Accountability is a crucial element for today's school counselors. In addition to proving why we're effective, it helps us inform our programs and to support the initiatives we start or continue.
School counselors are told by ASCA that data collection is crucial for accountability. We are also told to share those reports with our stakeholders. When I received my school counseling degree we did learn about ASCA, but not about all that accountability encompasses. When I was developed enough to start tackling accountability I had lots of questions: What data do I collect? How do I analyze it? What should I do with it?
Although our department is by no means ready to RAMP, although I am pushing us in that direction, I now have a grasp on what to do about data.
Our department's end goal was a results report for our stakeholders. Working backwards from there, we determined what should be in that report (Note: Each report will be different from each school. Our department is unique in that we are a JK-gr 12 school. To have one cohesive report, we had to determine what fit our population in all divisions and what was important for us to report.). As the department head, I had the job to organize the report, which was, at the time, the most challenging. Finally our department had to decide how to collect the data.
Our department is always looking for the easiest way to track our data. We use Google day in and day out. We created a Google Form to keep track of our data. Below is the data tracking form we use.
Once we started using this data form, our numbers were very easy to take and dump into a document. The document I created had the data organized into Individual Student Planning, Curriculum, Responsive Services, System Support, College Readiness, Needs Assessment, and 1st Semester Survey Results. From the document I created a Keynote that was visually appealing with all of the data from our document.
