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Brownwood ISD engages with the Texas School Counselor Association, which sponsors a yearly challenge for reinforcing excellence. The award program, Counselors Reinforcing Excellence for Students in Texas (CREST) is a continuous improvement document that school counseling programs use to demonstrate effective communication and a commitment to obtaining results. Award-winning campuses engage their Professional School Counselors to provide students with the classroom guidance, college and career readiness, and social/emotional skills needed to be academically successful and well-prepared for life. Professional School Counselors receiving the CREST award use data-driven results to show the effectiveness of their comprehensive guidance and counseling program.

Five Brownwood ISD schools have earned the exemplary CREST award: East Elementary, Brownwood Middle School, Coggin Elementary, Northwest Elementary, and Woodland Heights Elementary. “This level of effectiveness has taken multiple years of strategizing and implementing purposeful change,” said Danielle Howard (M.Ed., LPC-S, RPT-S), the BISD Mental Health Coordinator.

The Counselors Reinforcing Excellence in Texas (CREST) awards recognize schools across Texas that appropriately utilize their Professional School Counselors and demonstrate a continuous commitment to building a campus team and programs based on the Texas Model for Comprehensive School Counseling Programs, endorsed by the Texas Education Agency (TEA). BISD has won the CREST award for two years in a row. “When evaluating how progress is made, we have to look outside of ourselves,” Howard said. “We want challenge and accountability to ensure that we are not only what we can be for our students, but for our programs, families, and teachers. To look beyond self-evaluation and receive feedback as to how to improve — that is our goal.” The BISD mental health team aims to support struggling or disconnected students. The mental health team worked on all campuses in the district, intentionally focusing on improving connections with students and supporting them where they are. “It is our intention that every student should leave with the tools they need to be successful,” Howard said. “We are blessed and grateful to receive the feedback that we serve well. Our goal is always to strive and improve, to self-evaluate so we may grow.”

{Article by Sara Musgrove}