The Secret to Getting Your Principal to Listen

The Challenges of School Counseling Programs

Well , hey there , welcome back . Glad you're here with me . On the School for School Counselors podcast . I'm Steph Johnson , your host , and the other day some of you may have gotten an email from me telling this story I was sitting in my home late at night . We had some clouds building in the distance , we had a little bit of wind and we had been assured we were going to have maybe some little thunderstorm showers , maybe a little sprinkle here and there around in the area . No big deal , nothing to worry about .

And so what was supposed to be an uneventful evening turned very eventful when our house was somehow hit by lightning and it got our TV , it got our router , all kinds of things . It was a really surreal , weird experience . It's a brighter light than I've ever seen in my life , this weird moment in time where everything seems suspended and stopped and then a tremendous boom , unlike anything I've ever heard . That's as close as I ever want to get to anything like that . It was a little too close for comfort . But the interesting part of the story is after it decimated my electronics . Of course I posted about it on social media because it was just so bizarre . My social capital kicked in and a sweet , sweet friend that I've known for years showed up and said hey , listen , we're getting ready to move to a new town . We'd like to offer you our television . We saw that yours was destroyed and we'd really like for you to have this , and it made me think about you . So what does lightning and televisions and good friends have to do with school counseling ? All right , so the idea of social capital this is an idea that we don't ever talk about in school counseling and I have absolutely no idea why .

So social capital are the relationships that you build within your community , not necessarily for your gain , right , but that can come back and help you out later . So we all build relationships in our communities . We build professional relationships , we build friendships , we build family relationships . We have all of these different ties that we've developed , and we develop them because these are people that we enjoy being around . Perhaps these are people that we need to be around or have to be around in the case of our work , but nevertheless , there is a reason that we have relationships with these people and we want to build good relationships . We want to love on people , we want to encourage them and inspire them , and we build all of this great reciprocity right , and then that creates social capital . That creates your ability to help your network If someone in your network needs help , or for them to help you . That's how society functions is through social capital .

When my friend texted me and offered to give me her television and y'all , this wasn't some little dinky thing , this was pretty impressive . My first thought was this is a perfect example of what we should be doing in the school counseling world . Here's what I mean by that . Most of us , when we embark in our school counseling careers , we are go-getters . Right , we are ready to go , we're ready to jump in , we're ready to make things happen and we're ready to do that in accordance with the things that we've been taught Throughout grad school , throughout our studies .

We are told there are certain things that are expected of a comprehensive school counseling program , and if you could see me talking right now , you would see the air quotes around . Comprehensive , because , number one , I don't think there is common , as we're led to believe at all , and number two , I am not sure that I'm a huge supporter of the idea of comprehensive school counseling programs . Let me tell you what I mean before you get the pitchforks out and come looking for me . Here's what I mean by that . The idea of a comprehensive school counseling program is great . It is a great idea and it's an ideal that we should all be shooting toward . It's something that we can all aim to attain . However , it is also something that is very elusive to the majority of school counselors , at least the ones that I've worked with and we are being led on this wild goose chase of expectation , where we're expected to build these programs , we're expected to follow these models , but we're not being put in environments that can sustain them , we're not given the tools that we need in order to achieve the objectives and we don't have the right kinds of social capital in place .

Think back to when you started your school counseling career , or , if you're just getting started , think about how you feel now . Think about the kinds of plans that you're making , the expectation that you have of your role and the things that you want to do . If I were a betting woman , I'd bet that the majority of your plan or your framework relies on concepts regarding comprehensive programs , and no shame in that game . But when we get into the real world environment , even though we know logically it's not going to be perfect world scenario right . Intellectually , we know that when we start working on a campus it's not going to be this pie in the sky ideal setup for school counseling . We know that . But knowing it and experiencing it or feeling it are very , very different things . And so we begin on this path Our eyes wide open . We're eager to jump in , we're eager to get busy , we're eager to get started , and then we get a few steps into it and go where the hell am I Been there ? I know I have . I know I can . I can give my testimony . I have been there more than once .

Just as a side note , isn't it interesting that there are no good handoff protocols for school counseling programs ? If comprehensive programs were as ingrained in the fabric of education as we're being led to believe , how come we don't have a procedure for handing them off ? How come nobody's ever stopped and said our code of ethics says when you leave a counseling program you should be doing A , b , c , d and E ? That doesn't exist . If these comprehensive programs were truly as common as we're told , if the time and the money and the sweat equity had been invested in those programs to build them to where they were , why would we just let them go and hope for the best with the next person . There's no protocol for the handoff . That's a whole other subject . That'll be a whole other podcast , folks . But just think about that for a minute . That's wild , isn't it ?

So we start these school counseling programs . We're on fire , we're ready to go . We have no good handoff procedure and most of the time we feel like we are jumping in and starting from ground zero . We may have a little bit of infrastructure in place , we may have some expectations that have lingered from the previous counselor , but usually there's not a whole lot to go on . And so not only are we trying to build this ideal , perfect world version of a school counseling program , and we have all that pressure now . We have all this pressure from well you know , mrs So-and-So didn't do it that way , we've never done it that way , we've never tried that and you have all that pressure coming down on you as well , and it gets to be this huge swirling tornado of overwhelm .

Now I hope I'm not scaring you . If you're just getting started , don't let this sound scary , because it's not , and if you have the right kind of supports in place , it's not going to be a huge deal . But I do want to be real about this because I don't feel like anybody is being real enough about the challenges that school counselors face . So we get into these situations . We don't know what's going on , we haven't been given a good handoff , we feel like we're starting programming from scratch . We're being given all these other things to do that we never anticipated and we're discovering that we do not have the autonomy we thought we were supposed to have .

You start seeing this a lot in social media about the beginning to mid-August , and I talk about social media all the time because I monitor hard . I'm watching and listening and learning from what folks are saying . I am invested in this world not only because it's my world too Remember , I'm a full-time school counselor in the United States but because it is super important to me . As a matter of fact , its priority won to me that I understand and know enough to be able to serve you well . School for school counselors was never developed as a side hustle and , if you'll notice , we're not selling resources on TPD or something like that . That's not our jam , for two reasons Number one , we're not very good at it , just to be honest , it's not our forte . And number two . I believe school counselors are drowning in seas of crap they don't need Again . That's another podcast episode for another day .

But if you've been in these situations where you've been a maybe in your first four years of counseling on a campus , so we start to see these social media conversations pop up where people will say something like I just met with my new principal on my new campus and while we were talking they told me that it was going to be my responsibility to be in charge of X and Y and Z , and I just can't believe that they're asking the school counselor to do this . Do they not understand what my job is ? And then , inevitably and soon , someone else will pipe up and say well , you just need to go to the ASCA website and print off the list of appropriate school counseling duties and non-school counseling duties and you need to educate your principal , you need to advocate for your program , right ? Have you seen these posts ? If you don't believe me , go search some of your bigger school counseling Facebook groups . Go search the posts and you'll see what I'm talking about .

It happens every year and the logic is flawed and , in my opinion , because school counselors have not been given enough guidance in this area , they start doing some really crazy stuff , like printing this list out and handing it to their principal . Let me tell you why I think that is one of the worst things that you can do . You have not developed yet the social capital required to request that change . You do not have the relationship , you do not have the clout , you do not have the pull to make a request like that . You have to remember that this campus has been operating this way , likely for a long time before you got there in this way . That's why they're asking you to do this . They usually don't just sit around and think well , you know , we're getting a new counselor , let's dream up some random baloney for them to do . It's typically not how that goes down .

This stuff has been going on there for a while , but we have like these blinders on and the only thing that we can see is I'm here now , this is what I want to do , this is the program I want to build . I know I should be doing these things and so , with the best of intentions , we hand them this list of appropriate school counseling duties and inappropriate non-counseling duties , and then we feel bamboozled when there are repercussions and , my friends , there will be repercussions . I know very , very few school administrators who would receive a list like that coming from someone they don't know well and say , oh man , this is great information . I thank you for setting me straight . I have seen the light . I have seen the error of my ways . How can I make this right ?

No , they have a bajillion other things going on . They have full staffs they have to manage , they have academics and test scores and schedules and parents and their central offices , their district offices , breathing down their necks . They don't want one more thing to rearrange or recalibrate or reschedule . I mean , can you blame them ? And so walking up with this list and smacking it down on a desk and going this is the way it should be is not going to be received well and , as I said earlier , you will have repercussions .

They may not be direct repercussions , but you will experience the wrath of that decision , either when the administrator looks at you and says something like , basically , you're out of your mind , there's no way we can do that , we don't have the staffing to do that , we don't have the time to do that , we don't have the room in the schedule to do that , or you get accused of not being a team player . We're all on a team together . We all have to work together to make this go , or just flat out cold shoulder where you completely eviscerate your chances of being welcomed into that administrative team . It's not good . Now am I saying that ? That thousand percent chance that's going to happen ? No , but the odds are high because that's human nature . If you don't get a direct consequence , often you'll get an indirect consequence .

All of a sudden , your scheduling starts to change , your responsibilities start to change , things start happening that are not super conducive to your goals , and it's terrible that education works that way , but that is just the way it is . You haven't built the social capital necessary . We should be talking about this all the freaking time . We should be talking about how do we build great relationships with our administrators ? What is phase one of this relationship ? How do we lay the groundwork there ? What are the things we need to do , focus on and resolve Stage two ? What are those things ? Guess what y'all that's coming . It's almost ready for you , because I truly , truly believe that the way that we've been advocating in school counseling is completely backward , and this printing out a list and shoving it under somebody's nose or telling somebody this is the way it needs to be , because I said so , is not going to work . It hasn't been so .

Where they say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results , that's where we are . Welcome to the insanity of school counseling , where we continue to put out position statements and comprehensive program guidelines which , by the way , you can't access unless you pay for them . That's kind of strange too , but nevertheless , here we are . We really need to be focusing on social capital . If we take the time , if we can just pull on the reins a little bit when we get onto a campus , it's great to have ambition , it is great to have intention and plans and want to make change for the better . We need more people like that in our schools , 1000% . But if you can hold the reins for just a little bit longer and really focus on building relationships , not with your students , although you need to be doing that too but with your staff , with your administration , with your counseling program higher ups , we need to be building the social capital necessary to inspire the kinds of changes that we need to see for our school counseling programs . And so , if you've tried advocating , or what you're being told is advocating and it's not working . Or if you've tried it and it's blown up in your face , this would be my bet about why it didn't work . So then , what are the things we need to be doing at the beginning of the school year to build this social capital ?

Building Relationships and Advocating for Change

I tell new school counselors all the time , all the time , that if you are running in Gunza Blazin , you have a lot of Texas figures of speech going on . Today . I'm amped up , I'm on fire . If you run in Gunza Blazin at the beginning of your time on that campus , you are probably not going to get where you need to go . It's like I mean let's just continue the Texas analogies here you run into a Wild West saloon with your six shooters drawn trying to blow up the place . They're going to take you down . You're not going to be there long right , there's going to be a shootout and it's probably not going to be pretty for you .

And yet this is what so many of us do when we get started . Instead , what we should be doing is going in relatively quietly . We should be watching a lot . We should have our ears open all the time , listening to the things that are happening on campus , not just the goings on , but the nuance . What are the relationships , what are the inner workings of that campus ? What are the hidden rules , what are the hidden expectations ? And , believe it or not , and you are not going to like this , but it is my opinion that we should be spending one to two full years in watch , listen and learn mode One to two years .

I think this is where grad school puts us on the wrong path . To be honest , and all this talk about comprehensive programs and do this and do that , and these are all the expectations , and you implement this and you do that and you're going to be the lone ranger and you're going to be responsible for building your program and it's going to be great and it's going to be wonderful and it's when you talk , people are going to listen and you're going to ask for advisory councils and they're actually going to show up and they're going to do what you asked them to do and they're going to give you great input and there's not going to be any pushback from any of that , all that crap that they teach you in grad school , when what they should be teaching you is just be a cat , linger , watch , listen , build relationships with others on your campus . Be mindful about intentionally establishing relationships with your administrative team . It doesn't mean you're not working hard while you're doing that , but those should be your primary focus . And then , once you've built that social capital on campus , once people know you , they like you and they trust you , then you can start working toward the bigger asks and in the long run , I think approaching it that way is going to be a million times more beneficial to your students than running in with your guns drawn , because you stand a better likelihood of inspiring change , of being able to produce the information needed , the data needed , the research needed to make a strong point , to show people , to help them understand the necessity of what you do on campus every day .

This is what I mean when I talk about advocating from the inside out . We shouldn't be standing outside the house beating on the doors and windows saying let me in . I need to tell you how this needs to be better . You need to do this and that and that and that and you've got to change . You've got to change . Now . Those folks are going to slam the shutters , they're going to lock the door and they're going to say get this loony bird out of here , whereas if you advocate from the inside out , you build a relationship , you establish trust . Eventually you get invited in and then , over conversations , over mutual exchanges , through social capital , you begin to develop the clout to make the suggestion and inspire true change .

I could go on and on about this , truly , I could go on about this for hours , but at the end of the day , here's the big takeaway that I want you to have for this . This is a virtue . Trying to advocate for your role by educating your administrator may not be helpful in your circumstance . You at least need to build enough of a relationship to know whether or not that approach even stands a chance . And then from there you need to work through the different stages of developing these relationships , building social capital and then implementing true change .

This is a long game , my friends . This is not a couple weeks , this is not a couple months or even a year . And it's done . This is a long game and we need more people invested in the long range goals and the ability to see the forest and not the trees , because that's going to get us where we need to go to be able to appropriately serve students . So I hope that helped kind of change your thinking a little bit about how you approach the beginning of your school year , perhaps how you've been approaching your school counseling programming . We love to talk about this stuff in our School for School Counselors Mastermind . It comes up all the time , especially at the beginning of the year and then towards the end of the year again , where we're talking about relationships with administrators , how to inspire real change , what those things need to look like . We love geeking out on that stuff and we would love for you to join us . Schoolforschoolcounselorscom .

All right , I'm going to get quiet . I have taken up a lot of your time today , but I hope you can feel my passion and my fire for your work . I want you to be recognized as a professional on campus . I want you to be respected and not only that , I want you to be held in the highest of regard . But in order to build that platform , you're going to have to take your time . You're going to have to make it sturdy . You don't want that thing falling over as soon as you try to jump up on top of it . All right , and we're going to help you get there . Schoolforschoolcounselorscom . All right , I'll be back soon with another episode of the School for School Counselors podcast . In the meantime , I hope you have the best week . Take care .