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.
Director of Professional Learning
We are pleased to announce Jesse Carrillo as our new Director of Professional Learning here at Contigo Ed. Jesse joined the Contigo Ed team in January 2022 as a Program Manager. In one short year, we’ve experienced significant growth that has necessitated an evolution of our work.
March — Practitioner Tips
ALL of the resources listed below are currently available online. Here is a suggested pacing guide for six weeks worth of learning and advising.
Team Retreat: Houston
Recently, our team had the opportunity to come together in Houston for a retreat to revisit our goals, learn new skills, and strengthen our team dynamic. Since we work remotely from all over the country, it is important that we build in time to be in community throughout the year. The retreat was a great success, and it left us all feeling energized and excited about the future of Contigo Ed!
CCMR Accountability Updates
There are a few CCMR Accountability changes coming to our Texas districts that we wanted to share.
Partner Spotlight: El Paso
During the past few months, we have had the honor and privilege of partnering with three districts in El Paso, TX - Canutillo ISD, El Paso ISD and Socorro ISD.
February - Practitioner Tips
We’ve recently updated our Aspiration to Action course to include audio summaries of each microcourse! Even better, they’re recorded by Consultant, Tenesha Villanueva!
New partners in Houston & San Antonio
We are excited to share that we are kicking off work with a number of districts in the Houston and San Antonio area.
Economic Mobility Systems
We are partnering with EMS in two of our partner districts, Aldine ISD and Ector County ISD, to support our partners in building out data systems that track and visualize college and career readiness data in real-time.
January - Practitioner Tips
As you start to plan for the new calendar year, we’ve curated a set of resources for you to start the new year strong with your Juniors. These FREE resources include learning and practice for you as a practitioner and ready-made resources like Lesson Plans, Handouts and PowerPoints for you to use with your students.