School Counseling Program Updates

Hello Team!

We’re thrilled to kick off our very first Educator Network Day—bringing together our amazing Counselors and Student Success Staff! 🎉

📍 Where: High Desert Middle School Cafeteria
🗓️ When: October 8th from 2:30-4:00 pm

For those on an elementary schedule, any hours beyond your contract will be time-sheeted.

During our time together, we’ll:
✨ Continue strengthening our Continuum of Care work
✨ Dive into a practical framework for Tier 2 & Tier 3 interventions
✨ Connect and collaborate across roles to grow our Student Services network

And this is just the beginning! Over the course of the year, we’ll be expanding our collaboration:

• January 21: K–12 Counselors and CSCP Work

• March 4 & April 15: K–12 Counselors, SSC/SSI, Psychologists, and OTs

We can’t wait to see you there and keep building this powerful network of support for our students!

Josh Marks will be leading a training session for both new and returning 504 Case Managers and 504 Coordinators.

📅 Please hold: Friday, October 17

⏰ The training will likely be a two-hour block—final details and exact timing will be shared soon by Josh.

Topics will include:

• 504 Overview
• Manifestation Determination
• Accommodations vs. Modifications—what’s appropriate and needed
• Cell Phones and Earbuds
• Synergy Notes
• Exit/Concurrent Process
• And more!

Thank you to our MS ICCL, Brettney, for creating this video!

Reminder: Postvention

If you receive information on the death of a staff or student, please reach out immediately to your administrator. Administrators will call district administration for verification and to activate next steps in best practice postvention response.

Reminder: Student Safe

• Always log your call home and lethal means conversation with parent/caregivers (first box on the C-SSRS Screener).

• Final step: Edit the assessment, change from “active” to “closed”, and change the assessment severity to match the student’s final answer on the C-SSRS screener.

• No Suicidal Ideation: All No Answers

• Suicide Ideation - Thoughts: Yes to 1 and/or 2 (Safety Plan Best Practice)

• Suicide Ideation with some Intent - no specific plan: Yes to 3 and/or 4 (Safety Plan Required)

• Suicide Ideation with Plan and Intent: Yes to 5 and/or 6 (Safety Plan Required)

Update: Suicide Prevention Training for SY 25-26

Unless you have received an email from Jamie that you are due for ASIST or CALM, this year’s training is Safety Planning for Youth Suicide Prevention. Reach out to Jamie with questions.

Have questions or need assistance?

Reach out to Jamie Gunter, Suicide Prevention Coordinator

Cell: 541-728-8281

jamie.gunter@bend.k12.or.us

For the 2025–26 school year, we recommend not completing a school-wide needs assessment by school counselors. Between Synergy’s Early Warning System (EWS), Wayfinder’s Waypoints Assessment, and our Request for Assistance (RFA) process, we should already have sufficient data to identify students who may need additional targeted support from school counselors.

If, after consultation with your administrative team, you determine that an additional needs assessment is still necessary, please connect with Jennifer Hauth and Jess Calbreath before moving forward.

Requirements and Resources if Proceeding with a Needs Assessment

If your school chooses to administer a needs assessment, please follow the guidelines and best practices listed on this document.

As we begin the process of completing the CSCP School Planning Document, some key items are on the docket for the start of the year: the Annual Calendar, Tier 1 and 2 SMARTIE Goals, and the Annual Administrative Conference.

We encourage you to schedule your Annual Administrative Conference with your building administrator early this fall. This dedicated time allows us to align on counseling priorities, clarify expectations, and strengthen our collaboration in support of our school community. By engaging in this partnership, we can ensure a consistent, equitable counseling program that empowers every BLS student to thrive.

Looking ahead, continue refining your Annual Calendar and drafting your Tier 1 and Tier 2 SMARTIE goals so you’re ready to collaborate with your colleagues. On October 9 (END), we’ll have dedicated time to keep moving forward on the CSCP Planning Template and work with your level teams on Tier 1 and Tier 2 program implementation.

Resources:

• High School CSCP Curriculum

• Agreements

• Visual

• High School Student Support Responsibilities by role

• Middle CSCP School Curriculum

• Agreements

• Visual

• Elementary School CSCP Curriculum

• In Progress Plan

• Educational Plan and Profile

• School CSCP Program Plan Document (each school must submit by May 2026)

• Annual Administrative-Counselor Agreement.

• SMARTIE goals and outcome planning, can be used as SLGGs

• Tier 1 Template

• Tier 2 Template

• Annual Calendar

• Example: Secondary & Elementary

• ASCA Calendar Template

This year, we’re excited to introduce the new Activity Tracker in Synergy as a way to capture and elevate the incredible work school counselors are doing every day. Instead of logging student conferences, this new tool will allow you to document your interactions with students—whether it’s through responsive services, individual planning, consultation with staff and families, or intervention and support groups. Even better, it’s super easy to use and fully connects with the MTSS data module, creating a seamless link between the counseling work you’re doing and the larger system of student support across our schools.

One important shift is that classroom lessons will now live on your CSCP School Plan rather than in the Activity Tracker. This means your focus in the tracker will be on capturing individual and small-group work, along with the meaningful consultation you provide in collaboration with staff and families.

The best part? All of this information will be housed in the MTSS module and reflected on the Student Timeline and MTSS EWS reports—providing valuable insights into student needs and progress. Don’t worry, this data will only be visible to counselors and administrators, ensuring it remains a professional tool for strengthening our support systems. And with analytics currently being built, we’ll soon have powerful new ways to review and use this data to inform programming and highlight the impact of our counseling work.

Here is the document that shows the flow/clicks in Synergy.

Support Document to help figure out what activities/programming goes where.

BLS Financial Aid Night is right around the corner (October 22nd), and we need your help getting the word out consistently over the next few weeks!

This year’s event will look a little different—and we’re excited about the updates:

✅ One main event for all families
✅ Live interpretation for the main event is already arranged
✅ Local college financial aid experts will present tips and answer questions about FAFSA, OSAC, and ORSAA
✅ Seniors & their families are the primary audience, but all are welcome to attend and learn
✅ BLS Counselors and School-to-Career staff will be available to connect about ongoing scholarship and financial aid support

📌 Follow-Up Support at Each School

Each school will host:

• In-school FAFSA/ORSAA/OSAC workshops/support for students, and
• A separate evening workshop for families, held before financial aid deadline

📣 What We Need from You

Please help by:

1. Consistently promoting the main Financial Aid Night in newsletters, announcements, and social media.
2. Sharing details about both your in-school student workshops and your evening family workshop at the BLS Financial Aid Night on October 22nd.
3. For your follow-up workshops (not the main event):
• Translate materials / handouts
• Arrange interpretation through Linguist Link

✅ No need to schedule an interpreter for the main BLS Financial Aid Night—we’ve already taken care of that with the live translation services!

You’ll find a blurb here to include in your communications. The more we advertise, the more families we can support in accessing financial aid 😊

Thanks for helping make this a successful LCR event!

📝 Senior Graduation Plans – Tier 1 Expectation

As outlined in our counselor agreements, it’s critical that all seniors have an updated graduation plan documented and shared with parents/guardians.

• This is a Tier 1, core programming expectation to ensure every student has a clear plan to meet graduation requirements.

• These plans should also reflect postsecondary goals (college, career, military, apprenticeships, etc.).

Sharing these plans with families helps strengthen communication, align expectations, and ensure students are on track.

📌 Common App Changes & Updates

The Common Application has rolled out a new look and feel this year, with changes in both navigation and section layouts.

👉 Watch this overview video to see all of the updates: Common App 2025 Updates

👉 Check out this slide deck to outline updated look and feel to the Common Application

💡 Pro Tips:

• Create a cheat sheet for your students with FAQs and quick steps. This will save you time and can also be used to structure college application workshops and flex sessions.

• Share the BLS Common App & Non-Common App Basics + SchooLinks Guide – a helpful document that supports students and families in understanding the flow between college applications and SchooLinks. This resource makes the connection between application submission and school documents clearer and easier to follow.

🌟 UC Application Resources

For students applying to the University of California system, check out these helpful tools:

• Slide Decks from the UC Counselor Conference

• Counselors website and the Counselor Resource Library
  

• 2025 Quick Reference Guide to UC Admissions: A comprehensive overview of UC admission requirements and policies.

• "Presenting yourself on the UC application" presentation: A detailed, section-by-section overview of the UC application for first-year applicants.

🏫 National College Match (QuestBridge)

The National College Match, run by QuestBridge, is a program that connects high-achieving, low-income students with early admission and full four-year scholarships to top colleges across the country.

• 📅 Deadline: Tuesday, September 30
  

• Why so early? The process allows QuestBridge and partner colleges to review applications in full, including essays, recommendations, and transcripts, while giving students time to prepare for their next steps.
  

• ✅ Who should apply?
  

• High-achieving students (often top 5–10% of their class)

• Students from low-income backgrounds or who may qualify for significant financial aid

• Students who are ready to commit to a highly selective college if matched

Key Resources:

• QuestBridge National College Match Overview

• Dates and deadlines

• Why is the National College Match so early?

• Are transcripts required to apply?
  
  

👉 Counselors, please encourage qualified students to apply and submit referrals, so QuestBridge can reach out directly with more support.

💰 Financial Aid Updates

• College Cost Net Price Calculator – Explore true college costs.

• Financial Aid Toolkit

2026–27 FAFSA Prototype

The Department of Education has released a prototype tool to help families preview the FAFSA experience before the form officially launches.
This tool allows you to:

• Start a new application (student or parent)

• • Resume an in-progress application

  • Explore common corrections (missing data, voluntary updates, missing signatures, etc.)

  
  

  🙌 Final Note

Welcome back! The Oregon Public Universities Counselor Conference dates and locations are set, offering you an in-person opportunity to hear what's happening at the eight Oregon public universities. There will also be updates regarding FAFSA changes and you will hear about new opportunities and updates from OSAC. As usual we will be hosting lunch and providing some great campus giveaways to lucky attendees!

Southern Oregon University (Ashland) – October 14, 2025
OSU-Cascades (Bend) – October 15, 2025
Western Oregon University (Monmouth) – October 21, 2025
University of Oregon (Eugene) – October 22, 2025

On behalf of all OPU campus Admission Directors, we hope to see you at one of the Fall 2025 conferences.

• Reminder: Please update your school profile for the 2025-26 school year and upload to SchooLinks. Once you have those completed, please send me (Jess) a link to your profile. We will be sharing with communications as they are in process of building our new website.
• If you need support with changing the PDF (it should be editable) please contact Michael Asher at the Print Shop. He created each school’s template and can update it, if needed.
• If you have any curriculum updates that impact students course progression or meeting of a requirement, please make sure you include those details on school profiles as most colleges rely on that information when looking at transcripts.

Here is a quick reference chart for the tasks/documents we are expected to complete. Please let me or Sally know if you have any questions! Tasks and Timeline Elementary School Counselors

We will talk about these often at our PLC’s, so do not stress too much about them. 😊

All elementary counselors should have access to the following curriculum resources at their school site:

• Kelso’s Curriculum – puppets and online lessons

• Zones of Regulation – online access

• Little Spot Series – books and squishies

📌 Important reminders:

• If you switched schools, the curriculum set for your original site should remain at that site.

• If you are returning, please double-check that you can still log into your Zones of Regulation and Kelso’s Curriculum accounts (we’ve renewed them for this year).

• If you are new or notice that your site is missing any of the sets, please reach out to Jess, Sally, or Lilly so we can track things down and make sure you have the resources you need.