Reflection

Collaborative Educational Leadership and the Role of School Counselor

Andrea G. Dagnalan

Based off of the article, I also view the school counselor as

somebody who exhibits the following varied roles and functions within
the school system: the Innovative Leader, the Collaborative Case
Consultant, the Responsive Direct Service Provider, and the
Administrative Team Player. However, using my professional judgment,
I perceive the school counselor as someone who is more of a
Collaborative Case Consultant and an Innovative Leader. The latter is a
role that I see school counselors do in all the schools that I have been
in. As mentioned in the article, some school administrators interviewed
for the study expect school counselors to be Collaborative Case
Consultant. I do agree with this expectation since they are viewed to
have the social, psychological, and academic needs of students and
appropriate intervention strategies that parents and staff could use to
address individual students. As it is, the school counselors have
access to the childs historical data such as school attendance,
academic performance, social developmental history and other
pertinent information found on each students cumulative folder. I
expect them to have the expertise to share this information as may be
necessary to the childs teachers and parents/guardians in gaining
more understanding about the whole child and to appropriately make
decisions about educational outcomes. I also think that school
counselors can help the teachers and parents with the tools to help the
child succeed. With this, I see the counselor closely working with
teachers and parents.
As an Innovative Leader, I expect the school counselor to be an
instructional Leader in a way where he or she can work with the
teaching staff on crafting programs to support students i.e. creates a
program where character education can be taught and modeled for
students. In looking at how it is going to be done or incorporated within
the schedule, I think it could be worked out similar to how special
education teachers provide specially designed instruction to students.
Moreover, when I interviewed our school counselor, I asked her
to describe what her role is in the school vis--vis the ones stated
under her job description. She shared that she was unable to
implement the comprehensive school-counseling program. Most of her time
was spent working with students particularly the seniors as she was assisting
them questions pertaining to graduation requirements, testing, application for
scholarships and inquiries about college programs and courses. The major
challenge was lack of time to accomplish all her tasks. She also shared that
years ago, school counselors had secretary to do clerical work. This time,
however, school counselors are left to accomplish everything on their own.
As an aspiring school administrator, I will ensure that our school counselor
would be an integral part of the Leadership team and must play an active role
within the instructional realm working closely with teachers to help educate our
students relative to their academic, emotional and psychosocial well-being.