Here’s my crazy idea of the month for high school counselors. It will let you get all the necessary information to your students and parents faster, cheaper and more effectively. And since most high school counselors have way too much work to do and not enough time to do it, this might actually add some time back into your day.
Start a blog for your counseling office.
People tend to think of blogs like online diaries. But a blog is really just a website that you can update easily, and it could become the one place in your school that people know to go to for information about college. Here’s my vision.
1. Go to Typepad and sign up for one of their services. The cheapest option is $8.95 per month which will let you do everything you need to do except allow more than one person to write blog posts. If you want that option, it will cost a total of $14.95 a month. Pick a color scheme that matches your school’s. And make sure to enable RSS feeds, which will allow people to subscribe to your blog. Even better, offer to buy lunch for a nice student with blog knowledge and have him or her do it for you. It will take less than 30 minutes for a teenage blogger to do this for you (and to explain to a newbie what all the blog fuss is about).
2. Tell parents and students that this blog will be the first place you’ll share information about anything college or counseling related. Of course, you should only say this if you’re serious, so you could also try this for six months, see how it goes, and then tell everyone.
3. When you have anything to share with families, write it on the blog. Handing back PSAT scores next week? Announce it on the blog. Notre Dame is coming to visit the campus to do a presentation? Blog it. College night? Time to schedule classes for next year? SAT deadline is coming up? Blog ’em.
4. Invite families to subscribe to the blog (that’s what the RSS feed was for) so that every time you post something, they’ll be notified.
5. If you’re going to be away at a conference or closed for the holidays, mention it on the blog and your families will know.
Now any time you’ve got important information to share, you or your colleagues can post it right away. No need to rely on someone else to upload it to the counseling website. No need to send out emails or print flyers.
Once you’ve done those basics (and depending on your workload), you could also use the blog to bring even more value to your counseling program. Here are a few ideas:
- When you have a counseling event–like college night or PSAT scores-back or a financial aid presentation, take photos at the event and put them on the blog along with a short write-up of what was covered. You could also upload any handouts from the evening. Those who missed it can still get the information, but they’ll see from the photos just how many people took the time to show up (sometimes a little subtle guilt can be a good thing).
- When you attend a conference, do a quick write-up of any interesting things you learned and post them on the blog. I think it will show families just how much effort you’re extending on their behalf.
- If you read a relevant article in the press, or an entry on another blog that you think is worth sharing, blog it.
- If you add a new person to the counseling staff, snap a photo, write a bio and introduce them to families on the blog.
- Offer up timely servings of your expertise for students and parents. What would you like every student and parent to know about how to choose summer activities, or how to plan a campus visit, or how to handle college rejections? Blog it once and you can post it again next year when the new class is ready for the advice. You should only need to write a detailed description of your school’s letter of recommendation process once. Do it once and post again next year for the new class.
- After you’ve done this for awhile, you’ll have lots of great write-ups with tips and advice to share with families. Then you won’t always need to keep generating as much new material. Instead, you could group links to appropriate articles together and post them at the right times. For example, when college application season begins, post an entry with all of your relevant past articles that the new senior class needs to read, like this.
Sure, there are lots of reasons you could argue not to do it. Not enough time, don’t know enough about blogging, families won’t use it, etc. But most high school counselors I know are overworked, and still always trying to find ways to more for their students. If you’re open to trying something new that might actually let you do more in less time, this might be a low risk venture.
If you’re already doing this at your school, I’d love to hear about how it’s going.