*REVISED SECTION*



Every fall we meet in our PLC to plan our program for the year. We start with our vision and mission, analyze the previous year’s data and advisory council feedback, the ScIP committee’s improvement goals, and we conduct a student needs assessment. We plan our program, including small groups, based on this information. The ASCA Mindsets and Behaviors are the guides to how we conduct our groups. We try to pique students’ interest by offering groups on engaging topics. Knowing that middle school students are developmentally focused on peer relationships, we’ve found that small groups are an excellent format for our students to learn from and with their peers. The struggles of young adolescence are many so our needs assessment surveyed students about groups on a variety of developmentally appropriate topics. In 2017-2018, we offered eleven topics aimed at improving academic achievement (Organization, SIXess, Relaxation, Changing Families, Grief/ Loss), attendance (Attendance, Girls’, Gender/Sexuality Alliance, Relaxation, Diversity, Feelings) and behavior (Friendship/Games). To select participants,we use the assessment results and also meet individually with our students for personal interviews making sure to ask which, if any, groups they would like to join. Because we publicize our programs, we receive parent requests and teacher recommendations to invite a child to join groups as well.



For our SIXess group, the process was similar. One of our school improvement goals was to increase student achievement and reduce failures. Mrs. Carroll chose the Mindsets and Behaviors M5, “Belief in using abilities to their fullest to achieve high-quality results and outcomes” and B-SMS 2, “Demonstrate self-discipline and self-control”, which she felt were most likely to help move students from failing to passing grades. She then invited every 6th-grade student who was failing two or more academic classes at the end of the third marking period to participate in the group. Every lesson tied in to one or both of these standards for success, from writing SMART goals to learning about self-control via the example of the “Marshmallow Test.” Every question on her pre and post-survey addressed these standards, too.



The group’s results showed outcome data improvements with 5/10 students now passing for the year and the total number of Fs dropping from 23 to 13, as well as perception data improvements, with an overall 12.5% increase in the results on the post-survey. Because of this success, we will expand the offering to at-risk students in all grades. Data shows targeted students had a significant drop in grades for marking periods two and three, so next year we plan to implement this group earlier in the school year to improve student success, and then follow up with refresher lessons later in the year.



The perception data for this 10-student sample indicated that these students already held belief M 5, but perhaps, given a deeper analysis of gradebook grades and discussions with teachers, they could better benefit from another standard: B-LS 4, “Apply self-motivation and self-direction to learning” since these sources indicated that lack of homework was the major cause for their failing grades. The students who attended were engaged in the lessons and expressed appreciation at having time to start their homework. It may be useful to add a pre and post-test on knowledge of school requirements and homework strategies.



We will continue to implement all of these lessons, and will also add several more. We hope that an expansion of lesson #3, “Fostering self-discipline and self-control”, into two or three separate lessons using a variety of modalities, would have the dual effect of being more successful at instilling these qualities, while also allowing these at-risk students more weeks of instruction and time to complete homework during school.



Our small group counseling services are fluid and responsive to student needs as shown through data. We collect and analyze it, judging our ultimate success at the end of the year against the outcome data. We continually tweak groups’ timing, duration, topics and focus all to better achieve our goal: helping students improve in their academic achievement, attendance and behavior. By frequently stepping back and analyzing our data we can improve all of our small groups for the good of our students.

Group Name: SIXess Group

Goal: By the end of the 2017-2018 school year, 100% of the identified 6th-grade students will pass minimum 4 out of 5 academic classes.

Target Group: All 6th-grade students who were failing 2 or more academic classes at the end of the third marking period.

Data Used to Identify Students: Realtime grade reports

School Counselor(s): Siobhan Carroll

ASCA Domain, Mindsets & Behaviors Standard(s): M 5, B-SMS 2

Outline of Group Sessions Delivered: Session 1: Students wrote SMART goals related to academic achievement and examined the work they needed to do to achieve those goals, and made a plan to make progress on their goals before the next session. Session 2: Students used technology to make progress towards their goals, logged onto Google Classroom and the student portal, and noted any missing or incomplete work. Session 3: Students learned about and practiced self-discipline by doing and discussing the "Marshmallow Test". Session 4: Students set priorities by importance among assignments and made a plan for pursuing their priorities while creating a home/life balance. Session 5: Students assessed their progress towards their goals and demonstrated self-advocacy by implementing a plan to pass 6th-grade by meeting those goals, and they shared and celebrated with peers on their progress.

Process Data (Number of students affected): Ten students were initially invited to participate. Students who were targeted were failing two or more academic classes. Of the ten students invited, seven attended at least three out of five group sessions and completed both the pre- and post-surveys.

Perception Data (Surveys or assessments used): Likert scale pre- and post-tests Questions on the Pre- and Post-Survey, with possible answers of “No” (1 pt), “Not really” (2 pts), “Mostly” (3 pts) and “Yes” (4 pts): 1. “I believe that if I work hard, I can be successful.” Pre-survey, average score was 4/4, post-survey, average score was 4/4. 0% increase. 2. “I know that I can pass all of my classes this marking period.” Pre-survey average score was 3.3/4, post-survey, average score was 3.4/4. 10% increase 3. “If I have school work to do, I will do it first, and play afterwards.” Pre-survey average score was 3.4/4, post-survey average score was 3.7/4. 30% increase. 4. “Every time I have homework, I make it a priority.” Pre-survey average score was 3.3/4, post-survey average score was 3.4/4. 10% increase. Total for all four questions from pre-survey to post-survey was a 12.5% increase.

Outcome Data (Achievement, attendance, and/or behavior data): Student Achievement, Realtime grade reports Grade 6 students were invited to participate if they were failing two or more academic classes by the end of the third marking period. For the ten students who were invited, they were failing a total of 23 classes by the end of the third marking period. The group was held during the fourth marking period, and at the end of the year, those students had a total of 13 Fs, or a 57% drop

Implications: *REVISED* While the goal of having 100% of the students in the target group pass at least four out of five academic classes was not met, (50% passed at least four out of five classes) significant improvements in their grades were achieved. Two students who had been failing three classes reduced that number to two, thus reducing the number of courses they needed to take in summer school. One student who had been failing three classes ended the year only failing one, not requiring summer school or retention at all. For three of the five students who ultimately failed two classes at the end of the year, their grades in the second and third marking period were so low as to make passing during the fourth marking period nearly unachievable. We will continue this group with some modifications to improve its results. In future years this group will be expanded to multiple grade levels, and will be implemented earlier in the school year in order to help targeted students before their chances of passing have all but disappeared, perhaps with brief follow-up sessions with targeted students in the third and fourth marking periods. The students who attended the group sessions appeared to find the lessons engaging and also verbally expressed that being able to start their homework during group time before leaving school helped them know what they needed to do to finish it at home. However, with 30% of the students not attending a majority of the sessions, we know we need to work to improve participation in this group. However, even among the students who were not participating, there were improvements in achievement, possibly indicating that being singled out and invited to participate in this group helped those students to become more successful, perhaps by making them realize the gravity of their academic situation. All students reported on their pre-surveys “Yes” to the statement, “I believe that if I work hard, I can be successful,” which would indicate that Mindset M 5 “Belief in using abilities to their fullest to achieve high-quality results and outcomes” was already a firm belief for these students, and might imply that lessons in subsequent years might be better spent focusing on the other behavior standard guiding this small group: B-SMS 2: “Demonstrate self-discipline and self-control” or perhaps to move in another direction. For example, since all five of the students who failed two classes did so in large part because they were not completing homework (according to Realtime grade reporting and teacher comments) in future versions of this group, we will use B-LS 4 “Apply self-motivation and self-direction to learning” as a guiding behavior standard, since self-motivation is a major factor in homework completion. *We will continue to implement all of these lessons, and will also add several more. We hope that an expansion of lesson #3, “Fostering self-discipline and self-control”, into two or three separate lessons using a variety of modalities, would have the dual effect of being more successful at instilling these qualities, while also allowing these at-risk students more weeks of instruction and time to complete homework during school.* In order to collect our data more accurately, we will also add a pre- and post-knowledge test on the requirements for passing school for the year and on effective strategies for completing homework, for example, accompanied by lessons on these topics. We know that participating in this group had a positive effect on those students’ ability to reach the achievement goals we set for them, and we would like to expand that success to students in all three grades while tweaking it in timing, focus and in the number and kind of lessons.

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