Telfair County Elementary School
School Counseling Department
Mission Statement
The mission of the Telfair County Elementary School Counseling Program is to collaborate with other educators, parents or guardians, and the community to maximize student potential and academic achievement by providing a counseling program that addresses the personal/social, academic, and career development of all students in order to prepare these students to be productive members of society.
Belief Statements
The mission of the Telfair County Elementary School Counseling Program is to collaborate with other educators, parents or guardians, and the community to maximize student potential and academic achievement by providing a counseling program that addresses the personal/social, academic, and career development of all students in order to prepare these students to be productive members of society.
Belief Statements
- All students can learn and should be given the opportunity to do so.
- Learning involves the education of the whole person and is a continuous lifelong process.
- Learning requires the active participation, mutual respect and individual accountability of students, teachers, staff, parents, and community members.
- All students have the right to be educated on a safe, secure, and disciplined teaching and learning environment.
- All students have the right to access exciting options and opportunities upon graduation in order to become successful, productive contributors to society.
- School counselors will abide by the professional ethics of guidance and counseling advocated by the American School Counselor Association.
- School counselors will participate in staff development opportunities essential to maintain a quality school counseling and guidance program.
- The school counseling program will abide by state and national standards.
What do elementary school counselors do?
- Teach classroom guidance lessons
- Facilitate short-term small group counseling
- Provide immediate and short-term individual counseling
- Work collaboratively with teachers and staff
- Consult with parents
- Provide information and/or referrals for community resources to families
- A deliberate and comprehensive approach to teaching children social and emotional skills can raise their grades and test scores, increase enthusiasm for learning, reduce behavior problems, and enhance cognitive functioning.
- Students who receive social skills instruction do better academically and socially but the reverse is not true (academic instruction does not increase social/emotional skills).
- There is a strong connection between emotions and learning. Students who can recognize and manage strong emotions are better learners.
- Students who attend schools with a comprehensive guidance program do significantly better on standardized tests such as the GMAS than students who attend schools without a comprehensive guidance program. The longer the students are in schools with comprehensive guidance programs, the more they outperform their peers on standardized tests.
- Prosocial behaviors exhibited by students in the classroom were found to be better predictors of academic achievement than were their standardized test scores.