Equipping Educators in San Antonio
Counselors and advisors deserve high-quality, relevant professional learning opportunities. Having spent over a decade as a teacher and then the other half of my career as a college counselor, I can say that my experiences differed widely. When I was a teacher, my learning was often aligned to some standards, and had clear learning outcomes with activities designed to meet those objectives. Here at Contigo Ed, we believe school counselor and advisor training can be like that and so much more.
Reintroducing…Aspiration to Action
We're thrilled to unveil the all-new Aspiration to Action course, designed to empower school counselors and advisors nationwide! Through our Professional Learning offerings at Contigo Ed, our hope is to simplify your work and make student interactions more meaningful. The revamped Aspiration to Action course is one of the ways we achieve this goal.
Public Data Resources for Tracking FAFSA Progress
In today’s blog post, we will focus on what to do once you have overcome the hurdles and have had students complete the FAFSA. How can you track your progress? How does your district or campus compare to neighboring districts and campuses? How is the state of Texas doing compared to other states across the country? We will walk you through three public data sources that you can use to answer some of these questions.
Note: Unlike some other blog posts in this series, this post contains a lot of information that will be relevant to districts outside of Texas as well. None of the three sources include data on TASFA completion.
Contigo Ed Creators + Creatives
We are excited to introduce you to Contigo Ed Creators & Creatives! This is a talented group of educators, practitioners, and leaders from across the country. They have been and will continue to help Contigo Ed produce and share relevant content and valuable resources for educators.
Bridging the Family-School Engagement Gap
The heart of a thriving educational community is the partnership between schools and families. With the invaluable insights gained from vibrant conversations with 128 families across 14 districts, Contigo Ed is excited to share strategies that emerged. These gems of wisdom are part of our collaborative Phase I consultation services we offer to districts.
Set your Juniors & Seniors up for Success in the New Year
Think back to yourself in September 2023. If you ever said to yourself “Wow, I wish we would have done this last year!” then right now is the time of year to do that very thing.
Before we look at the three themes here are some important principles that we would like to highlight: (1) your timeline should reflect your district or campuses vision, initiatives and priorities, and (2) families and caregivers should have every opportunity to be a part of transition planning.
College Enrollment Data Sources (NSC & THECB)
At the end of the 2022-2023 school year, we celebrated the class of 2023 as they walked across the stage and got their diplomas. Many of these students had aspirations to continue their education in college, and if you are wondering if they ended up pursuing these plans, data reports from sources like National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) can help you to answer this question.
A guide to TPRS: Our go-to source on Texas data
What data source does our data team use most day-to-day? The Texas Performance Reporting System (TPRS).
TPRS is where the Texas Education Agency (TEA) summarizes all the data districts submit through the Public Education Information Management System (PEIMS). Today’s blog post will focus on how you can maximize TPRS for your own work.
Celebrating First-Generation Day!
Education is often hailed as the great equalizer, a pathway to a brighter future that transcends socioeconomic barriers. For many, the journey toward higher education begins with uncertainty and unique challenges, especially for first-generation college students. Today, we celebrate First-Generation Day, a day dedicated to acknowledging and honoring the triumphs and accomplishments of first-generation college graduates. We also take this opportunity to spotlight the inspiring stories of three of our very own first-generation team members who have broken barriers and achieved remarkable success.
4 Steps That Will Change Everything in Your Classroom or Group Advising Session!*
If you are a college counselor or advisor, you’ve probably started assisting your students on their college applications. It’s about this time of year when we start hearing from counselors and advisors who have students in a group advising or classroom setting looking for promising practices for helping their students maximize their independent work time.
As someone who taught and advised students for 12 years in a classroom, I finally (why didn’t I do this sooner????) devised a tool and approach that *changed everything* and helped students develop a mindset, knowledge and skill that would benefit them for life.
Conferencing & Networking Tips
Conferences and Summits can be incredible learning and networking opportunities for school practitioners. They can also be quite overwhelming: register for a hotel room while they’re still available; don’t forget to book that flight; choose some sessions to attend from what seems like a never ending list; get on the guest list for evening receptions and activities before it’s too late; meet with potentially hundreds of colleagues and vendors. Oh, and you only have a few days to do it!
Data Series for Educators
Contigo Ed is excited to be launching a series of Texas-focused blog posts around data! With these blog posts we hope to better equip leaders on how they can use data to improve outcomes for students. Our goal is to make this data more accessible and usable to you. Even if you’re not from Texas, we hope you’ll find some of this content useful as well as explore how it may be applicable to your state.
Kickoff the School Year Strong with Group & Individual Advising
If it wasn’t for that binder of resources back in 2010 passed on to me by an expert counselor, I have no idea where I would have even started creating materials for my individual and group advising sessions! That binder must have been 1,000 pages long, filled with notes, resources and tools.
We might not have a binder for you, but the spirit is the same: come, see what we have and take all that you need and make it your own! Spend less time making stuff, and more time building relationships with your students and families.
Better FAFSA, Better Future
Jesse had the opportunity to participate in the National College Attainment Network's Better FAFSA Train-the-Trainer Summit last week. The summit focused on the implementation of FAFSA® simplification, which incorporates provisions from the amended Fostering Undergraduate Talent by Unlocking Resources for Education Act (FUTURE Act) and the FAFSA Simplification Act. This marks the first major redesign of the FAFSA system in more than four decades.
Here are some key takeaways from the summit to help you prepare your students and families for the new FAFSA launch in December 2023. Additionally, I'll provide various resources to keep you informed as new information becomes available.
Coaching College Counselors and Advisors
At Contigo Ed, aligned with the American School Counselor Association, we strongly believe that school counselors must “collaborate with families / teachers / administrators /community for student success”. That is precisely why we want you, as a school practitioner, coach and/or administrator, to be equipped with great questions to facilitate learning and development with your school counselors. Even if your background and experience is not in school counseling, you bring a wealth of knowledge and skill that is required for these collaborative efforts to be successful and impactful for students and families.
End-of-Year Celebrations & Appreciations
It has been an honor providing you with a variety of services this past year. We believe that our partners and clients are inherently strong, and we are here to cultivate and amplify your strengths. We deeply care about you and your communities, and we seek to lead with curiosity and humility. Your partnership means everything to us, and we would like to share some appreciations:
June — Practitioner Tips
It's graduation season! We want to thank you, counselors and advisors, for the pivotal role that you played in preparing your students and their families for this momentous event.
We suspect your campuses will be abuzz those first few weeks of June as recent graduates revisit their high school campuses to pick up official diplomas and request final transcripts. Some students might even come to campus looking for you to further discuss their postsecondary plans. If your responsibilities include assisting recent graduates with their transition, we have some tips, strategies and resources for you that are informed and inspired by the work of Benjamin L. Castleman and Lindsay C. Page in the book Summer Melt: Supporting Low-Income Students Through the Transition to College.
Here are some common challenges recent graduates encounter, and some suggestions on how to address those over the summer months:
Partner Spotlight: Corpus Christi ISD
A few weeks ago our team went down to Corpus Christi to wrap-up our Phase I project with Corpus Christi ISD (CCISD). They are a nimble team that over the last few years has put in place a number of deliberate strategies to improve the college and career readiness of their students.
EdLoC National Convening 2023
The 2023 EdLoc National Convening, held in Las Vegas last month, was a sold-out event that brought together education leaders of color to discuss innovative and actionable solutions to address the challenges facing low-income and underrepresented children and communities. The theme of the event, "Leading the Charge," reflected the urgency of the moment and the need for new approaches to dismantle systemic barriers and create sustainable change.
Partner Spotlight: EPPB
Comprised of a cross-section of city leaders representing various entities across the community – including members from the education, business, non-profit, and religious communities, EPPB’s goal is to encourage a common understanding of the educational issues and challenges facing the Permian Basin community, from “cradle to career”, and to work collaboratively to help solve these issues.