Andrea J. Edwards – School Counselor – Paragon Mills Elementary

I want to thank you again for helping with the Smart Card sale in September. I have been able to order three very significant items for our counseling program. Tara and I both use Kelso’s Choice for 1st – 4th grades and the kit we had was very outdated and we often needed the materials simultaneously. I ordered a new Kelso kit at the cost of $400.00 plus taxes and shipping. We also teach the Safe @ Last curriculum to K – 4th grades and that kit was also very outdated using VHS tapes and an early version of the manual. I ordered a new Safe @ Last kit for us at the cost of $499.00 as well as 180 Safe and Unsafe Touches coloring books for our K classes at .75 a book for a total of $135.00. Finally, I ordered Career Interest Inventory software for $400.00 plus taxes and shipping that we will be able to use from now forward for our Career Guidance program related to our Career Fair for 4th grade students. We had $1380.00 available to use for the curriculum materials from the sale. PLUS, we had 33 classroom teachers who were able to have some money available for their classrooms depending on the number of cards sold by their students for a total of $720.00. Thanks again for your support. School counselors receive the same amount of BEP and play money as classroom teachers but we are working with the entire student body. It is impossible to fund adequate materials without targeting some other financial resources.