National School Counseling Week highlights the important work school counselors do on behalf of our students. To celebrate, we share some facts about the school counselors who work in SPPS.

• SPPS school counselors work in every school and serve ALL students in grades K-12.  
  
• Three SPPS School Counseling Programs have the Recognized ASCA Model Program designation from the American School Counselor Association. They are the only three programs with this honor in the state of Minnesota.
  
• In the first semester of the 2019-2020 school year, school counselors in SPPS conducted over 72,000 individual and group counseling sessions. 
• SPPS has the largest school counseling department in the state of Minnesota.
  
• School counselors have master’s degrees and are trained and educated in counseling strategies. School counselors focus on all students’ academic and social-emotional growth. They counsel, teach and advocate.
• The work of school counselors falls into three main categories: academic advising, career and college readiness, and social emotional support.

SPPS counselors participate in:

• academic, college and career planning
• social-emotional learning
• creation of Personal Learning Plans for K-12 students
• classroom lessons
• small-group counseling using evidence-based practices
• individual student counseling
• parent consultations and referrals to community resources
• collaboration with teachers and other school staff
• and nearly every other aspect of student life.

Thank you for supporting the work of school counselors in SPPS!