A Manitowoc Public School District counselor has been given an award from the Wisconsin School Counselor Association (WSCA).
Tara Bruckner was given the Program of Promise Award, which is the highest recognition of a data-driven, comprehensive school counseling program that you can get, according to Monroe Elementary School Principal Angela Parduhn.
Bruckner told the board on Tuesday (March 10th) about what she did to earn the award, including interventions to help students.
She says she looks at three datapoints beyond what she does and how many people she’s met at a school.
“I also look at how much I’m impacting their skills, abilities, and knowledge on our standards,” she explained. “And then I take it one step further, and I look at the outcome data, which is the most important piece that everyone wants to see.”
Bruckner is looking at how helping students can impact their test scores, attendance, and discipline.
If she doesn’t get the data she wants, she explained that she looks at what she can do to help change a group’s mind to ultimately improve their test scores.
She gave one example of her helping a group of nineteen students who were not growing from one quarter to another. After working with the group, that number was down to five.
She also talked about working with a group of elementary boys who were causing trouble on the playground during recess.
“We grabbed fourteen of those students,” she described. “We did not only a group of how to do conflict resolution, but individual counseling and check-ins and check-outs at the end of the day because they were our students that needed the most wrap-around work.”
The MPSD board gave Bruckner a round of applause. She’s been working in school counseling for eighteen years.
