Samantha has been the middle school counselor in a small rural district in the Midwest for the past 3 years. She has spent most of her time in program development and building relationships with students, parents, staff, and community partners. Currently, she is working with community and district administrators to increase access to Internet and other technology in her building for more program options; unfortunately, the district’s increasingly tight budget precludes upgrades to current systems. As the academic year comes to a close, she talks with Rachel, a veteran teacher with considerable experience in differentiation. Rachel is concerned about some of her math students. By year’s end, due to her differentiated curriculum, at least seven will have completed Algebra 1, the most advanced math class at the school. Rachel wonders what can be planned for them for next year. A few parents have expressed concerns about future classes as these students progress. She asks to meet with Samantha about this situation.

Tosha and Erik are the two school counselors in a large suburban elementary school. For 5 years, they have worked to create a school counseling program aligned with their state’s framework, which was developed with the ASCA National Model in mind. This year, they are hosting a school counseling intern, Tony, from a program in the school of education at a local university. Although the school counselors are grateful to have an intern with fresh eyes and new ideas, they wonder whether the supervision will require too much time and divert their attention from the report they must write prior to a visit by the state department of education later in the year. At the initial interview, Tosha and Erik learn that because Tony had already had several education classes, his program advisor suggested that he take some electives in areas of interest. During his student-teaching experience, he had been intrigued by creative and artistic students and therefore opted to take a few courses in gifted education. He is excited to be working with Tosha and Eric and wants to know if he might work with gifted students and find out how the gifted-education program is currently serving them.

Ben, the middle school counselor from Chapter 5, continues to work with the district’s task force. There, he also meets Julie the district’s coordinator of gifted and talented services. Based on the superintendent’s concerns, Julie wants to re-imagine the district’s identification and programming for gifted youth. Ben’s experiences have given Julie new insights into potential roles of school counselors when working with high-ability learners and their parents. Julie was particularly drawn to Ben’s discussions of talking with parents about why their students were not identified. Ben’s frustrations with the gifted services have also included the pervasive mythology that the program is a “cookie” program used as a reward for “good” students with “good” behavior and even better grades—a myth that disenfranchises diverse populations in the school district, including underachieving students, and doesn’t accurately identity those students who may need services. Historically, because the district has implemented identification procedures in third grade, Julie has contacted several of the elementary school counselors in her district to get their perspectives. She is surprised by the range of their knowledge about identification and the degree of the school counselors’ involvement in this process. While Ben has informed her that all practicing school counselors have training in testing and assessment, not all have connected this with identification practices for gifted learners—until they meet with their first parent.

School counselors collaborate, consult, and coordinate resources. They partner with community agencies, empower parents and families, advocate for students, and are probably part of the leadership team in their schools. Every day school counselors probably make lists of tasks that must be accomplished and then prioritize those according to level of urgency. When prioritizing student needs, the needs of gifted students may not rise to the top in the mind of the school counselor. Most educators equate "gifted" with high-achieving, perfectionistic, perhaps slightly eccentric students who have helicopter parents. School counselors work with gifted students regularly. These students come with a variety of different concerns ranging from typical developmental needs to mental health concerns that warrant immediate attention and service. While gifted students are no more or less likely to experience concerns tied to mental health, they do experience the world differently by nature of being gifted.

Stewart and Tray are the seventh- and eighth-grade school counselors in a new middle school in a large urban district with a diverse student population. Wintercrest Middle School has been a magnet school for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) for only 3 years. Currently students can take Algebra I, Geometry, Honors Biology, and semester classes in Advanced Computing, Introduction to Physics, Robotics, and Trigonometry. Logistically, the magnet school functions as a school within a school, with students attending classes in one wing of the school building. Teachers and students who are not involved in the magnet school are located in two other wings on the opposite side of the school. During the past school year, Tray and Stewart have sensed tensions in the school in various relationships, including within, between, and among teams of teachers, between parents and teachers, among students, and between administrators and teachers. Mr. Wallace, their building principal, has seen the explosive outcomes of some of these tensions and has encouraged the counselors to investigate the current school climate.

Angela was extremely excited to begin school as a kindergarten student and was matched with a supportive teacher for her first year in the rural community in which her family lived. She was lively and talkative around adults, and her parents worked hard to find opportunities for Angela to connect with kids her own age. However, in their small community there were limited possibilities for connection, and Angela often retreated physically behind her parents in public.

During the first parent–teacher conference for Angela, her parents were surprised at the teacher’s observations that Angela was reading well beyond the level of her peers. Not knowing many other children with whom to compare Angela’s abilities, they had assumed she was on par with most other kids her age. While there were no services available in their school system until the third grade, the kindergarten teacher remarked that the Lees might want to look into additional enrichment opportunities for Angela elsewhere. However, the teacher was eager to provide additional reading opportunities. Because reading was one of Angela’s favorite activities, this arrangement seemed to be a good fit.

It was during Angela’s third-grade year that challenges began for her at school. She often came home upset that she was reprimanded at school, and she rarely talked about positive interactions with her peers. She shared with her parents that she did not have much in common with many of the girls in her class, and that they often teased her about her friendship with a boy in the class they all thought was “weird.” This social tension was exacerbated when she was reprimanded for not showing her work in math class. She expressed her frustration with “Why do I need to write out all the steps for something when I just know the answer!” A friend of Angela’s parents worked in the school Angela attended and shared with them that contacting the school counselor might be the best next step.