Letter going home to 4th grade

Dear Families,

I would like to briefly introduce myself, let you know about the counseling services available at Summitt Elementary and outline guidance plans. This will be my 6th year at Summitt (YaHOO!). I am a certified school counselor with a Master’s degree in counseling from Texas State University. I have been a counselor for 12 years, 5 years in Middle School, one year as a Positive Behavior specialist and 6 years in elementary. I am currently part of the AISD counselor leadership team where I support counselors throughout the district.

Counseling services are in 4 categories; Guidance curriculum, Individual Planning, Responsive services and System Support. With the Guidance curriculum, I work with all the students in the classroom and the lessons are designed based on the needs of the grade level. For individual planning, I attend academic meetings and provide support services. Responsive services include individual counseling, group counseling, community outreach and crisis intervention. Finally, System Support includes training staff on how and when to report suspected abuse, teacher/administration consultation and professional development. I also chair No Place For Hate, Red Ribbon Week and No Name Calling Week. I am the coordinator for 504 and the STAAR test. I assist with arrival and I am an expert in tying shoes.

Starting the week of September 24, I will be going into every 4th grade classroom to teach and connect with every student. We will be learning about the brain, executive function skills, learning styles and self-regulation. I will be meeting with them once a week for 6 weeks.

If you have any questions, or if you would like to meet with me, please feel free to call or send an e-mail. I am always happy to connect with families.

Cheers!

Tina Stogdill
Counselor – Summitt Elementary
512-414-4248
Tina.stogdill@austinisd.org

Cyberbullying

We all work hard to raise children who grow into caring, thoughful adults. They make mistakes in the process and hopefully learn along the way. However, the permanence of words and images in cyberspace adds intensity and longevity to the consequences.

The world that we are raising our children is not the same world we grew up with. There were no cell phones (I'm showing my age...) or facebook, no instagram, no text messaging. But this IS the world of our children. Where a picture can get passed around to hundreds of people in a blink of an eye.

Here at Summitt, we are dancing as fast as we can. We are having town hall meetings with students, we are starting in the early grades to give students the words to use to stop bullying. We are reaching out to the community for the resources and access to the latest information. We are involving parents, partnering with them to help to keep our kids safe.

Here are a couple of links:
http://archive.adl.org/education/cyberbullying
http//www.stopbullying.gov/
http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/ea-brief-a.pdf

If you have information to share on how to keep our kids safe - Please give me a call.