Tag Archives: School Counseling

Personal Reflections, Politics

Advocating for Children’s Mental Health

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Hi All,

This letter is primarily directed to Montana residents, although concerned out-of-state individuals may also participate or use this information to advocate for children’s mental health in your state or province.

As many of you may know, Montana State Superintendent of Schools Elsie Arntzen has recommended the elimination of the state requirement that Montana Public Schools have a required minimum number of 1 school counselor for every 400 students. Obviously, this number is already too high; the national recommendation is for 1 school counselor for every 250 students. During this time of urgent student mental health needs, we need more school counselors, not fewer.

I just wrote and sent my letter to the Montana Board of Public Education in support of retaining the school counselor to student ratio in Montana Public Schools. Please join me. Email your letter to support retaining (or increasing) the current school counselor to student ratio to: bpe@mt.gov.

The public comment period ends on November 4th, so please launch your emails soon!

If you’re not sure what to write, but you believe school counselors are important for supporting student mental health, then just write something simple like, “Please support Montana students and their mental health by retaining or increasing the current school counselor to student ratio in Montana Schools.”

If you want to write something longer, the Montana School Counselor Association has provided the following bullet points to guide public comment.

  • Keep your talking points clear and concise. Make sure to state that you are in support of keeping the school counselor to student ratio 
  • It’s ok to provide a few talking points, less may be more. If you’re not sure what to write, you could simply send a statement asking them to retain the School Counselor to Student ratio 
  • Professional and polite messages are received better
  • Provide examples as to why the ratio is important. Share your experiences within your school (maintain confidentiality), about your program, the multiple hats that you wear, any changes you have experienced over recent years, data that supports increased student needs, etc 
  • We acknowledge that there is a shortage of school counselors in Montana. Eliminating the ratio will not solve the shortage of school counselors, but could exacerbate the shortage, especially when tough budget decisions need to be made
  • Students could miss out on the proactive and responsive services our communities have come to expect from us including A) attendance and graduation rates, B) school climate and bullying prevention, C) social and emotional learning, and D) students having a professionally trained safe person to talk with

Thanks for considering this and for doing all you can to support children’s mental health and well-being.

Sincerely,

John Sommers-Flanagan

Personal Reflections, Politics

Why I Wrote Another Op-Ed Piece on State Superintendent of Schools Elsie Arntzen

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Tomorrow morning (6/15/22) I’ll have an Opinion piece published in the Missoulian, and possibly statewide in Lee Newspapers. The piece is extremely critical of the Montana Superintendent of Public Schools, Elsie Arntzen.

Update: Here’s the link to the article: https://missoulian.com/opinion/columnists/john-sommers-flanagan-a-clear-and-present-danger/article_9018bcfa-7277-548c-a218-436b52cabb7e.html

I don’t like being publicly critical of anyone, so I thought I should clarify why I’m criticizing the Superintendent.

Recently, Superintendent Arntzen recommended eliminating school counselor “ratios” in Montana public schools. Montana state statute currently requires that schools employ one school counselor for every 400 students. If you know the work of school counselors, you know that facilitating the academic, career, and personal and social development for 400 students is no easy task. Nationally, the recommendation is for a 250 to 1 ratio.

In the midst of the worst youth mental health crisis ever, the Superintendent is recommending fewer requirements for school counselors in public schools.

As someone who has been involved in the training of school counselors in Montana since 1993, I can say without reservation that people who dedicate their lives to being school counselors are some of the best people in Montana. They’re smart, compassionate, dedicated to improving children’s lives, and support the academic success of all students. They’re also, along with school psychologists, the most informed and capable school mental health professionals in schools. School counselors are masters level professionals with extensive training in how to support children’s mental health.  

If you support school counselors, I hope you’ll go online, find my opinion piece and share it widely . . . especially if you live or work in Montana. I’ll post the link tomorrow. We need to push back against the Superintendent’s efforts to devalue children’s mental health and potentially reduce their access to school counselors.

Thanks for joining me in the effort to maintain school counselors in schools and to support the mental health and well-being of school counselors.

Cool Counseling, Tough Kids Cool Counseling

Hanging out with the Virginia School Counseling Association in Richmond: The Extra Handout

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Richmond Statue

I just had an awesome day with about 260 Virginia School Counselors. You know who you are, and you know you’re incredible.

Just FYI, the state of Virginia is making a big investment in adding school counselors. . . which IMHO, is a very smart and reasonable decision. Other states might want to take note and follow their lead. The problem is that many school age youth are suffering from extremely challenging home, neighborhood, and school situations. Having more competent school counselors available to support student success, student mental health, and teachers is a wise move.

For all of the VSCA members I met today, thank you for coming, but more importantly, thanks for the deeply important commitment you make to the well-being of students in your schools. You are amazing!

Here’s the extra handout, with more details than the powerpoint slides: VSCA 2020 Extra Handout

 

Cool Counseling, Ethics

MSCA 2018 — Keynote Powerpoints

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Hey all.

I’m in Helena in anticipation of a great morning tomorrow with the Montana School Counseling Association. Thanks Renee’ Schoening for the invite. The bad news is that my talk is on stress management and because everyone at the conference has probably already heard my “30 minutes of profanity” story, I’m feeling stressed. Funny how that works.

The good news is that the amazing Salena Beaumont Hill will be my co-presenter. I’m hoping she’ll have a story with the F-word to replace mine. Haha. Kidding Salena.

Here are the ppts. Let’s have some fun tomorrow! MSCA Keynote 2018

Personal Reflections, Tough Kids Cool Counseling

The Long Road to Eagle Pass Texas

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Hi.

I’m re-posting this because today, exactly one year since I made my long trek to Eagle Pass from Montana . . . I’m back again. The drive was just as long as before, but I’m back because the folks in the Eagle Pass School District are pretty darn fun to hang out with. And so here’s the original post from last year:

 

It’s a very long way from Missoula, Montana to Eagle Pass, Texas.

Just saying.

This epiphany swept over me after the early morning Missoula to Denver flight and after the Denver to San Antonio flight and right about when, after driving from San Antonio in a rental car for about an hour, I finally saw a green mileage sign that said: Eagle Pass – 95 miles. I just laughed out loud. And even though I was all by myself, I said, “It’s a long way from Missoula to Eagle Pass.” This is just a small taste of the profound thoughts I think while traveling alone.

But time and space are relative and so I entertained myself by listening to a radio station, en Espanol. Given that I have the Spanish vocabulary of a toddler, I was quite delighted with myself when I discerned that I’d tuned in to a Christian radio station. The repeated use of the words, palabra, familia, and Dios helped me make that revelation. I also monitored the temperature via my rental car thermometer and happily observed that the outside temperature never rose above 104 degrees during my drive from San Antonio to Eagle Pass.

I like to think of myself as navigationally skilled; then again, it’s also good to remind myself that denial is more than just a river in Egypt. What I did manage to efficiently find were the Texas road construction crews. Getting to my hotel was harder. I had planned to use my internet telephone GPS, which would have been a great idea had there been internet access in Eagle Pass. This prospect began dawning on me when I passed the sign saying: Eagle Pass, pop. 26,864. At that point it was still unclear to me exactly how the Eagle Pass School District (conveniently located on the Rio Grande River) decided to have me come from Montana to do a full-day Tough Kids, Cool Counseling workshop. But, given that I’d never been to Texas before and they happened to want to pay me and then they decided to purchase 45 copies of Tough Kids, Cool Counseling, I found myself faced with an offer I couldn’t refuse.

And so, I decided to engage in a bit of disoriented driving, while studiously avoiding the bridge to Mexico. I finally found a man from India at a random hotel, who spoke English in addition to Punjab and Spanish. He was kind enough to let me use his Internet because he’d never heard of the hotel I’d booked. Then, a few wrong turns later and following an episode where my rental car transformed itself from an automatic into a manual transmission, I finally made it to the bargain Microtel hotel where they obviously take the term “micro” very seriously. Staying there required that I change into my secret Ant-man identity, thereby shrinking my expectations for Internet access, pool length, fitness facilities, and room into the size of an ant while retaining the physical strength and intellectual functioning of an adult male (I should note that I intentionally selected this hotel because it’s relatively green and was happy with my choice, despite my lightly mocking tone). The good news was that Taco-Morales was right across the street and I got to experience some authentic fajitas and red rice at prices an ant could afford.

The next day, in a coffee-free state (there are no Starbucks in Eagle Pass), I found my way to the Eagle Pass Junior High library (home of the Eagles—what a surprising team name!). That was when I discovered how they’d chosen me as their School Counseling Workshop leader. As it turns out, Montana Street is just a block or two from Eagle Pass Junior High and so they had apparently thought I lived right there ON Montana Street (and not IN the State of Montana). . . which is probably why they chose to pay me a flat rate and let me cover my own travel.

But very soon I discovered everything wonderful about Eagle Pass. I got to spend the day with Mr. Salinas, Ms. Gutierrez, Mr. Lopez, Connie, Karla, Luis, Toyoko, three women named Dora, and just enough School Counselors to scoop up 45 copies of Tough Kids, Cool Counseling. This was a group with immense compassion and dedication to making the lives of their students better. They teased me, laughed at my jokes, gently corrected my Spanish mis-pronunciations, asked for me to sign their books, and treated me with mucho mas respeto than I could ever deserve. By lunchtime they began talking about when I’d come back (I gently suggested January instead of August for my next visit). After lunch, Luis beat me at the Hand-Pushing game (I was depleted and distracted from all the energy it took to keep intermittently changing into an ant-sized person to fit into my hotel). However, one of the three Doras made an excellent volunteer for my mental set riddles (thank you Dora, for demonstrating in front of your peers that, in fact, learning can happen).

In the end, I return from Eagle Pass with renewed and sustained faith and hope in the human race. The big hearts and amazing dedication of the Eagle Pass School Counselors was inspiring. Thank-you Eagle Pass, for helping to expand my world. . . while simultaneously shrinking my expectations for hotel accommodations.