Running head: SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY PROFILE ASSIGNMENT
School and Community Profile Assignment
Shannon K. Fraser (McVey)
Seattle University
COUN 555
November 19, 2012
1

SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY PROFILE ASSIGNMENT 2
Table Of Contents
I. Demographic Information……………………………………………………… 3
II. Data Interpretation……………………………………………………………… 6
III. School Counseling Program…………………………………………………….10
IV. Strategic Elements………………………………………………………………12
V. Key Relationships……………………………………………………………….12
VI. Being Visible……………………………………………………………………14
VII. Community Mapping………………………………………………………..…17
VII. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………...18
References…………………………………………………………………………..20

SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY PROFILE ASSIGNMENT
School and Community Profile Assignment
I. Demographic Information: North Middle School (NMS), Everett WA
Graph 1: Student Ethnicity 2011. This chart was created with information from October
2011 found on the OSPI website (Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, 2012).

Graph 1
418
3
17
37
19
56
34
125
19
Graph 2: Relevant Enrollment Information (May 2012). Graph 2 was created with information found on the OSPI website (Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction).

Graph 2
Relevant Enrollment Information (May 2012)
Section 504
Transitional Bilingual
Special Education
Free/Reduced Lunch
Female
Male
Number of Students Enrolled
13
71
91
319
350
429
660

SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY PROFILE ASSIGNMENT
Graph 3: Teacher Information. Graph 3 was created with information from October
2011 found on the OSPI website (Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction).

Graph 3
Number of Classroom Teachers
Teachers with at least a Master's Degree
35
12,3
Average Years of Teaching Experience
16
Graph 4: Student Incidents Year 2012-2013 Grades 6-8. The discipline graph was formulated from information retrieved from the Learning Management System (LMS Learning
Management System, 2012).

Graph 4 Student Incidents Year 2012-2013 Grades 6-8
42
4
23
7 7
4
21
2
18
11
12
1 1
3

SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY PROFILE ASSIGNMENT
Graph 5: Reading and Math MSP Scores. The Measurement of Student Progress (MSP) scores for NMS are charted on the graphs below and reflect reading and math scores from 2009 through 2012 (Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction).
Graph 5
Reading and Math MSP Scores
5
Graph 6: 6 th
-8 th
Student Grades 2012. Graph 6 shows student grades for all classes, each student has seven classes within a school day (LMS Learning Management System).

Graph 6
1522
1289
885
472
313
A's B's C's D's F's

SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY PROFILE ASSIGNMENT 6
II. Data Interpretation a) Closure look at data charts.
In Graph 1 it is clear that the student population most represented within the school is
"White" with 417 students (Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, 2012). The second largest group of students represented is "Hispanic" with 125 students. American Indian and
Pacific Islander are the two smallest groups represented at 17 and 19 students. However, I would like to point out that this data is limited to the previous years' number count and may differ slightly in the school year of 2012-2013.
Graph 2 reflects many different aspects of the students who currently attend North
Middle School. There are 660 students enrolled at NMS and the number of students receiving
"free or reduced lunch" is 429(Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, 2012). This is well over half of the student body. The large number of "free or reduced lunch" students suggests that many of the surrounding community are struggling socioeconomically.
Graph 3 reflects some teacher information. Unfortunately with the limited amount of teacher information available Graph 3 only shows the number of teachers in the school, 35; the average years of teaching experience, 12.3 years; and the number of teachers who have at least a
Master's Degree, 16 (Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, 2012). What this Graph does not show is the ethnicity of the teachers. Teacher ethnicity would have been helpful information to include within this report. However, basing the following information with simply the author's opinion, the majority of NMS's teachers are "White". Taking this information, not backed by statistic facts but merely speculation, the majority of the students are represented ethnicity speaking by the faculty.

SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY PROFILE ASSIGNMENT 7
Graph 4 shows discipline categories. Each time a student is referred for discipline the school administration classifies the incident within different categories. As shown in the graph the highest category of incidents is "disruptive behavior" (LMS Learning Management System,
2012). The second and third most offended categories are "abusive/disrespect" and
"defiant/insubordination". If examined somewhat "loosely" the discipline categories seem similar, disruptive, disrespectful, and defiant. This would be interesting to see the incidents in more detail and further broken down to identify whether these incidents are directed towards other students, or towards teachers, on the playground, or in the classrooms. This would help define if the teachers are having classroom management issues or if students are socially having problems with their peers.
Graph 5 shows the Measurement of Student Progress (MSP) scores for the previous three years. The majority of the scores in the reading section for 2011-2012 have improved. The math scores have also shown improvement overall. Students enrolled within NMS are placed within their challenge and support reading and math classes based on these scores. Graph 6 reveals the grades of all students within all of their seven classes. The number of classes that students are receiving "A's" in are significant, 1,522 (LMS Learning Management System, 2012). However, this graph does not show a further breakdown of the grades. For instance, one student may have several "A's" or several "F's". b) Data disaggregated.
Graph 7: Number of Incidents during 2012 6 th
-8 th
. Graph 7 was created to further examine grades 6th through 8th incident tracking within NMS (LMS Learning Management
System). According to Graph 7, it is clear that the "White" students are largely responsible for

SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY PROFILE ASSIGNMENT the number of incidents within NMS. However, the "Hispanic or Latino" students also have a clear representation among most of the "incident" categories.
▪Graph 7
Total Number of Incidents "White" Students Incidents "Hispanic or Latino" Students Incidents
42
8
30
23
21
12
3
7
2
1
7
4
2
4
3
1
11
5
18
4
2
1 1
11
8
3
5
2
12
6
2
1
0 0
1
0
1
3
2
1
Graph 8: Letter Grades According to Ethnicity 6 th
-8 th
2012. This Graph shows a closer look at grades according to ethnic categories for NMS grades 6th through 8th for the 2012 school year (LMS Learning Management System). There seems to be a very high number of "F's"

SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY PROFILE ASSIGNMENT 9 within the "Black or African American", "Asian", and "American Indian" ethnic groups compared to their enrollment numbers.

Graph 8
Letter Grades According to Ethnicity 6th-8th 2012
1200
1000
800
600
400
200
0
"White"
"Hispanic or Latino"
"Native or Hawaiian"
"Black or African American"
"Asian"
"American Indian"
"A's"
1050
214
34
54
85
19
"B's"
803
208
44
79
50
34
"C's"
498
189
42
58
33
14
"D's"
267
105
21
35
9
17
"F's"
199
58
10
20
12
24 c) Interventions.
According to the above desegregated data there needs to be school wide interventions and preventions put in place to help decrease the discipline frequency. It also would benefit NMS to conduct more research on incident details such as, location and which teachers are having the most incident occurrences within their classrooms.
In regards to student grades the number of "D's" and "F's" are alarmingly high in all of the populations with lower enrollment numbers. It seems an intervention for this dilemma could be more impactful by using a targeted approach; such as, lunch time or after school study groups that are geared more towards cultural groups. Forming clubs or teaching lesson plans that teach diversity could help develop or encourage pride within the student body overall. If the school

SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY PROFILE ASSIGNMENT 10 could encourage the involvement of student families and their communities it could help build cultural strength.
III. School Counseling Program a) School Counseling Program Implementation Survey (SCPIS).
After reviewing the results of the survey it is apparent that the majority of the counseling effort goes into reactive instead of preventative. There are many contributing factors of why this may be happening, but based on the results of the survey and the discussion after the survey, the most relevant contributing factor seems to be the lack of collaboration among the counselors.
The department is split between three counselors and two of those counselors job share with one another. The full time counselor has access to both part time counselors, but the part time counselors are expected to communicate with one another and work together sharing case loads, yet, they are never at work at the same time. The question of how the SCPIS led to this conclusion was reflected in the counselor's answers. b) The gaps.
The SCPIS revealed that the mission statement of the counseling department is out of date and only exists through the district. All three counselors rarely meet together on the same day, thus making a formulation of a counseling department mission statement specific to NMS a rather low priority. "Needs Assessments are completed regularly" and "guide program planning" also scored low on the SCPIS. The three counselors have a guidance program that they are all familiar with and tend to stick with to make the lessons consistent. The Healthy Youth Survey results of the 2011 and 2012 school year are not available to the counselors because the drug and alcohol counselor who used to work at NMS took the results with her. There are definite gaps within the school's counseling department but these gaps are not irreversible.

SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY PROFILE ASSIGNMENT 11 c) Program strengths.
North Middle School counseling department has many strengths. The school counselors are not asked to supervise the lunch room or recess. The principal and assistant principal are in charge of lunch supervision making it possible for the counselors to maximize their time and stick to their "actual duties". The department is also very good at consistently looking at data to analyze student data by demographics to help close the achievement gaps. The department is careful to consider students case by case and offer additional services, testing, and uses creative problem solving to help students advance successfully. d) Recommendations.
To improve the functioning of the counseling department I would be curious to see how a mandatory monthly meeting for the counselors would impact the department. The meeting could be for discussing new ideas for guidance units, running groups, and developing student surveys/needs assessments. The monthly meeting could also help with department morale and overall synergy of the department. e) Results of SCPIS shared.
Sharing the results of the survey and my recommendations with my supervisor brought on a discussion about job sharing. We talked about some the positive aspects of job sharing: self-care, family needs, and shared responsibility. We also talked about the drawbacks of job sharing: lack of communication, difference in opinions, organizational differences, miscommunication, missing ideal days of the week (meeting days, collaboration days), and an overall lack of collaboration and opportunities to meet face to face with the job share partner.
My supervisor firmly agreed with the idea of having a day once a month for all the counselors to come together and meet, but she posed the questions of who/how would the time

SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY PROFILE ASSIGNMENT 12 be paid for and which counselor would give up their day/hours. Overall she loved the thought of being able to have a collaboration meeting with all the counselors but seemed doubtful of getting it approved and making it happen (J. Eggers, personal communication, November 8, 2012).
IV. Strategic Elements
The mission statement of North Middle school is found on their website:
We, at North Middle School, believe that developing a sense of belonging and forming closer, more positive relationships will create a safer social and emotional environment for staff, students, and their families. We believe that implementing an integrated standards-based curriculum will lead to higher academic achievement. (North Middle School, 2012)
North Middle School has early release on Fridays which allows for "school improvement days" for teachers and staff. This time is used for NMS staff to come together and collaborate on ideas and plans. Counselors are also encouraged to join in on collaboration groups. However, the job share counselors are limited because one counselor works on Fridays and the other does not. The school innovation and improvement plan are focused on "learning targets", "lesson plan instructions", and "classroom practices". One of the focuses within the School Improvement
Plan is to use assessment data to drive classroom instruction (M. O'Brien, personal communication, October 23, 2012).
V. Key Relationships
North Middle School (NMS) seems to have a fairly good relationship with both the parents and the community. Many parents are contacted by administration, counselors, and teachers on an ongoing basis. Parents also appear to feel comfortable accessing school staff and programs. The school also has a good relationship with the surrounding community. The school

SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY PROFILE ASSIGNMENT 13 allows a church to use the school grounds to hold their services; in exchange the church provides non-perishable food for NMS's "backpack program". The program provides students whose families are in need with a backpack full of food that they pick up from the office every Friday.
In my opinion, this helps to foster the school and community's relationship along with the school and parent relationships.
The staff and administrators' relationship appears to be improving. The principal is new to NMS this year and seems to be gaining the trust of the staff members. She respects the staff and the staff returns her respect. The counselors work closely with both the principal and assistant principal. Counselors at NMS work closely with many of the teachers. The counselors are attempting to push teachers to be more comfortable in contacting parents directly.
"Diffusion of innovation is a theory that describes how, why, and at what rate innovations become adopted by an organization or group of people" (Ratts & Wood, 2011, p. 208). The
"innovators", the people who tend to be actively seeking new ideas, within NMS are the principal, vice principal, and two of the school counselors. It is my opinion that the two well respected school counselors seem to be the "early adopters", or the people who are sought out for their ideas and opinions from many other school staff members. The "early majority" and the
"late majority" at NMS are not quite as obvious; however, I believe that many of the school teaching staff falls within these two categories. Many of the teachers seem unsure of change but do not want to be seen as so and will likely go along if the majority of the group does. The
"laggards", people who are not easily swayed and who resist, at NMS are very obvious. At this point I can only identify one "laggard" this particular teacher sent out staff-wide emails speaking out against teacher cuts and class changes when our school budget cut required us to collapse seven classes.

SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY PROFILE ASSIGNMENT 14
Child Protective Services, Compass Health, and Catholic Community Services are the most frequently used agencies for supporting youth at NMS. The School works very closely with all of these agencies to try and help families and decrease stressful home life and those struggling with mental health. Interestingly, the agencies that are most used are "reactive" services meant for people who are dealing with certain stresses and traumas rather than agencies that help prevent or provide safe alternatives such as the YMCA or other after school youth programs.
VI. Being Visible

At the beginning of the year on August 27, 2012 the principal and assistant principal held a collaboration meeting to help establish and re-define school rules and discipline actions. The last portion of this meeting was to plan the school's orientation.

August 28, 2012 I attended the orientation for 6th graders. During this orientation I was to greet families and provide assistance with questions and help with the rotation of students and families to the different speakers.

On August 30, 2012 I attended a school wide meeting discussing school policies, goals, and team building among the staff members.

Also on August 30, 2012 I went to a Harassment/Intimidation/Bullying training was held at
NMS. During this meeting communication policies were also identified and discussed.

October 9, 2012 I was part of a parent teacher conference discussing the math readiness of a student. The meeting consisted of parents, the student, and the counselors.

A Learning Improvement Action Team meeting was held on October 23, 2012 to outline and discuss teaching strategies and goals for meeting the MSP score goals.

SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY PROFILE ASSIGNMENT 15

A Becca Bill meeting was held for the principals and attendance coordinator on October 29,
2012 to discuss truancy and the policy of letters being sent out to parents. A question that surfaced during that meeting was how to handle students who have multiple "excused absences". Specific students were reviewed and the next steps were outlined.

On October 30, and November 1, 2012 I attended parent teacher conferences. The conferences were held in the school gym with tables set up for each teacher. The parents and their students were able to visit with teachers one on one to discuss their child's progress.
This provided a prime opportunity to introduce myself to the parents of students I had been working with. The conference was not only a good opportunity for me to be seen by parents and students, but also by other teachers who I had not yet had interactions with.

On November 1st I attended a district held meeting for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics ( STEM ) . The meeting explained STEM in "real world" terms saying that
STEM helps with building a learning foundation that helps students with problem solving and critical thinking. The meeting gave me an opportunity to see and meet other counselors and administrators within the school district. The STEM meeting was set up round table and was intended for counselors and school administrators to use the time to speak up and advocate for their department and school needs.

I have attended Student Intervention Team (SIT) meetings since the beginning of the school year. These meetings are meant to help identify students who are struggling in different ways and who are in need of strategies to help them be successful.

From the beginning of the school year I have also attended Multi Disciplinary Team (MDT) meetings to discuss Individualized Education Program (IEP) needs for specific students who are referred to the team.

SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY PROFILE ASSIGNMENT 16

I have also entered classrooms weekly for observation and brief "drop-ins" for various reasons and tasks. I plan on continuing to do so along with participating in guidance lessons during the end of November and in the month of December.

SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY PROFILE ASSIGNMENT 17
VII. Community Mapping a) C ommunity agencies serving the students in the school or their families:
Child Protective
Services
North Sound Mental
Health
Administration
Catholic
Community
Services
Care Crisis
Response Services
(Volunteers of
America)
Providence
Intervention Center for Assault & Abuse
WA State Children
/Family Services
Columbia Legal
Services
Compass Health
Operation School
Bell (Assistance
League of Everett)
National Resource
Center on ADHD http://www.dshs.wa.gov/ http://www.ccsww.org http://www.voaww.org/Get-
Help/Emergency-Mental-Health-
Services http://washington.providence.org/ho spitals/regional-medicalcenter/services/assault-abuse/ http://www.columbialegal.org/index
.php http://www.compasshealth.org/ http://assistanceleagueofeverett.org/ operation_schoolbell.html http://www.help4adhd.org/
425-339-3900 (Everett) Child safety http://www.nsmha.org/default.aspx 888-693-7200
800-584-3578
425-252-4800 http://www.dshs.wa.gov/mentoring/ 360-902-7797
206-464-1122 (Seattle
Office)
425-349-7300
425-252-3011
1-800-233-4050
Mental Health
Services
Advocates for vulnerable populations
Emergency
Mental Health
Services
Sexual Assault
Youth Mentor
Program
Defends lowincome people
Mental Health
Clothing for
Students K-12
ADHD
Information
United Way of
Snohomish County http://www.uwsc.org/ 425-274-5500
Helps families and communities
Big Brothers/Big
Sisters http://www.bbbs-snoco.org/ 4 25-252-2227 (Everett) Mentor Program
Boys & Girls Club
Cocoon House
YMCA
SeaMAR
Providence
Children's Center http://bgcsc.org/ http://www.cocoonhouse.org/ http://www.ymca-snoco.org/ http://www.seamarchc.org/
425-258-2436
425-259-6042
425-258-9211 (Everett)
425-347-5415
425-258-7311
Youth Support
Programs
Homeless Youth
Support
Youth Support
Programs
Counseling
May contact center for resource lists and information

SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY PROFILE ASSIGNMENT 18 b) How the school is currently using community resources to help students:
Child Protective Services (CPS), Catholic Community Services, and Operation School
Bell are three common resources that North Middle School partners with to help students and their families. Child Protective Services works closely with the counselors at NMS and has a good relationship with the administrators. CPS also partners with the tribal social workers when a student who is Native American is referred to them. When parents of students need help CPS can help to better direct the counselors and parents towards services and resources fitting the student's needs.
Catholic Community Services is often used by families who are in need of counseling.
They offer help with a wide range of services within individual counseling and family counseling needs. Typically, good things are said about their services. The counselors at NMS have worked in collaboration with the counselors at Catholic Community Services to try and better serve students' mental health needs. Catholic Community Services is usually the agency that counselors at North Middle School will suggest to parents who are looking for outside counseling resources.
Operation School Bell is an agency that is solely funded through volunteer work, donations, and money made from The Assistance League of Everett Thrift Store . Operation
School Bell serves 14 school districts in Snohomish County and is set up for students by the school representatives. Our school has many students who utilize this program providing them with all types of clothing including undergarments and hygiene products. Clothing seems to be an issue for many students at North Middle School and the students who benefit from the program appreciate the service. Operation School Bell is also set up so that the parents of students are not directly involved with the selecting of clothing for their child, but students seem

SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY PROFILE ASSIGNMENT 19 to enjoy the adult-like experience of shopping and choosing their clothing with a Operation
School Bell personal shopper. c) Step-by-step plan for using resources to improve student achievement:
Child Protective Services has many other services and offers several different family resources, such as, Family Services. Family Services helps to reconcile families and problem solve with parents and children. The first step would be to understand all the different resources that CPS has to offer families. The second step is for me to become comfortable and confident contacting CPS for referrals and when I have CPS related questions. Another step is to help empower families to personally contact CPS directly when they have a need or a question. The misconception that any involvement with CPS will result in a automatic removal of a child from the home should be alleviated when appropriate. It is the hope that working with CPS will help keep students safe and could possibly decrease their stress/anxiety levels within their homes.
I am also eager to learn more about Catholic Community Services. Before referring families to this agency, I need to first visit it for myself. Some parents have resisted when counselors at NMS have suggested using this agency. Therefore, it would benefit me to properly describe the agency and the staff by seeing firsthand who and where I am referring families to. I would like to make connections with some of the Catholic Community staff members so that I could collaborate with them in the future. Another step to take would be to better understand their billing methods so I can clearly explain it to parents when asked about costs and billing.
Operation School Bell is coordinated through our main office receptionist only. As a step, I will be more direct when talking to students about their clothing needs. It is important that students have shoes and clothes that are fitting them correctly and are appropriate for current weather conditions. Although many students can become embarrassed when the subject of

SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY PROFILE ASSIGNMENT 20 money, food, or clothes is broached, I still think it can and should be talked about in a private setting. Clothing should not be a distracting factor that inhibits education. If a simple solution such as a few new clothing pieces in a child's wardrobe will help academic and social performance, than that seems to be one of the easier problems to solve.
VIII. Conclusion a) Strengths of the school.
North Middle School has many strengths. The staff overall is open to new ideas and is moving towards collecting data and improving school practices. The school also has a strong connection to the surrounding community and draws from those connections. NMS seems to be benefiting from having a new principal this year. The staff has openly accepted her and responds well to her new ideas and recent changes. Roles and expectations are clear when it comes to job responsibility and duties making it a strength for counselors to have more one on one student time. b) Gaps.
Some “gaps” or areas of opportunity within the school is the lack of after school programs, classes are extremely full due to teacher cuts, and the lack of school elective classes. To connect these “gaps” with the previous charts I would need to collect more data, however I do think there may be a correlation to student grades. c) Areas to Advocate.
I believe that the students need someone to advocate for change to create more elective and
“hands on” classes. I also feel that more after school programs should be explored to see if it could help with grades, discipline, and overall school climate. Of course to advocate in these areas more data would need to be collected and grants for funding would need to be researched.

SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY PROFILE ASSIGNMENT 21
In conclusion I have found that there needs to be a better safety-net in place for students who are struggling with their grades. More data collection to help identify areas of opportunity within the smaller populations within the school could clarify what needs to be put in place to help students raise their grades. More detailed data collected within the discipline areas may also reveal a need for school-wide lesson plans or interventions to minimize incidents throughout the school. Without detailed discipline data collection needs are unclear and solutions will remain unattainable. It has been valuable to consider who the "innovators" and "early adapters" are along with the "laggards". In reflecting on who the allies are within a school it may help to initiate new ideas and be able to forecast the possible challenges. It is important as a school counselor to work with colleagues and identify resources within families and communities, while introducing data to promote change when needed.

SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY PROFILE ASSIGNMENT 22
References
LMS Learning Management System. (2012). Everett public school district.
Retrieved from http://www.everett.k12.wa.us/everett/
North Middle School. (2012). Mission statement . Retrieved from http://www.everett.k12.wa.us/north/Home
Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. (2012). Washington state report card: Everett school district, north middle school . Retrieved from http://reportcard.ospi.k12.wa.us/summary.aspx?groupLevel=District&schoolId=2420&re portLevel=School&orgLinkId=2420&yrs=&year=2011-12
Ratts, M. J., & Wood, C. (2011). The fierce urgency of now: Diffusion of innovation as a mechanism to integrate social justice in counselor education. Counselor Education &
Supervision , 50 (3), 207-223.
Retrieved from EBSCO host .

SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY PROFILE ASSIGNMENT 23