ROGERS — Elementary school counselors and special-education teachers have some things in common. Kelly Pohl taught special education for 10 years before she became a school counselor at Northside. But even during her college years, her interest was on children with emotional and behavioral difficulties so counseling was her logical next step.

In elementary school, the counselor works with every child at the school with three distinct focuses - career development, academic development and personal and social development. She goes into each classroom in the building and presents lessons tailored to each grade level. In kindergarten, puppets may help her make her point, but fifth graders may tackle the same issue with a discussion.

Like every teacher, the counselor has standards and frameworks from the state Department of Education.

The year always begins with lessons on bullying, she said. Then October is drug abuse prevention month.

The counselor is the one who teaches study skills and test taking techniques. Then she talks about careers.

"The idea is to give them strategies that can make them more successful in school," she explained.

Since parent involvement can make children more successful in school, it's a priority for counselors. Pohl will help plan parent nights and meet with parents whose students need help.

Some of the personal and social development work is done in small groups that Pohl meets with in her office. She's still building her groups for the year with the help of teacher referrals. They may discuss stress management or friendship skills in groups.

In Rogers, social workers are also part of each school's staff, but they must split there time between several schools so the counselors are enlisted to help. Pohl can sometimes provide families the information they need about services like Head Start. She can also keep track of the families who are eligible for help like the Friday Snack Packs, bags of healthy snacks sent home to keep children well fed over the weekend. She's the one who compiles the list of families that will receive a holiday basket. Occasionally, she'll go on a home visit with the social worker.

For Pohl, Rogers is a little like going home. She grew up in Heber Springs and went to college in South Carolina. After four years she was ready to return to Arkansas. She chose northwest Arkansas because of its proximity to University of Arkansas, but in the end she did her graduate work at John Brown University. Her mentor at JBU is now the assistant principal, and former counselor at Northside, Betsy Kinkade, and she loves having her so close.

Pohl and her husband, who is the band director at Shiloh Christian, spend a lot of their time working, so their time off is usually spent relaxing at home. They enjoy renting movies and playing with their dog.

Scholars, Pages 9 on 09/30/2009

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