School counselors design and deliver school counseling programs that improve student outcomes. They lead, advocate and collaborate to promote equity and access for all students by connecting their school counseling program to the school’s academic mission and school improvement plan. Additionally, school counselors support students academic, social emotional and college and career planning.

School based school counselors provide supports to both students, families and school staff directly. Supports include social emotional, academic, and career and college programming to students K-12th grade and beyond. Services include but are not limited to:

• Academic: graduation advisement, course recovery, behavioral services, test preparation and interpretation, individual planning, academic skill development, ICAP completion.
• Career and college: K-12 exploration and planning, 21st Century Skill development, college and financial aid application completion, field trips and navigation of opportunity.
• Social-emotional: trauma counseling, suicide risk assessment and intervention, threat assessments, school culture and bully prevention, behavioral consultation and support

DPS School Counselors:

• Use data, the School Performance Framework, and the Unified Improvement Plan to create annual goals that are measured and reported on each year. 
• Focus on the achievement of ALL students so we can close gaps that exist in graduation rates, academics, and success.
• Collaborate with community based organizations and school staff to better the lives of our students and take a leadership role so we can better advocate for our kids.
• Spend at least 80% of our time providing direct or indirect services to students and families. These services include academic advisement to increase achievement and engagement, personal/social counseling to decrease barriers to academics, and career and college counseling to increase motivation and achievement.

School counselors provide programming that:

• Career and college readiness support for all students
• Increased graduation rates
• Improved attendance rates
• Decreased dropout and behavior rates
• Focused supports for students of color or FRL students