more one-on-one attention while completing individualized lessons. The school counselors also host biweekly mental health meetings where they, along with the principal, the two mental health professionals for HCPS, and the school social worker for Bluestone and Keister Elementary School, discuss different students and provide updates on their specific circumstances. These meetings help everyone stay in-the-loop and sometimes puts new students on admin’s radar. I was able to be a part of all of these opportunities and more.
After observing individual student check-ins for a couple of weeks, I was able to conduct my own weekly individual check-ins with a select few students. I was able to meet with them independently to discuss their emotional health and home life, as well as practice different coping strategies and self-care. I also had the opportunity to work with Robin on creating and facilitating a small group for five 5th grade girls. We met once a week for six weeks. I had the opportunity to complete the lesson plans for each meeting, focusing on topics that would be beneficial for 5th grade girls about to transition to middle school. We discussed topics such as self-love, friendships and family, advocacy and self-confidence, and self-care. I created quick lessons on these subjects along with activities to demonstrate understanding. Since it was the fall semester, I also got to help with the school’s Winter Giving Program. This was created by one of the school counselors as a way to help out families during the holiday season. Certain families are selected to request two gifts per child in the home, along with a number of household items such as laundry detergent, dish soap, and diapers. A sign-up sheet was made public for anyone to make a donation. I created all of the tags with the student’s names to go on the presents, as well as accompany my supervisors on a fun shopping spree with the monetary donations.
I truly had a wonderful experience at Bluestone Elementary School. I was not expecting the autonomy my supervisors gave me and was honored with the level of responsibilities they handed me. I feel as though my supervisors had a great balance of letting me learn through hands-on experience and by taking a step back, while also always being there for support when I needed it. A big limitation in working in a school I found is trying to accommodate multiple schedules. Since I was only working twice a week, I had very limited opportunities to meet with my students. I not only had to navigate my limited schedule, but also the students’ and the teachers’. Sometimes I would want to pull a student but couldn’t because they were taking a test or were on a field trip. Luckily, my supervisors gave me a lot of grace and would let me conduct an individual check-in rather than attend community studio if I needed to. This was the only part of working in a school setting that I personally disliked. I tend to prefer set schedules, and while working in a school, I had to learn very quickly how to be flexible and spontaneous. Sometimes I would plan on organizing the counseling office library but would need to assist to a student in crisis. While at first this was stressful for me, throughout the semester it became easier and easier to go-with-the-flow. Working in a school definitely keeps you on your toes. No day looks the same, but after a few weeks, I learned to appreciate this.
Since I spent a lot of my time with the students at Bluestone, I decided to create my contribution project with the teachers in mind. Bluestone has two instructional coaches who work with both students and teachers providing support where needed. This year, they created a small group consisting of new teachers to provide a space for them to decompress and discuss any hardships they were going through. I learned from the coaches that the most common request from teachers was more support. After completing research on how best to support new and returning teachers, I created a flyer with self-care techniques and practices specifically designed for teachers. The instructional coaches responded very positively to the flyer, stating that the constant exposure to this supportive visual can help uplift the teachers and be a constant reminder that they have support. They plan on sharing the visual with the staff at Bluestone, as well as printing and hanging copies in spaces where teachers frequent, such as conference rooms and the teacher’s lounge.
Many of my psychology courses helped prepare me for working at my site. I learned the different techniques used in CBT in Counseling Psychology, which I was able to apply to both my individual sessions and my small group. Taking Developmental Psychology was also very beneficial since my primary clientele was children, and it was important to know where in their development they were. While my site helped me realize I don’t necessarily want to work in a school setting, it did make me change my mind about who I want to serve. Before my placement, I imagined working with adults and couples in a CBT private practice setting. After my Field Placement, however, I now feel a calling to work with children and families. Seeing the impact that I had in my brief time at Bluestone on these young minds showed me just how important therapists for children are and how much I enjoy working with kids. I am very grateful for my experience at Bluestone Elementary School, and feel very lucky to have had such supportive supervisors.
Spring 2022 – Annaliese Gandet
My field placement site was Bluestone Elementary School which is a part of Harrisonburg City Public Schools and located about 15 minutes from campus. This school serves around 600 students from kindergarten through 5th grade. Bluestone’s mission is “We are every moment learners who actively seek joy, rely on one another, choose to be present and participate, make meaningful connections, courageously fail, learn, and try again. We care for ourselves, each other, and our world.” This mission is evident throughout Bluestone, as the staff and students are very close knit and there is a strong sense of community.
At Bluestone, I worked with the school counselors, Robin Zombro and Whitney Kinkead. In the first few weeks at Bluestone, I spent my time mostly observing what the counselors did. This included individual and group counseling sessions, classroom lessons, and more. Within the first few weeks, my supervisors provided me with a list of students they thought I would be successful at meeting with on my own without their supervision. These were students I met with once a week, and this gave me the opportunity to put my knowledge and skills into practice.
From here, I was able to form strong relationships with these students, which made it hard to say goodbye at the end. The counselors also teach classes, which usually focus around social-emotional learning or family life education. When they were teaching, I was able to assist them in giving directions, answering questions, and even led a mindfulness lesson to a kindergarten class by myself. I also assisted my supervisors in any special projects they were working on. For example, they had the students fill out worksheets on trusted adults at Bluestone. From there, I created a mass spreadsheet organized by grade and then by teacher with every single student in the school and which adults they trust. I was also able to attend many different meetings, including the city counselors meeting, and faculty, studio, or SLT meetings. The counselors are highly involved in supporting their staff as well. They organized ideas for teacher appreciation week, and I got to help them with some of the activities they put in place. One major role I also had was helping with the food backpack program which is where I packed bags of non- perishable foods with other volunteers and delivered them to students’ cubbies who needed it to take home to their families. Overall, I was involved in many different aspects of the counselors’ days, which gave me a well- rounded experience and view on what their role is in the school.
Bluestone Elementary has a lot to offer. With the school being very new, the layout of the building and the resources are advanced and unique. One advantage of being at Bluestone is that there are two school counselors. I was able to receive so many more opportunities because I got to observe and assist both of them together and separately. It also gave me different perspectives on how to be a school counselor, as they both have similar yet different techniques. Another advantage is how close-knit the community is. I never felt like I didn’t belong or wasn’t welcome. When I came into school, I was always greeted with smiles and enthusiastic personalities from everyone. This also made me feel more comfortable and confident talking to other staff, even if I had never met them before. Bluestone also has an extremely diverse student population, which was beneficial to work with. I got experience working with students from so many different backgrounds which helped me understand the different lives of each student and the privileges and resources they have or might need. Having the ability to work with a diverse population is necessary in being an effective school counselor, therefore this was a huge advantage.
One limitation is that the days are never the same. Although this is expected in this role, it is hard to develop a sense of routine. Throughout the day there was always a different schedule, or the day was prone to changing because of a student crisis, cancelled meetings, or other unexpected things happening. My supervisors had the confidence in me to take on new roles or jump into something I hadn’t done before if they needed an extra hand in certain situations. Personally, I didn’t mind this because it gave me hands-on experience and helped me learn quicker. However, if you are not a flexible person or willing to take on a task that you haven’t done before, you might not like this.
At Bluestone, I learned an extraordinary amount. I learned how to effectively communicate with students and staff, which has made me grow in unimaginable ways. I have a lot more confidence when it comes to talking to coworkers or other people in authority. This experience also helped me solidify my future career. I went into field placement knowing I wanted to pursue school psychology, which is slightly different from school counseling. Although I loved this experience immensely, I was still set on being a school psychologist by the end. School counseling is an extremely rewarding role to be in, but it can also be emotionally exhausting when counseling students that come from very difficult home lives. By the end of some school days, I was extremely exhausted just from being on my feet all day tending to hundreds of students. However, I still loved working with this age group and being able to support these kids, which helped solidify that I want to work with elementary ages. Therefore, although my future career is different, I still learned not only about school counseling and the dynamics of working in a school system, but also so much about myself. Taking other psychology courses helped prepare me for this experience in school counseling as well. I took courses such as counseling psychology and child psychopathology, which really helped me understand what children can be going through and how it is different than adults.
For my contribution project, I decided to research about the importance of social competence and emotional expression. I noticed that many of the students struggled with basic social skills, especially due to the pandemic and virtual learning. I found that poor social skills can lead to many negative effects, such as negative peer relations, increased risk for emotional problems, and increased risk for psychopathology in children. Therefore, I created a resource guide full of different articles, videos, and books that can be used to teach students lessons on social competence and emotional expression. These resources can be used either individually with students, in group settings, or even taught to a whole class. Unfortunately, I was unable to complete any of the lessons myself based on unexpected circumstances during the last few weeks with some of the students I wanted to try these with.
Overall, this field placement experience at Bluestone Elementary was one of the best experiences of my life. I believe it made me overall a better person, both personally and professionally. I gained so much knowledge on school counseling overall, as well as made so many meaningful connections with students and staff.
Spring 2018 – Brynna Lokrantz
My field placement site was Bluestone Elementary School, a newly built school in Harrisonburg City with the mission of “Building a culture of connected learning and collaborative voice”. Bluestone provides a quality education to students in grades Kindergarten through 5th grade. I specifically worked with the school counselors, Robin Zombro and Whitney Kinkead. A school counselor’s daily agenda is constantly changing, but at Bluestone, they consistently teach counseling lessons and meet with students and teachers.
When I began at Bluestone, I was unsure of my place there. However, pretty quickly my days started to have a sort of rhythm. One of the main things I did at Bluestone was observe and assist in guidance community studio classes on topics like perseverance and conflict resolution. Other studio classes include art, ISTEAM, music, movement, and library. I also independently taught a 3rd grade lesson on taking initiative. I mentored four students from different grades throughout the course of the semester. I met with each of them twice a week to play games, do crafts, read books from the counseling library, or work on school work if needed. While doing these activities, I checked in with them on how their day was going in class and at home. I looked forwarding to meeting with them each day and it was great to see that they were equally excited. It was incredibly rewarding to see their progress throughout the semester. It was really amazing to be able to meet so many students through studio and get to know a few students more meaningfully by working with them individually. I facilitated and observed individual and group counseling sessions helping students with issues, like conflicts or making friends. I sat in on and assisted during planning meetings for future classes and group activities. Additionally, I sat in on meetings with faculty regarding specific students and their behavior in the classroom. Lastly, I prepared a lot of materials that would be used in activities in the studio classroom. Overall, I had a phenomenal experience working at Bluestone this semester.
One of the really interesting aspects of Bluestone is that this is the first school year that it’s been open. Even though the school was so new, the students and the faculty were extremely welcoming. I really liked that counseling was part of the studios because I was able to meet a large amount of the students at the school. I also really liked having two supervisors because there was a high chance that one of them would be there if I had a question or needed something. They were involved when they needed to be, but also gave me space to work independently. My supervisors had such good relationships with the students and seemed like they’d been counseling at the school for years. It was great to learn from two people who are passionate about what they do. Another thing I liked about my site was that there was always something to do with not a lot of downtime. The most rewarding thing about field placement was working with the students that I mentored. Another really cool thing about Bluestone is how incredibly diverse it is. It was really cool to see so many cultures represented at the school.
Due to the large diversity, sometimes there were language barriers with students, but for the most part those could be easily worked around. One limitation that I had was that I’ve never been taught how to counsel people, so sometimes I felt inexperienced or didn’t know what to do in a situation. Additionally, the semester felt very short, so it was necessary to start tasks knowing that I might not be able to finish them. Due to the fact that I was a guinea pig for field placement at Bluestone, we started some things later than usual. I taught class later in the semester and I didn’t start mentoring some of the students until half way through the semester. These things will probably change though, as Bluestone develops as a school and as there are more field placement students there. Furthermore, Bluestone’s a really large school with over 550 students, so understandably, I wasn’t able to meet everyone. This made it a little difficult to find students or return student’s work to teachers. These few disadvantages are outweighed by the overwhelmingly positive experience I had at Bluestone.
I learned the extent of school counseling responsibilities, including day to day tasks and things that come up on the spot. School counselors have such a wide variety of obligations. When I arrived each day, I never knew if the day would be relaxed or busy. Another thing I learned was how to teach a class for a full 55 minute period. I learned that it’s not just presenting information to the class and doing activities. I now know things that I need to work on, like how to transition between activities without the class getting too rowdy and knowing that it’s impossible to know how students will react to different activities and lessons. I learned what types of questions to ask students when they come to you with a problem. I learned that when meeting with a student, it’s important to know when to listen and when to ask questions. I developed techniques in organization and prioritizing tasks. Each day I had a skeleton of a schedule with certain things planned out and room to add tasks that needed to be completed that day and long term projects. My field placement experience affirmed my decision to pursue the career of school counseling. I’m excited to go to graduate school for school counseling next year.
I’m really glad I was able to see it in practice and know that I will have a future career that will make a difference. My skills were developed and strengthened through my field placement experience, but I have more to learn and a lot of room for improvement before I can be a school counselor.
