COUNSELOR 2024-2025 School Year - Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District

QUALIFICATIONS:

1. Master’s degree from a recognized, accredited college or university, with a valid Texas Certificate as a Professional School Counselor;
2. A minimum of two (2) years of successful experience as a classroom teacher is required;
3. Valid Texas school counselor certificate;
4. Knowledge of counseling procedures, student appraisal, and career development;
5. Excellent organizational, communication, and interpersonal skills, and;
6. Visionary leadership in public schools to work with faculties, families, and communities of the 21st Century.

TERMS OF EMPLOYMENT:

Probationary/Term Contract:

Elementary 193 days       $64,645 (IA-3)

Middle School 200 days   $66,990 (IA-3)

High School 205 days      $69,706 (IA-4)

(Years of teaching experience will be considered when determining starting salary)

Salary Range (based on experience) as set by the Board of Trustees.

Candidates for counselor positions may receive credit for certified teaching experience for salary calculation purposes.

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS: 

Guidance Curriculum 

1. Plan, organize, implement, and deliver structured group lessons according to the district’s guidance curriculum to improve students’ interpersonal and intrapersonal effectiveness, personal health and safety, post-secondary planning and readiness, and other developmental needs. 
2. Ability to instruct students and manage their behavior.
3. Ability to present information in one-on-one, small group, and large group situations to students, parents or guardians, and district staff.
4. Teach the school guidance curriculum components using effective instructional strategies and planned structured groups considering diverse student populations and needs for differentiated instruction. 
5. Work with students, staff, parents or guardians, and the community to identify priorities where students will be served through the guidance curriculum component. Collaborate across curricular areas to integrate guidance lessons into the content area curriculum. 
6. Create a balanced curriculum by using well-planned and intentional activities and materials, incorporating guest speakers, and offering engaging delivery techniques, including technology tools.

Responsive Services 

1. Use accepted theories and effective techniques of developmental guidance to respond to problematic or critical incidents to support students and offer services in time of need. 
2. Use preventive activities to remove barriers that interfere with a student’s educational, career, personal, and social development.
3. Implement remediation practices to assist students in coping with problem situations or unwise choices. Identify precipitating and antecedent factors, effective and ineffective approaches to dealing with the circumstances, and provide feedback to guide future decisions.
4. Use specialized skills to support students in crisis situations requiring an immediate response. Maintain a healthy and safe school environment by collaborating with district staff, parents or guardians, and local officials. 
5. Provide continued support to students in need through individual counseling, small group counseling, consultation, or referral to services outside the school or district.  
6. Serve as an impartial, non-reporting resource for interpersonal conflicts and discourse involving two or more students, including accusations of bullying.

Individual Planning  

1. Create school counseling services that are developmental and age-appropriate and provide information or literature that highlights related topics to students, teachers, and administrators. 
2. Assist individual students and their parents or guardians in monitoring their academic, career, personal, and social development as they progress in school.
3. Act as a student advocate, leader, collaborator, and systems change agent. Advocate for a school environment that acknowledges and respects diversity and ensures equitable access and placement in courses and programs for minority, disenfranchised, homeless, and other special populations. 
4. Interpret standardized test results, offer career development activities, provide strategies for grade-level transitions, and guide students in individual goal setting and planning, including creating and reviewing personal graduation plans and providing information about post-secondary opportunities.

System Support 

1. Collect, summarize, and interpret testing data to plan, create interventions, guide students, and address specific student needs.
2. Conduct an annual program audit to inform accountability, action plans, time management, and systemic change. 
3. Participate in campus-based school improvement planning and goal setting. 
4. Provide parent or guardian and staff training and consultation to foster student educational, career, personal, and social development. 
5. Clearly articulate and communicate the counseling program’s management system and related program action plans to campus and district staff, parents/guardians, and the community. 
6. Participate in staff development and continuing education opportunities to improve job-related skills and research to identify best practices in implementing a comprehensive school counseling program.  

Other Related Duties 

1. Ensure student records are maintained as required by state and federal regulations.
2. Comply with policies established by federal and state law, State Board of Education rules, and board policy. Comply with all district and campus practices and regulations.
3. Adhere to legal, ethical, and professional standards for school counselors including current professional standards of competence and practice.
4. Follow district safety protocols and emergency procedures.

*Includes information from the Counselor Job Description and Evaluation Form distributed by the Texas Education Agency.  

This document describes the general purpose and responsibilities assigned to this job and is not an exhaustive list of all responsibilities and duties that may be assigned or skills that may be required.  

WORKING CONDITIONS:

Mental Demands/Physical Demands/Environmental Factors:
Maintain emotional control under stress. Work with frequent interruptions. Occasional prolonged and irregular hours.

Applications will be reviewed.

Not all applicants will be interviewed.

Hiring managers may choose to email you regarding this application.  Please monitor your email regularly for any communication.