Counseling Services
Counselors provide services through collaboration among students, parents, teachers, and administrators. We conduct guidance activities on a regular basis for all students throughout the year. The curriculum includes Social Emotional Learning (SEL) standards that align with Colorado guidelines and with our RULER curriculum.
Counselors offer individual and small-group sessions that allow students to discuss problems, learn new skills, consider alternatives and consequences, and take responsibility for their choices. They may also refer families to outside resources.
Parents have the right to refuse counseling services for their child. Parents will need to write a letter or visit the school to sign an exemption form.
Refusing counseling services will not exclude students from meeting with a counselor for concerns about scheduling academics, college and career advising or classroom curricular components.
Confidentiality
Counselors always:
Respect the inherent rights and responsibilities of parents.
Respect the relationship with the student.
Endeavor to establish a cooperative relationship with both parent and student.
The privacy rights of students must be respected. However, counselors shall inform parents of information that may jeopardize the health, safety and welfare of the student. Such information will be shared with parents even if the student objects to the disclosure. If parents have any concerns, they are encouraged to contact their child’s counselor.
Social Emotional Learning (SEL) and RULER
We followan evidence-based approach for integrating social and emotional learning into schools known as RULER: Recognize, Understand, Label, Expression, Regulation.
RULER applies “hard science” to the teaching of what have historically been called “soft skills.” Monthly classroom and guidance lessons teach the skills of emotional intelligence — the 5 main components include:
Recognizing
Identifying emotions in ourselves and others allows us to:
Better understand others
Have positive social interactions
Work well in groups
Know when children need emotional support
Understanding
Knowing the cause of our own feelings and that an event may cause different emotional reactions in each person allows us to:
Anticipate, manage, or prevent unwanted feelings in ourselves and others
Promote wanted feelings in ourselves and others
Support children's emotional needs
Labeling
Knowing feeling words allows us to:
Communicate our feelings
Appropriately manage our feelings
Help children learn new vocabulary to express their feelings
Expressing
Learning how to display our feelings helps us to:
Appropriately act in social situations
Properly model social behavior for children
Regulating
Developing strategies to manage feelings allows us to:
Be more effective in reaching our goals
Feel more, less or the same of an emotion
Make wise choices about how we respond to emotional situations
For more counseling and SEL/RULER information feel free to contact our main office.
Reading Support and Interventions
Our Literacy Team focuses on the Five Components of Reading: Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Fluency, Comprehension, and Vocabulary. Interventions are explicit, intentional, and targeted to specific student needs. Student needs are met through small group pull-out interventions and through support in the classroom.
What I Need (WIN)
WIN is an extra literacy block for all grade levels. During WIN, all students are grouped by specific literacy needs. Some groups reinforce foundational phonics skills to help with decoding. Other groups might be work to improving fluency, comprehension, or to help students think deeper about the text and stretch their understanding.