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Lovell Elementary School

Guidance and Counseling

Guidance and Counseling

What does a School Counselor do?

  • Work with individuals and small groups
  • Help identify needs of students
  • Encourage better interpersonal relationships
  • Promote positive attitudes and choices
  • Provide preventative services
  • Teach developmentally appropriate classroom guidance lessons
  • Meet with parents
  • Collaborate with teachers, parents, and outside agencies as needed
  • Talk, read books, play games or draw pictures with children who need to talk
  • Hold parent workshops on relevant topics

A student may see a counselor for help with...

  • Social Skills
  • Friendship issues
  • Anger Management or self-control
  • Difficult Decisions
  • Family concerns
  • Happy Occasions
  • Death/Serious illness in Family
  • Success & Accomplishments
  • Any other areas of concern

Counselor's Corner Newsletter

My name is Mr. May! Welcome to Lovell Elementary Guidance Page!!

Contact the School Counselor

1-307-548-2247 Email Mr. May

Mission Statement and Beliefs

A classroom with a teacher's desk, a small table with chairs, and a bookshelf filled with toys and books.
A brown door decorated with colorful star cutouts and a 'WELCOME' sign.
A classroom with a teacher's desk, a small table with chairs, and a bookshelf filled with toys and books.
A brown door decorated with colorful star cutouts and a 'WELCOME' sign.

Lovell Elementary Guidance Mission Statement

Lovell Elementary Guidance Program will promote a caring atmosphere whereby children's needs are met through prevention, early identification, and intervention. The program will assist students in three specific areas identified by the American School Counselor Association standards which are: Academics, personal/social, and career/technical. This will allow children to develop a positive sense of self and become effective students, responsible citizens and life long learners.

I Believe:

  • All students are capable of high achievement and deserve to be surrounded by an environment of high expectations.
  • All students have equal rights to counseling services & guidance services.
  • All students have the right to a safe, respectful school environment.
  • The school counselor is a resource and an advocate for all students, staff, parents and the community.
  • All students, parents, educators, and members of the community share responsibility for the general welfare and success of each individual.
  • A school guidance program should be comprehensive in scope, developmental in nature and preventative in design.
  • All students have diverse strengths, needs and abilities that contribute to their academic, personal, social, career and community goals.

Individual Counseling

Individual counseling with students is based on teacher, parent, counselor, or principal referral. School counseling is a brief solution-focused intervention working with students in developing skills and assets to succeed in school and in life. A consent form will be filled out that will help define what the student needs help with and gives parent consent for school counseling.

At school students may leave a note outside of the counselor's office when they need help. The box outside of my office is checked daily and I will check with your student as soon as possible.

Group Counseling

Group counseling is designed to support a small group of students needing help developing a skill deficit. Groups are developed to meet the following skills:

  1. Social Skills
  2. Friendship Skills
  3. Anger Management
  4. Study Skills
  5. Conflict Resolution
  6. Loss and Grief
  7. Anxiety
  8. Self-Esteem

Students can be referred by teachers, parents, and principal. Sometimes office referrals that suggest the student struggling in an area may need support to develop skills that will help them be successful. As a school counselor, I am excited to help your students in anyway possible.

Classroom Guidance

Classroom Guidance is an essential part of a comprehensive guidance program. It consists of core curriculum designed to provide students with learning activities that focus in three content areas: academic achievement, career development, and personal/social growth. At the elementary level, we use a variety of activities from Second Step Program, Kelso's Choices, and Bridges. However, teachers may request topics that they feel their students need extra support or help with.

Second Step

Second Step Social Emotional Learning is research-based, teacher-informed, and classroom-tested to promote the social-emotional development, safety, and well-being of children from Early Learning through Grade 8.

Parents can activate their secondstep site by creating an account and using the activation key to view the site.

Login to Second Step

Second Step Activation Keys by Grade Level

Activation Key for Kindergarten

SSPK FAMI LY70

Activation Key for 1st

SSP1 FAMI LY71

Activation Key for 2nd

SSP2 FAMI LY72

Activation Key for 3rd

SSP3 FAMI LY73

Activation Key for 4th

SSP4 FAMI LY74

Activation Key for 5th

SSP5 FAMI LY75

Interests, and abilities. Part of this exploration is the development of such qualities of being responsible, respectful, honest, compassionate, self-disciplined, courageous, persevering, and having citizenship. By developing such qualities our students will be dependable in carrying out obligations and duties. They will show high regard for authority, for other people, for self, and for property. They will have the ability to be considerate, courteous, helpful, and understanding of others through kindness, friendship, and generosity. They will have the ability to be in control of their actions so they can make positive choices. They will be brave in difficult times, meeting danger without fear; daring. They will stick to a purpose or an aim; never giving up what one has set out to do. They will learn the importance of contributing to school and community. This is an effort through all stakeholders.

Here are a few sites that may help:

PACER Kids Against Bullying

Bullying is always a topic that arises throughout the country and often in the news. Bullying occurs in a covert, hidden manner. These acts are carried on out of sight and can happen as quickly as 10 seconds. Bullying is when one person uses power in a willful manner with the aim of hurting another individual repeatedly. All children are the victims of occasional teasing, but some are repeatedly targeted. Conflict is an inevitable part of interaction. As children interact with friends, groups, and through social interaction, natural conflict will occur.

Bullying can occur in both an indirect and direct manner. Boys tend to bully with aggressive tactics while girls tend to bully with social alienation and intimidation. Bullying ranges from mild to moderate through physical aggression, social alienation, verbal aggression, intimidation, and cyberbullying. By understanding the difference between normal conflict vs. bullying, parents can assist their students in finding quality solutions to the problem.

What is the difference between normal peer conflict vs. bullying?

Normal Peer Conflict vs. Bullying
Normal Peer Conflict Bullying
  • Equal Power or Friends
  • Happens Occasionally
  • Accidental
  • Not serious
  • Equal emotional reaction
  • Not seeking power or attention
  • Not trying to get something
  • Remorse - will take responsibility
  • Effort to solve problem
  • Imbalance of Power
  • Repeated Negative Actions
  • Purposeful
  • Serious with Threat of physical or emotional harm
  • Strong emotional reaction from victim and little from bully
  • Seeking Power, control, or material things
  • Attempt to gain material things or power
  • No remorse - blames victim
  • No effort to solve the problem

"Normal peer conflict is typically characterized by the developmental level of the children involved. Aggression and hurtful remarks are part of conflict at all ages; they do not necessarily mean that a bully-victim problem exists p.5.” However, bullying can be recognized by unique social interactions:

  1. Repetitive negative actions targeting a specific victim.
  2. An imbalance of power.
  3. Unequal levels of affect.

Parents can be a big help by understanding the difference between Normal Conflict vs. Bullying.

Through this understanding parents can respond with less emotion and be more effective working through the problem with their child.

Positive Behavioral Intervention Systems (PBIS) in schools is a broad range of systematic and individualized strategies for achieving important social and learning outcomes while preventing problem behavior. One of the great components of PBIS is the concept “goodness of fit,” meaning PBIS is constructed around what fits our school. “Behavior support is the redesign of environments, not the redesign of individuals.”

PBIS is:

  • Not a specific practice or curriculum…it’s a general approach to preventing problem behavior
  • Not limited to any particular group of students…it’s for all students
  • Not new…it’s based on a long history of behavioral practices and effective instructional design and strategies.

Some of the universal strategies PBS defines are:

  • Statement of purpose
  • Clearly defined expected behaviors, no more than 5 rules
  • Procedures for teaching and practicing expected behaviors
  • Procedures for discouraging problem behaviors
  • Procedures for record-keeping and decision-making
  • Family/Community Awareness and Involvement

We have defined Lovell Elementary's statement of purpose as follows:

The purpose of PBIS is to foster and promote a safe and positive school environment that enhances student learning through teaching and recognizing positive behavior.

We have also defined our expectations as follows:

"We Have Bulldog Pride"

  • Purpose - Know what you are supposed to do and Do It!
  • Respect - Treat others how you want to be treated.
  • Integrity - Do what is right when no one is looking.
  • Determination - Work hard and never give up.
  • Empathy - Understanding other people's feelings.

Resources