The Report Template That Sparked a Movement: Making School Counseling Visible
School counseling programs do incredible work, but too often that impact goes unseen. A simple but powerful tool—end-of-year reports—became the foundation for transforming how school counselors advocate for their roles and demonstrate their impact. What started in 2018 as a basic Google Doc to track participation data evolved into a district-wide system of visually compelling, data-rich mid-year and end-of-year reports. These reports became essential tools for communication, advocacy, and accountability, not only raising awareness of the school counselor’s role but also contributing to the expansion of our counseling team and the removal of non-counseling duties.
When I first joined Pomona Unified School District in 2018 as an elementary school counselor, many of us worked across multiple sites, often struggling to capture and communicate the breadth of our work. One of my colleagues in the district, Nichole Acevedo, was a solo counselor at her site and faced the challenge of demonstrating the impact of having a site-dedicated elementary school counselor. To address this, she began collecting detailed participation data and presenting it at board and cabinet meetings through a Google Doc template: Tier 1 and Tier 2. (Years later, Nichole joined Hatching Results full-time!)
Inspired by her efforts, our elementary counseling team began documenting participation data using a shared Google Doc. Over time, we experimented with ways to make the data more visually compelling, leading to the first version of a standardized end-of-year report. Nichole, I believe, created the first Piktochart template that we began to use.
Keep scrolling for template links and examples!
Original Report Concept
Original Report Sample page 1
Original Report Sample page 2
The following school year, I transitioned to a middle school role, where I wanted to showcase the benefits of maintaining a 1:250 counselor-to-student ratio and implementing a comprehensive school counseling program. Using the data we had collected, I designed my first one-page results template for mid-year and end-of-year reports, inspired by Nichole's original design. This version incorporated not only participation data but also outcome data (aka “Achievement Data”), providing a more thorough view of the program’s effectiveness.
Jasmine’s First Template
Jasmine’s First Report Template: Mid-Year
Jasmine’s First Report Template: End of the Year
This template quickly gained traction on social media, catching the attention of Hatching Results, who began featuring it in their presentations and The Use of Data in School Counseling 2nd Edition book (pages 371-372) as a best practice for data-driven school counseling. This really helped expand the reach of my template to many additional school counselors. As more school counselors expressed interest in using the template, I created a new version on Canva, which allowed an even broader audience to create easily customizable versions of the template.
I developed multiple versions that counselors could modify to fit their school’s colors, data collection methods, and comfort level with data analysis. Each year, I update these templates and share them widely on social media while also encouraging others to adapt and personalize them based on their own needs.
The Impact Grows
During my time at the district level in Pomona, we formalized the use of these reports across all school counseling programs. It became an expectation for every school counselor to complete a mid-year and end-of-year report, integrating participation, mindset & behavior, and outcome data. These individual reports were then compiled into a comprehensive K-12 district-wide report showcasing the collective impact of school counseling.
The consistent use of these reports had a profound impact—over the course of six years, the number of school counselors in the district grew from 25 to 72. This growth was fueled by a significant increase in awareness and understanding of the school counselor's role and its impact at school sites. School counselors were expected to share their reports with administrators and during all-staff meetings, turning the reports into powerful advocacy tools. As a result, we were able to eliminate many non-counseling duties from our responsibilities, allowing counselors to focus more on direct and indirect services for students. This strategic and data-informed approach to school counseling ultimately led to Pomona being named the 2024 California Exemplary School Counseling Program of the Year.
Now in Pomona Unified, all schools submit school counseling one page results reports which are combined into one document that is over 100 pages and shared with the school board.
Today’s Template Links
Over the years, I have refined and expanded the template into multiple versions to suit different needs. Below is an array of Canva templates for anyone to use:
Mid-year Report 2.0 (2 templates to choose from)
In addition to spreading on social media, these templates have been featured in presentations at conferences such as the California Association of School Counselors (CASC) and at Hatching Results events and district trainings. They have circulated widely among counselors seeking to demonstrate their impact in a clear, compelling way. I love seeing how others use them and make them their own through the different colors and different data points they choose to highlight. I often see them pop up a lot or get tagged in them during National School Counseling Week (NSCW) and at the end of the school year.
My goal has always been to equip school counselors with tools that make data reporting accessible, actionable, and impactful. Seeing others adopt, modify, and share their own versions of these reports is a testament to the growing emphasis on data-driven school counseling. I look forward to continuously refining these resources, supporting fellow counselors in advocating for their programs and students, and, of course, sharing them so others can benefit.
About the Author
Jasmine Arellano-Najera is a school counselor at Chaffey High School, an adjunct professor at the University of La Verne, and a part-time Professional Learning Specialist with Hatching Results. Follow her on Instagram at @schoolcounselor_jazzy for more tools, inspiration, and advocacy ideas.
🎥 Want to dive deeper?
Watch this recorded webinar featuring Jasmine and Whitney Triplett as they share additional tools to support a data-driven school counseling program.
📚 Want to learn more about sharing results?
Check out this related blog post, or join us for our upcoming virtual workshop:
Sharing Results & Flashlight Presentations - May 8, 2025 - Register now!
📣 Using one of Jasmine’s templates?
We’d love to see it! Tag @schoolcounselor_jazzy and @HatchingResults when you share your results report on social media!
