The average lay person has little to no idea how many professionals it takes to actually make a school district function effectively. Parents see teachers and maybe the secretarial staff.
They hear names from their children of various professionals, but do they really understand that even a relatively small school may employ 40 or more educators? As the saying goes, it takes a village.
Often, underconsidered educational resources are counselors and consultants. In this article, we take a look at what they do, how they collaborate, and why this collaboration can play an important role in boosting overall educational outcomes.
What Is an Educational Consultant?
Educational consultants develop and employ strategies designed to help teachers, schools, and even students meet their goals. But as is the case with any consulting role, the way that these strategies are developed is specific to the challenges that the “client” is experiencing.
A business consultant, for example, would review gaps in efficiency, communication, and technology. They identify ways that their client is leaking revenue and failing to meet benchmarks.
There’s a similar line of thinking in educational consultancy, but with the goal of improving learning rather than the bottom line. Educational consultants stay abreast of modern pedagogical developments.
They also push the envelope in terms of finding new ways to reach kids. It’s important to keep in mind that education is highly nuanced and personalized.
Every school district will be a little different in the challenges that it faces. Where one might contact a consultant in the hopes of preserving or even improving upon high testing scores, another might employ consultancy services to help deal with catastrophically low attendance or even to recover from testing scores so bad that government intervention is now required.
Obviously, the objectives and therefore the subsequent actions in both cases are very different. In fact, this is a key point in all things education: each school, each classroom, each student is completely unique and requires a unique approach to learning.
It’s not that teachers and administrators are incapable or unqualified to deliver a personalized approach. More often, it’s that their workload does not allow it.
One teacher is responsible for 30 students. They can hardly be expected to manage the classroom and recalibrate the entire curriculum based on each student’s individual learning preferences.
Consultants are able to take an exterior view of the situation, focusing exclusively on optimization, whereas other educators working within the school are focused more primarily on day-to-day concerns.
Where Do Educational Consultants Work?
Educational consultants may be self-employed. They may also work for a scholastic organization that is leveraging a specific product, for example, a company that sells school curricula or learning technologies.
In these cases, of course, the consultant is there on behalf of a product, leveraging solutions that are specific to the problems that the technology or curriculum is designed to solve. The consultancy process can also be more generalized.
Personal consultancy firms may be implemented to address specific areas in which a school is struggling.
In fact, they are sometimes a regulatory requirement when school testing numbers hit below a certain point.
In these cases, a school district may be forced to hire a consultancy service as a way of getting its scores back on track. In any case, getting a job as a school consultant will generally require a college background focused on education.
This is a role that former teachers may be able to occupy, particularly after having received a graduate degree in educational management or related fields.
How Do Educational Consultants Work with School Counselors?
That’s an interesting question, and one that will typically depend on the circumstances for which the consultant was hired in the first place.
It’s important to understand that negative educational outcomes are always due to a mix of factors, many of which reside outside the school’s immediate realm of concern.
This is to say that when a school district experiences low attendance, high tardiness rates, poor test scores, etc., environmental considerations, that is to say, circumstances in which the students are living, often play more of a role in what is going on than what the school itself is doing.
Yes, there are management issues, administrative missteps, and even the occasional bad teacher, but most of the time, public schools that are struggling with testing scores or other regulatory compliance benchmarks have their backs up against the wall from the beginning.
Little factors like districts in which the majority of parents are able to drive their kids to school and pick them up can have a significant impact on scores. This is because even small factors like how the child gets to school can say a lot about what sort of home environment they’re living in.
Is there someone around to help them with homework and make sure they’re getting to class on time, or do they have personal responsibilities that preclude them from getting much school work done at home?
Unfortunately, consultants can’t do much to influence personal environmental factors, but in working with school counselors, they can accomplish a better understanding of what circumstances are contributing to educational deficits.
The actual response, of course, will be specific to the school’s needs. It could involve attendance incentive programs, homework clubs, or tutoring networks.
It could even mean curriculum adjustments that de-emphasize homework in favor of benchmarks that can be better managed within school hours. Regardless, counselors, teachers, and administrators generally have an idea of why their students are struggling.
They then communicate these notions to consultancy firms in the hopes of developing actionable solutions.
Conclusion
There are many ways to make a difference in the world of education. Consultancy roles may appeal to people who like the idea of contributing but aren’t necessarily going to do their best work balanced to a classroom.
Consultancy takes a strategic, holistic, business-like approach to educational solutions. It’s an attractive option for professionals who genuinely care about education and love problem-solving.
There are many ways to be community heroes, from counseling to teaching and administration. It’s all about finding the one that makes the most sense for you.
