001Welcome to this webinar about student wellness guidance curriculum supports at tier 1. Thank you for being here. In this presentation, we will explore guidelines, information, and activities for infusing student wellness activities into our guidance lessons. Let's get started. The presentation slides in PDF form are located on the TEA school counseling web page which is listed on this slide. Feel free to pause this webinar for a moment here so that you can go to the school counseling web page and access the presentation PDF in the resources section there. The slides PDF is right above the recording link. Let's begin with a brief introduction. My name is Stephanie Lerner and my role at TEA includes serving as the primary point of contact for Texas school counselors. I develop resources for school counselors and I conduct trainings to
002support the effective implementation of comprehensive school counseling programs. Before joining TEA in 2020, I was an elementary and secondary school counselor for 11 and a half years in central Texas. You can reach me at Stephanie. TEX.gov gov which is listed on this slide at the second bullet. The objectives for this presentation are to identify wellness characteristics and the school counselor's role in wellness. Additionally, we will explore guidelines and activities for incorporating wellness into guidance lessons. So, let's define wellness and examine its characteristics. According to the Texas statewide plan for student mental health, mental health and wellness includes our emotional, physical, psychological, and social well-being. It affects our thoughts, feelings, and actions while also helping to determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make healthy choices. The National Institutes of Health lists six key
003characteristics. Positive outlook, stress reduction, quality sleep, mindfulness, healthy coping, and social connections. The ripple effect of wellness is that it allows people to realize their life potential, handle work stressors, life stressors, work and learn effectively, and contribute to their community. Mental health and wellness is important at every stage of life, including childhood and adolescence. The academic and behavioral benefits of student wellness include decreased behavior problems, improved social interactions, decreased emotional distress, and increased academic success. In other words, a safe and supportive learning environment is one that encourages student mental and emotional well-being. This is essential for Texas students to successfully learn, progress, and achieve their college, career, and military readiness goals. TEA strategically coordinates the AY's mental health and wellness activities to promote physical and psychological safety within Texas learning environments. Student wellness support is
004needed now more than ever. There has been a 10-year trend of increased feelings of hopelessness and suicidal ideiation reported by Texas students. According to the Texas statewide plan for student mental health, learning loss and mental health challenges are identified as the two biggest issues facing students in schools as a result of the pandemic. Tier one guidance lessons are a key strategy to support our students. In the next section, we will explore how we can do this through the multi-tered system of supports model or MTSS. Consider taking a moment here to pause the webinar and reflect on what has sparked your interest so far. Or if you are watching this webinar with colleagues, take a minute to talk with them about the question on this slide. Let's turn our attention to the appropriate school counselor role
005and duties related to student wellness in the guidance curriculum. It is important to have a multi-tered system of supports or MTSS to facilitate student wellness. As you probably know, MTSS is an educational framework that provides an intentional and systematic approach for meeting all students behavioral and academic needs. You can find additional resources and information on MTSS at the blue link on the slide. School counselors align their Texas model program with MTSS by providing direct and indirect interventions at three tiers. at tier one where they provide classroom instruction and schoolwide programming and initiatives. At tier two where they provide small group and short-term individual counseling as well as consultation collaboration with staff, families, community, and then finally at tier three, we provide indirect services to students through staff and family consultation and collaboration as well as
006referrals to other professionals. Let's take a look at student wellness as a tier one intervention. All students wellness is supported at the tier 1 universal level where the school council role is to provide direct services to students through guidance curriculum in the form of school counseling, classroom instruction, schoolwide activities, and student advising. Let's take a look at what the Texas law says about school counselors and guidance curriculum. So, Texas Education Code 33.0 006 states that the primary responsibility of a school counselor is to counsel students to fully develop each student's academic, career, personal, and social ability. And then in addition to the school counselor's responsibility under subsection A that we just talked about, the school counselor shall also participate in planning, implementing, and evaluating a comprehensive developmental guidance program to serve all students. You can
007see in subsection B of school counselor general duties that we must have a comprehensive school counseling program that serves all students which can be done through guidance curriculum at tier 1. The 8020 policy is addressed in subsection D of this statute and states that the board of trustees of each school district shall adopt a policy that requires a school counselor to spend at least 80% of the school counselor's total work time on duties that are components of a counseling program as it's developed under section 33.005. You can find a full list of the counselor duties at the blue link on the slide. Next, let's review the rule related to the 8020 policy in order to examine its inclusion of the guidance curriculum component. So, here we have a downloadable link to the actual 8020 rule
008so that you can review all the specifics of it. But let me walk you through the basics. The commissioner's rules concerning counseling public school students annual assessment of school district compliance is located at the top of the slide. They implement the statutory requirement for school districts to annually assess compliance with the district policy requiring a school counselor to spend at least 80% of the counselor's total work time on duties that are components of a counseling program. And this specifically includes guidance curriculum. Consider for a moment, how much time are you able to spend on improving student outcomes through guidance curriculum? Next, we're going to take a look at Texas Education Code 330005 to explore the service delivery component of guidance curriculum and how it includes student wellness. So this school counseling law is called comprehensive
009school counseling programs and it states that a school counselor shall work with the school faculty, staff, students, parents, and the community to plan, implement, and evaluate a comprehensive school counseling program that conforms to the most recent addition of the Texas model for comprehensive school counseling programs, which is also known as the Texas model. The school counselor shall design the program to include four main components, one of which is guidance curriculum. The guidance curriculum helps students to develop their full educational potential, including their interest and career objectives. Next, let's look at how wellness is covered in the Texas model. So the Texas model addresses student wellness and guidance curriculum in section five where three of the four content areas of the school counseling curriculum directly relate to student wellness and these three areas are intrapersonal effectiveness
010interpersonal effectiveness and personal health and safety. As we are talking about school counselor role in statute related to tier 1 wellness, let's also discuss parental involvement. Texas education code 33.004 is our school counseling law stating that schools must conduct a preview for parents of the comprehensive school counseling program. You can find this law linked in blue at the top of the slide. In addition, schools must make the guidance curriculum available to parents. How schools do this is a local district decision. However, consider posting the comprehensive school counseling program plan and the Texas model on your school counseling web page with section 5 highlighted as the school counseling curriculum along with any links to guidance curriculum instruction instructional materials. While this parental involvement school counseling law is not new and it has been in existence since
0111995, you can find the 89th legislative updates on parental rights as well as other new and amended laws at TEA's 89th legislature updates web page which is linked in blue at the bottom of the slide. Now, let's dive into our third objective, which looks at four key guidelines for incorporating student wellness into every tier 1 guidance lesson. The first guideline is to start academic or post-secary readiness lessons with wellness mini lessons. For example, if your guidance lesson covers a topic such as endorsements or personal graduation plans, start it off with a wellness mini lesson. Academic lessons, teacher-led lessons, and schoolwide activities can also start off with a wellness mini lesson. You can even guide staff on how to do this, such as encouraging a math lesson that starts with a deep breathing exercise to calm
012students who might be nervous about a new or complex math concept. So, what does a wellness mini lesson look like? Mini lessons can last 5 to 10 minutes. In your mini lesson, teach, practice, or review a quick wellness technique like deep breathing or muscle relaxation to manage stress and use the Texas model section five wellness student learning objectives on page 151 for your mini lesson content. And the Texas model guide is linked in blue on your slide. Guideline two involves using cooperative learning activities in your wellness guidance lessons. Cooperative learning fosses fosters meaningful relationships among students which promotes overall well-being. You can build pair work and group work into your guidance curriculum activities such as by having students work in pairs to carry out their guidance curriculum student learning competencies. Make sure to begin each
013pair and group work experience with a brief discussion. For example, you could have your students explore endorsements through groupwork activities using my texasexfuture.org. You might begin by asking the class, "What does great group work look like?" And then write their answers on chart paper for students to refer to every time you include cooperative learning activities in your guidance lessons. Also consider sharing this slide information to encourage teachers to promote wellness in their lessons through cooperative learning. Finally, cooperative learning as a wellness strategy can be incorporated into all schoolwide activities such as highlighting teamwork during field day. Guideline three involves striving for consistency and repetition in implementing your guidance curriculum. Since practice makes perfect, as we all know, um if there is a specific issue occurring at your school, address it repeatedly in your guidance lessons
014with targeted wellness strategies. For example, if your students struggle with a conflict, a conflict resolution roleplay can be incorporated into the end of every lesson where students practice the resolution strategies of ignoring, walking away, saying an iMessage, or telling an adult. You may need to spend an initial guidance lesson teaching students these four conflict resolution steps. However, after the initial lesson, you can include a quick 3 to 5 minute conflict resolution roleplay at the end of every lesson. And our final guideline is to minimize interruptions during direct work with students. Work with your administration and staff to create a plan for handling student needs while you are delivering guidance curriculum to students. You can even see on the slide that page 95 of the Texas model states, "If a school counselor is providing guidance lessons,
015facilitating a group, or meeting with a student, the campus has in place a response plan to monitor a student in crisis until the school counselor is available. It is important to identify campus personnel who can monitor and ensure that a student in crisis is placed in a safe and secure environment. Consider taking a moment here to pause the webinar and think back to guidance lessons that you have taught. How would you incorporate one of the guidelines into your existing guidance program? or if you are watching this webinar with colleagues, take a minute to talk with them about which guideline will be the most challenging for you and why. So now let's begin our final objective, which is to explore various wellness activities that you can use with your own students in guidance lessons. These activities
016align with Texas Education Code 38.351, which requires TEA to provide information and resources to support student mental health and wellness. The George Lucas Education Foundation website, Edutopia, has dozens of wellness themed 60-cond strategies that you can use in your guidance lessons. One of these 60-cond strategies is called snowball toss. It is an active and engaging activity that school counselors can use to introduce a tier one wellness guidance lesson on stress management. You can find it by putting the name of both the activity and the website into your search engine. Biblio counseling is an activity that uses literature to help students explore their thoughts and experiences related to well-being. Adapt or follow these steps to facilitate biblio counseling in your wellness guidance lessons. First, introduce the book or passage by showing them a book preview and
017by discussing the book's purpose as it relates to the wellness topic. Next, show the class some discussion questions written on the whiteboard or on chart paper. Um, for example, how can the book topics help people connect with others? or how did the book's characters help people feel better about themselves? Or how does the book topic relate to student wellness? Finally, after reading, help students process the book themes and relate them to the le wellness lesson topic. You can also visit TEA's positive traits character education web page linked in blue at the bottom of the slide for a list of character traits that can be used as book topics. You can find both picture and young adult book selections at the Texas Library Associations 2 by two and Lonear Book Lists at their website. Artistic expression
018is another wellness strategy that helps students relieve stress, making it an effective activity for a wellness lesson. The Ocean Wave Art activity shows students the importance of staying on top of and managing their anger. In order to facilitate this activity, follow these steps. First, brainstorm with students some things that make them angry and how to helpfully resolve them. You can write their ideas on the whiteboard or on chart paper so that they can refer back to them as needed during the art activity. And then next, have students create their artwork by drawing themselves in an ocean on top of a wave of anger, writing their anger cause inside the wave, and finally writing their anger management strategy next to themselves on the wave. Third, third step, you would conclude the activity with a processing discussion
019about the importance of staying on top of and managing anger. like we would rather ride on top of a wave than get buried underneath a wave. You can see an example of this art activity on the slide. Visual imagery is a strategy where students imagine calming or relaxing images. Color me calm is an activity that guides students to use color imagery and breath work to calm themselves during stressful moments. The first step for this activity is to explain breath work and imagery and how these techniques help people to calm themselves. Next, have students fold a piece of paper in half and color one half of the paper using their favorite color. Then they can color the other half of the paper using their least favorite color. After coloring, have students point to the favorite color
020and breathe in and then have students point to the least favorite color and breathe out imagining any negativity or bad thoughts coming out in a cloud of that least favorite color. Finally, process the activity with the class by discussing how they could use ColorMe Calm in a stressful classroom environment such as during test taking. So, at this point, I encourage you to pause the webinar and try out Color Me Calm yourself. Um, you can get a piece of paper and your favorite or least favorite color marker or crayon and then you can work through steps two through four. Reflect on how the activity makes you feel and if it has a calming effect on you. If you are watching the webinar with a colleague, take some time to discuss the processing step five while you
021are pausing the webinar. So, let's review our main topics that we've covered today. In this webinar, we learned about the wellness characteristics as well as the statutory school counselor role in wellness and guidance curriculum. We identified four different guidelines for wellness lessons. And finally, we explored various wellness activities that you can use in your own lessons. This slide has our main school counseling trainings and materials that we offer from TEA. I'd like to point out three bolded resources. The first two bolded resources provide the best path to compliance with school counselor spending at least 80% of their work time on appropriate counseling duties. Um, in terms of this path to compliance, um, especially take a look at the updated 8020 policy presentation recording that is in the fifth bullet, um, as well as the FAQs
022and the district compliance resource um, that are located in the counselor worktime supports hub in the sixth bullet. The third bolded resource has our TEA school counseling webpage link where you can find other information, resources, and webinars. This slide has an action plan where you can create a tier 1 wellness guidance lesson that you can use back at your own campus. Feel free to follow the three steps on the slide in order to plan your lesson. And that brings us to the end of this webinar. Thank you so so much for attending. Please reach out at the email on this slide if you have any questions and have a great day.