A new school counseling curriculum?
Marathon officials to discuss options with potential vote this week
During a special meeting last Wednesday, the Marathon School Board heard from district counselors and administration about counseling curriculum options.
At this time, the district is reviewing its counseling lessons for grades kindergarten through eighth. Ultimately, the decision is between two programs, Second Step and CharacterStrong, which both have pros and cons, according to officials.
The district is currently utilizing Second Step curriculum at the elementary level. At this time, counselors do not have digital access to the programming for middle school students and the books are becoming outdated. If the district purchased the latest curriculum, as well as the kits used for grades kindergarten through fifth, the initial cost would be between $6,000 and $12,000, depending on the length of the license and add-ons, with upkeep costs being around $2,000 per year.
According to Nathalie Bonilla, a district counselor, some of the benefits of Second Step are its bully prevention and child protection units. However, there are no premade presentations for counselors to use, meaning counselors require more time to prep and the Spanish version can be more difficult to teach alongside the English version without the preset options.
The Second Step program includes four units for kindergarten through fifth grade — growth mindset and goal setting; emotion management; empathy and kindness; problem solving. Each unit has five 15-20 minute lessons for kindergarteners and first graders and 25-30 minute lessons for students in grades second through fifth. The last lesson of each unit is a performance task for students to demonstrate what they’ve learned.
As for the middle schoolers, Second Step contains four units — mindsets and goals; recognizing bullying and harassment; thoughts, emotions and decisions; managing relationships and social conflict. Each piece has six or seven 25-minute lessons and the overall program offers nearly 200 advisory activities, such as class challenges and service learning projects.
CharacterStrong, which is used by some neighboring districts according to Bonilla, includes digital lessons with constructed slideshows with videos, activities and discussions. The program has 35 lessons for each grade level and offers the slides and videos in both Spanish and English.
Grades fifth and lower focus on three overall topics — be kind (social skills, conflict resolution, respect, empathy and cooperation); be strong (executive functioning, focusing, organizing, goal setting, responsibility, perseverance and courage); be well (wellness strategies, emotion regulation, gratitude, honesty and creativity). The CharacterStrong curriculum offers educators flexibility by allowing them to present in one 45-60 minute weekly session, deliver one component per day for 1020 minutes or adjust lessons to meet scheduling needs.
Students in grades six to eight would receive the curriculum in 30-minute weekly lessons. With interactive Google slides, the targeted outcomes for those lessons are engagement, belonging and well-being.
The cost to offer CharacterStrong to grades kindergarten through eighth would be $7,000 for the initial licenses, plus $2,000 yearly. During the meeting, Bonilla went over some of the benefits of the program, which include how it has premade lessons, saving counselors prep time, and the advantage of being able to teach English and Spanish speakers within the same presentation. However, CharacterStrong does not include a specific bullying prevention unit and its lessons can take longer.
Both Bonilla and Emily Schiller, another district counselor, said their preference is CharacterStrong. Bonilla talked about having to prepare presentations for Second Step programming at home, because while at school, she’s usually in classrooms or meeting with students. CharacterStrong’s prepared materials would help eliminate the extra time needed to assemble lessons. Schiller said she saw the dual language lessons as a strong benefit to the program. Ryan McCain, principal of the elementary and middle schools, said CharacterStrong seems like it would give staff more time with students, which he views as an important factor.
“One of the things we’re seeing is an increased need for them supporting our kids,” McCain said. “So if the content is there and the planning piece is taken off their plate, that gives them more time.”
Board members and staff briefly discussed how if CharacterStrong was approved, counselors could tie in units not included in its program, such as bullying and safe touch lessons, from Second Step’s offerings.
No action on the programming was taken at last week’s meeting. The agenda for the board’s regular meeting on February 8 includes a potential vote on which curriculum to approve.
