Role+of+Middle+School+Counselors

Shanghai American Puxi has two middle school counselors. Each counselor is responsible for one learning community at each grade level for a 216:1 ratio. Counselors work with CORE Teams and Learning Communities to keep track of student related issues and concerns. They attend at least one Students of Concerns meeting for each team per week. Counselors meet once per week with the Students of Concerns Team. This team consists of middle school administrators, the school psychologist, the middle school nurse, Academic support teacher and a representative from the ESOL department. All documentation flows through and is kept by the counselors.

At ISS we have one shared Korean Counselor for all 3 sections of the school. High School (240 students and 15 minutes drive away from the ES/MS campus) has a School Counselor, University Advisor Japanese Counselor - the last two also teach. A Guardianship Coordinator also oversees MS and HS students - no guardianship students allowed in ES. Counseling in MS and ES is done primarily through the homerooms, then the Heads. Paperwork for this is done by the Heads. We also have Student Support Services for SEN students in each area of the school - MS is one-third timetable allocation. The ES and MS Heads attended a PTC workshop in June 2008 on Counseling in International Schools. With over 500 students on campus we are both keen to learn more…and are looking for initiatives to persuade the Board to employ a Counselor for us! Any ideas????



