School for School Counselors Podcast

Want to Make a Real Difference? Be Like Nancy.

• School for School Counselors • Episode 96

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Nancy is an experienced and stellar school counselor whose story is as inspiring as it is instructive. Her path from art teacher to guiding light for students spans over three decades,  and in this episode, we walk through the trajectory of Nancy's career, from the day her father suggested looking into a masters degree to the present, where she works through innovative programs like Ohio's College Credit Plus to reshape student opportunities firsthand. Nancy's career is an inspiration for anyone who believes in the transformative power of dedicated school counselors.

Nancy believes in investing in her students and meeting them in their realities to inspire hope and incite change on a campus where many of her students face more than their fair share of challenges. We talk about the delicate art of supporting dreams, the realities of the working poor, and the critical need for resources and camaraderie among educators. Join us for an episode that not only celebrates the impact of school counselors but also serves as a reminder that what we do is crucial- and life-changing- for students.

Steph:

Hey there, my friend, welcome back to the School for School Counselors podcast. I'm, steph Johnson, glad to be back with you for another week as we talk through the ups and downs and the real world ins and outs of this crazy journey of school counseling. I'm so glad that you've joined me for another episode and this week you're in for a delightful conversation with Nancy. Nancy is the kind of school counselor that I want to be when I grow up. She was just made for her work. She's an all-around compassionate soul who truly has the best interests of her students in mind. She has a whatever-it-takes attitude and she has a wealth of wisdom and insight garnered from 30 years of school counseling. I'm telling you right now this is not a conversation that you're gonna wanna miss. So get ready, sit back, relax, grab your best beverage and get ready to hear from Nancy. I started the conversation by asking Nancy just to give me a rundown of her school counseling journey and tell us a little bit about what brought her into school counseling in the first place.

Nancy:

Oh gosh, I'd like to say it was my mission from the get go, but it was a whole series of events that happened. I taught high school art for eight years and I absolutely loved it and I think parts of why I loved it was because of the interpersonal interactions with my students. We all know when students know you care, that's huge. We all know when students know you care, that's huge. And I would find them talking to me while they were working about lots of stuff and finding me after school and so on. So even at that point I just I love teaching. I just thought that would be something I would probably do for a long while.

Nancy:

My dad was a longtime educator and administrator Actually both my parents were and I was probably teaching about two or three years and he said you know, you need to start thinking about what you'd want to do for a master's degree and get that started. And I really don't know like a master's in fine arts is a very lengthy ordeal and you pretty much have to take time off and do a sabbatical to do that. And I wasn't in a financial position. I was newly married and wasn't going to take a year off.

Nancy:

And so we talked some more and I decided that I would approach the school counseling because I thought it would make me a better teacher.

Nancy:

Hadn't really thought at the point that I would necessarily be a school counselor, but all of the skills and things I thought would make me a better teacher and I got into the program and it just felt like a good fit. Everything I learned I would put into action right away with my students, and so while sometimes that felt like a heavy workload, I really thought that was a blessing as compared to people who were just strictly focused on earning their master's degree. We did all of the program except for one class, and I got pregnant with my daughter and I had a really traumatic, difficult pregnancy where I spent most of my pregnancy in the hospital. She was born in March of that school year and we were both in pretty rough shape, but I mustered the strength to go back and finish about the last four weeks of school and right after that I was riffed. Our school system was having huge financial difficulties. We had an elementary, a middle school and a high school art teacher. They all had many years of experience and was riffed.

Nancy:

So my husband and I really decided that might have been a blessing in disguise. So we just made the decision that we were going to scrimp and make it work and I was going to be home with her for a couple of years. So when I and I was home for a couple of years I taught part-time at the Toledo Art Museum and still stayed active. He did some freelance work. But when I went to look for a position two years later I was a pretty expensive art teacher and at that point you had to have teaching experience to be a counselor and so I was a cheap counselor and because of all the financial difficulties a lot of art programs had been cut around the area also. So that was a very long explanation for how I landed as a school counselor.

Nancy:

It felt very much like it was the right move for me. So I just think God has other plans for us. Sometimes what we think is best turns out not to be best. I wouldn't trade those couple of years home with my daughter for anything. I think being a parent gave me a different perspective as a counselor and an educator and it's just always felt right and I've just always been passionate about what I do. It's been my life's work and my life's passion really.

Steph:

I love that and, coming from a similar background of being an educator in the arts before landing in school counseling, I get what Nancy is saying. As you listen to her talk, don't you just wish that you could be in a school counseling office with her to absorb her wisdom and insights, or perhaps have her supervise you for a little bit? Nancy's been doing school counseling for a while and as she passes 30 years in our field, she remarks that she's seen a lot of changes in schools. I asked her to talk about some of the biggest changes she's seen in her career, or some of the changes that have really made a big impression.

Nancy:

I think probably every state has a program of similar nature, but in Ohio our dual enrollment program for college and high school is called College Credit Plus and that started it was under a different name but it began right about the time I was finishing my counseling degree and it just exploded and went from being just a junior senior program to just a nine through 12 program and then I think about eight years ago it became a seven through 12 opportunity. That has changed my work tremendously. During the time I've been a high school counselor my positions have mostly been in more of a smaller world type of school setting financial difficulties. Some changes from offering AP classes to college credit plus classes, because with AP classes to get the college credit you must sit for an exam at the end and pass that with a certain score.

Nancy:

Whereas with college credit plus classes. You get the credit if you pass the class, of course, but most students do, and so I have a large percentage of students that are doing that. So to try to be responsible with them, I find that the advisors at the colleges are so overloaded and have so many different school systems to deal with that, while they are doing a good job, they don't have the personal connections with kids to have the kind of conversations with them that I can have with them, and that's one of my favorite things to do. But it's also like my biggest time sucker too, because I meet twice a year for sure, and usually more than that, with each of those students to have in-depth conversations about what the courses are that they're taking and where they're headed, and we have to have a plan. So for a seventh grader to be started on this, it's pretty difficult.

Nancy:

You have to do a lot of education and a lot of teaching. Most of them are first generation college students, so that's been a huge change. I think another big thing is the mental health issues, which I really saw way before COVID hit. To be honest with you, I'm sure that's exacerbated things, but I don't believe that's the only cause. I find that I'm doing a lot more mental health strategies now than I used to be. Those episodes were present but not prevalent, and I feel like many students somewhere along the line have missed coping strategies, and so I'm doing breathing activities with them and EFT tapping with them and trying to teach them strategies to self-regulate, because they just seem to fall apart at the first encounter of an obstacle, and that's frightening to me.

Nancy:

It's been a gradual transition, but it's frightening to me that so many kids good, solid students are lacking in that area, and I guess I've learned a whole lot more about trauma now and understand some of the footholds that takes on how students develop and how it recurs in different ways, and everybody's experienced trauma of some sort, certainly in varying degrees. But I guess those would be the two biggest changes that I see. I think there were many lessons from the rigor of the AP classes. I mean, I was very accustomed to counseling students who were very disappointed and, you know, explaining to them. There's a whole lot more to this than just the three or the four to get credit. However, I did sympathize with the fact that one exam determined their fate along those lines.

Nancy:

With College Credit Plus, I do think it's the financial opportunities for students. I'm having students graduate from high school with their associate's degree. The financial implications are huge. Some of the other implications are why I spend so much time with the students, though because they don't have time. If they start college credit plus early. They don't have time to like I'll figure out what I'm going to do after I graduate, because they've already got their gen ed classes out of the way, so they're having to declare a major right away, when they're really just getting their start on a true college experience. When they're really just getting their start on a true college experience Because most of my students are doing online classes.

Nancy:

We do offer about four classes at our high school with our high school teachers that are certified to teach them, but nevertheless it's a very different experience than it is in taking classes on the college campus. And because most of them are online, the students are accustomed to open book tests and things that are different, although I'm finding that college has changed a lot in the recent years. Also, I do think final exams and blue books are a thing of the past, even in college. Now I've told somebody about a blue book exam the other day and they're like what? How many blue books did you fill? How long did you write?

Nancy:

I do sometimes feel like I'm from the dark ages, but that is why I spend so much time with the students, because the college advisors they can't possibly do that and they don't have the kind of relationships with the kids that I had, and so I feel a sense of responsibility to talk about all those kinds of things with them and get them started on their college research even sooner. It's great if they know where they're going to go to college and we can collaborate with that school in choosing their courses to make sure they're taking things that are going to fill their major. You know that's a huge change from when I started high school counseling Huge All right, admit it.

Steph:

Are you old enough to remember blue books? I still see them sometimes in my nightmares. So funny to hear Nancy bring that up. But it's true. There have been so many changes from then to now. As we were talking about high school and college pathways, I mentioned that the times that we give kids to make these decisions seem like awfully short runways. When I was young, even 19 or 20 felt like it was really early to start making career decisions. And here we are talking about these things with students once they hit the ninth or 10th grade.

Nancy:

Yeah, and it is somewhat frustrating to kids too, because they're like I'm 18 years old, I don't know what I want to do with the rest of my life. Thus the conversations about well, you're probably not going to choose a career that you do your entire rest of your life. You want skills that make you flexible and maybe this is how you start your career. But be open to other opportunities. Or with a number of my students, some of them are working for employment with the associate's degree, hoping that maybe they'll land a job where their employer will help pay for the rest of the degree for them. As with anything, there's blessings and curses, but for students that are of low socioeconomic family status, this is a huge stepping stone for them and for people that are of average middle class, it's still a huge jump for all of those families to be able to have that, and for people that are of average middle class, it's still a huge jump for all of those families to be able to have that.

Nancy:

And I think dipping your toes in the college landscape is good for a lot of kids if that's where they think they're going to go. By the same token, there are some kids that do College Credit Plus and find out. College is not for them, especially if they're online. We have some students who are excellent students that do not function very well that way, because they need more structure. They have been good students because they follow directions well, but when left to their own devices to figure out their own schedules and their own time management, that's a little troublesome sometimes. They get themselves into a pickle every now and then. But all learning things, all obstacles I have to learn to overcome.

Steph:

I love that Nancy's students have her watching over their trajectories as they're going through all of these decisions and having these important conversations that maybe their parents or their other people at home don't know how to have with them because they've never had that opportunity. What a tremendous asset and blessing Nancy must be to these families' lives. She invests so personally and diligently into each and every one of her students and I know that they are better for it.

Nancy:

Education itself is filled with acronyms and terminology and procedures that those of us that have been to school take for granted, and my parents were both college educated with advanced degrees, and so I grew up hearing those kinds of things and those conversations, and we would take a family vacation. After there was a college town nearby, my dad would say, well, let's just drive through it and see what the campus looks like. So that was the kind of conversations we had growing up, and I know many of my students don't have that same frame of reference. Yeah, no, it's, and it's not something I have to do and I think it's probably something a lot of high school counselors maybe don't. They just say there's college advisors, let them handle it. But I'm not comfortable with that because I have relationships with kids and I care about them and I think that they can fall through the cracks pretty easily on things if they get in over their head.

Steph:

The conversation between Nancy and I shifted a little bit at this point as we began to talk about our shared experiences in serving students in rural populations. I have a really soft spot in my heart for rural campuses and districts soft spot in my heart for rural campuses and districts. I learned so much through my experiences doing that and was introduced to things that I'd heard about but not directly worked with, like substance abuse, food deserts, domestic violence and just the day-to-day decision-making that has to be done in families living in poverty. I asked Nancy about her experiences in serving underserved populations.

Nancy:

Until I was there, I didn't know the level of poverty. When I talk about the ACT, I go into great detail now about how you request a waiver if you can't afford to pay for it yourself. I ask kids, you know, is your family on free or reduced lunches? Because we might be able to get a waiver for college application fees or for other things that come up. I didn't used to ask that. I might've made a comment. If you need financial help, see me privately.

Nancy:

I didn't reach out and ask that question like I do now, because half the time the answer is going to be yes, I do, but kids are very good at looking like each other, and you can't look at a kid and think, oh, I bet you're on Frioriti's lunch. With online ordering with resale shops like Plato's, closet and some of these other things, they find a way to fit in with their appearance in many ways, and so I can't pick it out.

Steph:

I think Nancy is right on target, and I mentioned at this point that there was a lesson that took me a long time to learn when I was a young counselor. Admittedly, it took me a while to dial into the fact that when a family is faced with the choice of doing what is considered right in everyone else's eyes or doing what they need to do to survive, they're going to choose survival every single time.

Nancy:

That means sometimes we have to bend and we have to accommodate to meet them where they are when serving their students through school counseling, and Nancy had a few things to say about that, and I guess the whole idea of working for is what I've also learned too, because all of my kids' parents that are poverty level are working but they have no savings, they have no reserve, they're just working to pay the bills and it's an hourly wait and they can't come in for a parent conference during the day because they miss work. They don't get paid, and that was also something I had to develop more of a sensitivity toward. I've scheduled parent conferences after hours. I do my principal's great. If she knows I have one, she'll stick around too, even if she's not in there with me. Just so you know I'm not in the building by myself.

Nancy:

We try to get things scheduled during school hours. Sometimes it's before work, even in the morning, but there are situations where that absolutely won't work. We now have a device where we can do phone conferencing with a group of people, because for IEP conferences and for some other things the parent might have, you know, an hour lunch break that they could do a meeting, but they can't get to us and get back and not miss work. That's been a big eye opener for me, and it's when you do nice things like that for people they are very grateful. I go to a choir concert and have parents come up and hug me. I had a grandparent come up and hug me at the last one, thanking me for everything I had done for her grandson. And you don't do it for that reason, but when it happens it makes you feel pretty good.

Steph:

I honestly think it's amazing that, even though Nancy's career has spanned decades, the things that she's encountered, the lessons that she's learned and the relationships that she's endeavored to create have been timeless.

Steph:

If every single school campus could have a school counselor that cares about their craft as much as Nancy man, I think we would see some tremendous changes in our society and on our planet. It's pretty cool when you think about the impact of one person, how gestures and efforts that seem simple to us at the time can create these ripples that continue moving out throughout the campus and community and throughout time to make tremendous impacts for students, and I think that Nancy personifies those effects. She is a master of her craft. She has so much wisdom and joy in her work to share and I'm honored that I got to spend a little bit of time with her here on the podcast. As we wrapped up our conversation, I mentioned to Nancy how delightful I think she is, how much I enjoyed talking with her, and that I felt like we could stay online and talk for hours and hours without ever running out of anything to say, because that's just how the conversation had been. But listen to what she had to say next but listen to what she had to say next.

Nancy:

Yeah, I want to tell you I wish that you had been around when I was starting counseling. I wish that there had been something like what you're offering with the mastermind and with the website and the podcast, because we are very isolated sometimes in our roles and most of the positions I've been in I've not had colleague counseling partners and the ability to talk over some of those things and have a sounding board, and I think it's valuable for me. I learn something every podcast, every episode. Despite the many years I've been doing this. I learn something every time. I'm going back for my second go around now, because each time I listen, I hear something, something. Every time. I'm going back for my second go-round now, because each time I listen, I hear something different. So as I'm putting on my makeup in the morning, you're chatting with me. Oh my gosh.

Steph:

This may sound exaggerated, but I promise you it's not. When Nancy told me that I was chatting with her as she was putting her makeup on in the morning, I felt so honored, and I feel honored when I hear comments like that from other podcast listeners, like you as well. Creating the School for School Counselors podcast is a labor of love. It is one of the highlights of my career and I'm so honored and humbled when I hear folks talk about how meaningful it's been for them or how it's changing the school counseling game.

Steph:

Hey, if you're one of those people who has felt some impact from the podcast, if you enjoy listening each week when we put out a new episode, if you're going back and listening to different episodes over again, I would love to hear about it. If you have just a minute, could you go into your podcast player really quickly and give us a rating or even a review? That would mean the world to me and to my team, because that helps the algorithms get our podcast in front of other people who may need to hear it too. So thanks in advance for that. It means the world. All right, my friend. I'll be back again soon with another episode of the School for School Counselors podcast. In the meantime, I hope you have the best week. Take care.