What is the role of the School Counselor?

The role of an Elementary School Counselor varies slightly from school to school, but this video does an excellent job of describing the overall goals and concepts that all counselors work towards. 

Class Meetings

I've done quite a bit of research on Class Meetings this summer and have found Donna Style's book, Class Meetings, to be very helpful.  As a counselor, I have helped teachers run class meetings with their students and I personally feel as though they are an excellent tool for classroom management and building a community within your classroom.  In addition, classroom meetings help unify the class and help teach students how to resolve conflicts.   

While class meetings are great for the class as a whole, they also provide opportunities for students to grow personally and develop self-confidence.  Students are able to strengthen their listening, responding, public-speaking, leadership, organizational, thinking, and problem-solving skills while in the company of their peers. 
If you're looking to begin class meetings this year, or even just tweak the process that you've used in the past, there are a few things to keep in mind:

1. PREP-WORK-Much like any other lesson, you must prepare for a class meeting.  Introduce the concept to your students ahead of time and make sure the purpose and the expectations of a class meeting are understood by everyone.
2. PRACTICE- Have the students practice moving into the meeting spot silently, until they have it perfected.  Once they can do that, try to have them do it in less than a minute.  It works best if the students have the same spot in the meeting circle all year.  
3. CONSISTENCY-Not every teacher runs their meetings the same way.  The content of the meeting doesn't matter as much as the consistency.  Make sure that every meeting follows the same order (i.e. Opening, Encouragements/Compliments, Old Topics, New Topics, Thank-You's, Closing) so that students always know what is expected.     
4. HAVE FAITH-Have faith in your students to run the meeting themselves.  They just might surprise you with their maturity.  Lastly, if things don't go well the first few times---DON'T GIVE UP, it will get better!

Good Luck & Have Fun! I would love to hear feed-back from those of you who have conducted class meetings!