ETHOS • FALL 2020
The use of Google Meets allows the E.S. counselor to stay connected with students in an effort to continue counseling sessions virtually. The E.S. Counselor can provide live face-to-face brief counseling. In addition, the virtual counseling session allows for student weekly checkins. The Brief Counseling session is scheduled on a planned/agreed day and set time. Some of the challenges experienced thus far have been: Parents are needed to facilitate/initiate the virtual session as a result of the technical issues that may arise. This sometimes adds another task/responsibility on the parent.
Guiding And Supporting Our Students
Finally, I’ve particularly enjoyed our daily student services check-ins with our counseling team. One can easily see the quality of service and guidance our students receive. As a member of this department, I appreciate the discussion/dialogue of the K-12 counseling initiatives that our team delivers. In addition, our plan to attend to our student services team’s well-being is an important initiative. I look forward to hearing how we can support each other as we experience these challenging times of social distancing. Demetri Pelides, Elementary School Counselor
by the Office of Student Affairs
D
uring the lockdown and the Virtual transition, the Office of Student Affairs continued to function and provide support for both of our students and faculty alike. In particular, our weekly scheduled meetings for all Faculty and Staff with our school Psychologist Mr. Manos Kougioumtzoglou were a big success. Regularly scheduled meetings between students and counselors transitioned fully to the online platform, whether through our Counseling Moodle shell or through a Google Meets session. In the Middle School, we were also able to reinstitute an advisory session within the Middle School virtual schedule. In the Academy, the 4-year academic plans transitioned fully in an online setting, giving the counselors the opportunity to meet with each and every 9th grade student and their family. Some of the highlights from each aspect of the Student Affairs department are listed below:
This past week and a half, the virtual journey for the MS counselor consisted of continuous virtual meetings with administration, teachers, and numerous parents. The students that were on my regularly scheduled week load resumed with weekly virtual sessions. Also started brainstorming on reinstating an advisory session in the middle school virtual schedule with fellow teachers and principal, and finalizing the course selections for the entire 5th grade, including a video presentation sent out to those families. Stelios Kalogridakis, Middle School Counselor
