Kennesaw's Counseling Corner

KENNESAW CHARACTER EDUCATION

Kennesaw Elementary's Administration, counselors, and staff are committed to developing students and citizens of good character!  We focus on a different "character word" each month. The last day of each month we celebrate by choosing one student from each classroom to be recognized as our "character Kid" These are students that have been showing our character word for the month.  These students get to wear a "Character Kid" visor on the day of our recognition and have their name put up on our Character wall in the cafeteria. They also meet with counselors and administrators and are  presented with a "Kennesaw Pride" pin, along with a coupon or prize. We also draw three student's names (one from each grade level) to be given an extra coupon or prize.

We also recognize one staff member that has exhibited our character trait for that month.  Staff members nominate their colleagues and the staff member chosen/picked is given a special prize.  We want to thank Cici's Pizza, DAC Kids, and Kennesaw First Baptist Church for their contibutions to our Character Education and teacher recognition program! Thank you all for your part and your support of this very important program.

October 2009

Happy Fall! 

We have so many wonderful activities going on in the Counseling Department this month.  Our lesson focus and Character Education  word for the month is Active Listening.  We will be seeing students in all classrooms to teach this lesson.  Our life skills program defines active listening as listening with the intention of understanding what the speaker intends to communicate.  Below are some tips to help you reinforce and teach your child about active listening.

Parenting Tips to help teach Active Listening

1.  If culturally appropriate, have your child make eye contact with you when speaking to them.

2.  Ask them to keep their body still.

3. Remind your child to think about what is being said.

4.  Teach them to respond back with a statement,  head nod or question so you know they understand.

We hope that you will help us by reviewing these important skills at home. 

October 5-9 is Public Safety Awareness Week.  Please help us honor our wonderful Kennesaw Police Department. 

October 26-30 is Red Ribbon Week.  The Counselors will be helping PTA with the Food Drive.  Please click on the PTSA link below to see what other daily activities will be going on this week.

www.kennesawptsa.org

October 27th-Attendance Recognition for the 1st nine weeks.  Students with 0 Absences and 0 tardies will be recognized for their Perfect Attendance.  Students with 0 Absences and 1-3 tardies will be recognized for their Superior Attendance.  The Counseling Team, our School Social worker, and officers from the Kennesaw Police Department will all be there to help us recognize these students.

October 30th-Character Education Recognition for students who have displayed the character word of Active Listening.

Small Group Results Data and Counseling Goals

KENNESAW ELEMENTARY COUNSELING PROGRAM GOALS FOR 2008-2009

A.   85% of first grade students that failed the reading portion of the CRCT in 07-08 will pass the reading portion of the test in 08-09 through small intentional academic groups.

 

RESULTS

 

12 out of 15 (or 80%) first grade students that failed the reading portion of the CRCT in Spring-08 passed the reading portion of the test in Spring 09.

 

The scores for these students increased an average of 16 points.

The greatest increase in reading score for an individual student was 59 points.

 

 The average score for these students in Spring - 08 was 795 and increased to an average of 808 for Spring -09.

 

 

88% of special education students participating passed the test. (9/15)

Two other students participating were in the referral process for special education. Of those students 50% (one of two) passed.

 

 

83% of ESOL students participating passed.  

 

 

KENNESAW ELEMENTARY COUNSELING PROGRAM GOALS FOR 2009-2010

A.   80% of first grade students that failed the math portion of the CRCT in 08-09 will pass the math portion of the test in 09-10 through small intentional academic groups.

B. Counselors will collaborate with teachers of students who         failed the math portion of the CRCT to gather math data and other student information in order to plan more focused and      individualized small math groups.

Welcome Back 2009-2010

ALL ABOARD! Welcome to another wonderful and exciting school year!  We are really looking forward to seeing some old familiar faces and to meeting our new Kennesaw students and families.  The 2009-2010 school year promises to be an amazing adventure with much excitement along this educational journey.

            Your Kennesaw counselors (Delane Bickelhaupt – Kindergarten, Amy Mohrmann – First Grade, and Patricia Kernan – Second Grade) can’t wait to begin this school year. We are eager to start working with all of you to foster academic, social/emotional, and career development in all of our students. Some of our plans to help us reach this goal are:

*Classroom Guidance Lessons

*Character Education

*Small Groups

*See students individually as needed

*Support for students through RTI process

*Family Support

 

Please feel free to contact us at 678-594-8175 if you have any ideas, suggestions, questions, or concerns. We are so happy to be back and ready to hop on the train to Engineering Excellence. J

December 2008

During the month of December our Character Education word is Caring.  We hope to show our caring spirit by helping those less fortunate.  Our wonderful PTA has worked very hard with the Counseling Department to put together our Angel Tree and Holiday Assistance Program.  If you are interested in helping to brighten a child's/family's holiday, please come take an ornament off the Angel Tree located in the front lobby. 

We are also asking for your support of  our fundraiser/hat day on Tuesday December 16th to benefit the South Cobb High School Marching band and their trip to Washington DC!  They have been selected to represent Georgia in the 2009 Presidential Inaugural Parade. 
We can't let this opportunity pass by for the students of South Cobb High School's Marching Band. So, please help them by participating and donating on Tuesday! Thank you for your suuport!  

We had a fun, and very successful Red Ribbon Week.  It was wonderful to see all the kids wearing their ribbons, dressing up, and participating. We would like to thank ALL of you that sent in and donated canned foods during our Red Ribbon week canned food drive!  All of the cans collected will go to making a local families hoidays much much better! Thank you to our amazing PTA for organizing a wonderful week!

We have loved being in classrooms doing our guidance lessons and are focusing on our social emotional domain standards.

We have also been in classrooms recognizing our students that have had Perfect and Superior attendance for the first grading period.  We are looking forward to enahancing and hopefully working with the Kennesaw Police Department to help us with these special recognitions.

About Ms. Kernan

     Welcome Kennesaw students!  Our counseling department is so excited about our upcoming school year 2008-2009!  We are so looking forward to seeing our students from last year and thrilled about our newcomers. 

      Let me tell you a few things about myself.  I have a wonderful husband with two beautiful grown daughters.  In addition, I have a delightful grandson who will be entering middle school this year.  Also, I am eagerly awaiting the birth of my new granddaughter in November.  For fun I like to relax at our lake house, camp, bowl, read for pleasure, and write children's stories. 

      Besides having been a classroom teacher for years in Cobb County, I am now entering my 18th year as a school counselor.  With work experience in high school, middle, and elementary, I am actually beginning my 28th year in public education.  I love being a college student as well.  My Educational Specialist degree is from West Georgia, and I completed my School Leadership program at Kennesaw State University. 

     As a Kennesaw counselor we are quite active in the classrooms during our regular guidance lessons; we facilitate small counseling groups when the need arises; and we see students individually.  Throughout the school year we are available to assist students, parents, and staff with school success.  We will have a great year!  See you soon!

    

    

   

   

December

During the month of December our Character Education word is Caring.  We hope to show our caring spirit by helping those less fortunate.  Our wonderful PTA has worked very hard with the Counseling Department to put together our Angel Tree and Holiday Assistance Program.  If you are interested in helping to brighten a child's/family's holiday, please come take an ornament off the Angel Tree located in the front lobby.  Thank you for your support!

Mission and Beliefs

Mission

The mission of The Kennesaw Elementary School Counseling program is to address and remove barriers that impede student learning through a developmental and comprehensive school counseling program. Our counseling program will ensure a safe and nurturing learning environment that instills the lifeskills necessary to become respectful and responsible citizens of a splendidly multicultural society.

We believe:

§    We believe that the comprehensive school counseling program assists in removing barriers to learning thus enhancing academic, social/emotional, and career development.  

§    We believe all students can learn at their own rate and based on their individual learning styles.

§    We believe that each student is unique and different.  Therefore, we feel that it is essential for counselors, teachers, and other staff members to use differentiated instruction, give extra time when appropriate, and use patience and reinforcement.

§    We believe that counselors are an important resource in identifying and implementing research based programs and strategies.

§    We believe that educational reform has to be a collaborative commitment among all school community stakeholders.

§    We believe that as school counselors we are EDUCATORS, professionals, and leaders in our schools and are therefore vital and essential to the education “reform” process.

§    We believe that it is imperative for us as professional school counselors to be involved and be a part of our school improvement, leadership, teams as well as members of professional counseling organizations.

Ms. Mohrmann

Welcome to my webpage!  Here is just a little about me.  This is my 5th year as a counselor at Kennesaw Elementary.  I have enjoyed being a part of this school and community.  I am currently working part-time so that I can have time at home with my two sweet little girls.

I completed my graduate schooling at The State University of West Georgia with a Master's of Education in Guidance and Counseling.  I have loved the many ways counselors are able to work with students, families, and the community.  We have a wonderful counseling team at Kennesaw Elementary and I am honored to be a part of this great school!

Announcements

We are working closely with our PTA on our holiday assistance drives.  We have just finished our Thanksgiving food drive and thank you so much to all of you that sent in cans of food. We now have our angel tree and some stockings up in the lobby.  Each ornament and stocking will have an item or items for you to purchase and bring up to the school for one of our families. We are also in classrooms doing guidance lessons and our current lesson goes along with our Character Education word for this month which is cooperation. Next, we will be starting a series of lessons on conflict resolution.  We hope you all have a wonderful, restful, and happy Thanksgiving!!!!!