School Counselor, Miss Brianna Edwards, Encourages & Advocates for 6th-grade Students

Miss Brianna Edwards is a 6th-grade school counselor and member of the PA Distance Career Education & Work (CEW) team alongside, Ms. Laura Budd.

“My sophomore year of college, I took sociology classes and realized I enjoyed it and was good at it, too,” she said. After switching from biology to sociology major, she researched careers that stemmed from a sociology degree. She found that school counseling was one of the careers she should consider.

“My professor in graduate school was also a school counselor for a local Pittsburgh high school, so he discussed ideas behind his counseling work to the class. After diving deeper and attending school counseling classes, I knew that path was where I wanted to be,” Miss Edwards said.

Adding to her expertise, Miss Edwards holds a bachelor’s in Sociology from the University of Pittsburgh and a Master’s of Education in School Counseling from the California University of PA. She also has a PA Certification School Counseling PK-12 and is a National Certified Counselor (NCC).

Now, as a school counselor at PA Distance, Miss Edwards encourages, assists, and advocates for 6th-grade students.

“Building trust with my students is key,” she said. “I get to know them on a personal level, and we often find out that we have a lot in common.”

“This is my second year working with the same class of kids,” she explained. “Last year, I was in charge of the 5th-graders, and this year, I was with 6th-grade, so I followed them along their journey.”

Along with Miss Edwards, the 6th-grade team consists of ELA and Social Studies teacher, Mrs. Naugle, Math & Science teacher, Ms. Mittelmeier, Health & Wellness teacher, Mrs. Sabol, Music teacher, Mrs. Carpenter, Special Education teacher, Miss Teare, and finally, Elementary Principal, Mrs. Ploesch.

Miss Edwards has worked with her 6th-grade team, and her kids, for two years now. In that time, she has managed to zero in on a few struggling students to narrow their achievement gap. She and her team made sure that the students had the support they needed to help them succeed.

“After working individually with these kids, they’ve now risen to all A’s and B’s. They’ve been doing phenomenal,” she added.

For example, every Monday, she gets a grade and attendance report to review. She looks it over and highlights the students that she needs to focus on - based on the data. If a student’s grades are low and/or they’ve been missing a significant amount of school days, she will intervene.

“Our 6th-grade team has meetings at least every other week, to make sure no students are missed,” she explained. “I’ll take issues that I see to my team, discuss a plan, and then contact the parent and ask what we can do to help.”

Miss Edwards’ job, as a school counselor, is to look at the student as a whole and work with their teachers to intervene when they need help academically or personally. “It involves a lot of teamwork with the student, the parent, and their teachers,” she said. “My job is to pull everyone together to focus on the needs of one student at a time.”

“I know each child as a student and as a person. I know what’s going on in their personal lives, too,” she explained.

Miss Edwards will reach out to students for one-on-one sessions, have phone calls with parents, with a parent and their child, with their teachers, or a combination of ways. “The lines of communication are always open, and I’m available for my students via phone call, G-chat, email, Google Meet, you name it,” she said. “It just depends on the family and what their student needs.”

In addition to her counseling role, Miss Edwards is the K-6 CEW team member. In this role, she works to provide educational resources for students interested in learning about post-secondary education options or pursuing a career once they finish high school. Her goal is to encourage elementary students to start thinking about their futures at an early age.

“I try to provide as many enrichment experiences outside the classroom as I can to get them exposed to more than what they learn in their classes,” she said. “I want them to start thinking about what they might like to do in their futures.”

Similar to Ms. Budd in the high school CEW program, Miss. Edwards brought the elementary career fair to PA Distance. Each year, she invites a variety of career speakers to talk to K-6 students, virtually. For the day-long Career Day event, students have the option to attend any that interest them. “I try to have a variety of resources for our students,” she said. “I also make sure to have a variety of industries represented so students can learn about different areas of the workforce.”

This past year, Career Day featured assemblies with an engineer, a food scientist, food service manager, postal worker, metallurgist, mortgage loan officer, and blacksmith, (and now PA Distance graduate) William Barnhart.

“The students seem to enjoy it. This past Career Day, we have over 70% participation,” she said.

“Ms. Budd and I have been talking about more meaningful offerings for resources outside of the classroom,” she said. “We want to focus on more in-person events to showcase secondary educational opportunities and career fairs.”

“School counselors have transitioned from being a reactive role to a proactive role in a school,” she explained. “Overall, I want to stress that.”