Running head: CASE STUDY

Case Study
Scott Birkestrand

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Abstract

JC is an African American, 8th grade male student at Potter Junior High school (PJHS).
PJHS has average measurements when compared to other schools in the state that are similar to
PJHSs demographics. JC has shown patterns of defiance with authority and lack of engagement
in school for that past year. Over the durations of this school year, I have implemented one on
one grade checks, check-ins, and interventions in the classroom. As a future School Counselor,
assisting teachers in implementing plans and interventions will create connection between
students, teachers, and school. As a future School Counselor, assisting teachers in implementing
plans and interventions will create connection between students, teachers, and school.

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Background

At practicum over the past year I have been meeting and providing interventions for a
student that I will refer to as JC. JC was referred to me by his school counselor who notified me
of his dropping grades, and numerous amount of tardies, she also mentioned he is a student that
may just need someone to talk to. Later in the year I asked the school counselor what drove her
to say that he may need someone to talk and she concurred what my thoughts were determining
after meeting with the student a handful of times, he needed someone he could trust.
JC identifies as an African American 8th grade boy. He grew up in Dallas, Texas and is
currently 13 years old. According to JCs cumulative file, he is at risk and is on free and reduced
lunch. Being at risk could mean an array of characteristics about the student. Over the past
school year based on meetings with JC I believe some of his behaviors that may have labeled
him at risk are; he is from a single parent home, and has or is living in poverty. I also believe JC
may have been placed on this list because he shares qualities of students who are regularly found
to be considered at risk, qualities such as he is African American, resist instructions from
authority, and is regularly tardy. These qualities that could have also played a role in deeming
him at risk are my assumptions. I brought these assumptions up because JC goes to a
predominantly Caucasian and Hispanic school and any decisions made about JC that are based
on stereotypes could affect his behavior.
Ecosystemic Behaviors
Based on observations and one on one sessions, I believe JCs ethnicity affects his
behaviors and his interactions with his peers. He has mentioned a few occasions of how students
and teachers have either made him uncomfortable or treated him differently for reason he can
only associate to his ethnicity. Each time he has brought up a scenario I have listened and

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provided some intervention for situations I thought could affect JC in a negative way. I will go
into interventions in the intervention section of this paper.
He has also mentioned that he was born and raised in Texas and had moved around to
several different schools before moving out to San Diego. Now that he is in San Diego he is
struggling to make friends and also getting along with teachers. Not being able to make friends
or connections with teachers can greatly alter his educational experience and connection to the
school itself. When students do not feel connected with their school, they are more likely to use
substances, partake in sexual activity earlier, and engage in violence. Care and support by adults
at the school is one of the keys to students feeling connected to their school (McKneely, 2002).
My initial hypothesis for JC was that he needed to feel connected and supported by his
school in order for him to begin to care about what his school counselor initially told me about,
his grades and tardy. After observing him in his classroom, at lunch, and on the basketball court,
and meeting with him a handful of times I was able to see his strong disconnect with the people
in his school eco system. Since implementing interventions I have added to my hypothesis. I still
believe he needs to feel more connections and support, but I also think he needs to have more
community support. After a strong rapport was built throughout the year and after several weeks
of intervention he began to tell me about situations that have affected him outside of school.
Analysis
The school counselor that referred JC to me mentioned that he was tardy regularly, his
grades were dropping and he may just need someone to talk to. Because of this information I
immediately took notes of his cumulative file, and his Infinite Campus profile (the schools online
portal). I observed him in two different classes, then called him out of class to introduce myself
and build rapport. In my two classroom visits, I noted that he did not look his teacher in the eyes

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or speak up when asked a question. He had a similar response to his English teacher, but not as
severe. Due to these two similar situations I made an assumption that he may not trust adults or
authority, so I made it a point to ensure rapport was built before providing any major
intervention. I also asked about his relationships with his teachers in several discussions that we
had about school. I believed JCs relationship with his teachers would be a great measurement to
have so I began using a scaling method with him, and implemented a likert scale into each
session. The likert scale asked a questions for each teacher- on a scale from 1 to 10 circle how
you are getting along with your English teacher? 1 being not getting along at all and 10 being
you get along perfectly. This scale can be found at Appendix A. The results of the initial likert
scale measurement was consistent with my initial hypothesis, JC did not feel like he had any
relationship with the majority of his teachers. JCs mean likert scale for his English teacher
started at 0 and raised almost three points over the period of 4 months of measuring. This
intervention has been ongoing for the past six months. SPSS was used to calculate the scores, a
report is included as appendix B.
JCs behaviors were consistent with the measurement. I have been able to observe him in
most of his classes and his participation, completed work, teacher interviews, and grades have all
seemed to be correlated. His grades were relatively higher in the classes that he scored higher on
the likert scales. This data proved that intervention needs to be implemented.
The key antecedents that I saw were specific to each class. For example, in history class
the teacher is known to call on students at random for answers to questions, and if they do not
know the answer she investigates why they do not know the answer. JC has shared with me that
he does not like when she randomly picks him to answer questions because he thinks she calls on
him when she knows he does not know the answer.

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From this I broached some topics and learned that JC does not always do his homework
in his history class, he says it is because he does not like his history teacher.
Another example of a specific antecedent to negative feelings towards a teacher is that
the teacher in his English class has him sit in the back corner of the room. In a conversation with
his teacher she said it was because he interrupts class. JC does not like sitting in the back
because he cannot see the white board well, and she never picks him when he raises his hand.
From this I learned that JC may be interrupting class, but after I observed him in multiple
classes I learned that this may not be true. From those observations I also noted that his English
teacher may play favorites and has a pattern of helping specific students more than others.
Intervention
Using Brief Solution Focused Therapy (BSFT) I built rapport, and identified situations
that need to be altered to ensure equity for my case study student. We have also been identifying
weekly goals and goals for the school year. His weekly goals have ranged from having an
organized binder and backpack to raising his hand more in class. His long term goal has been to
get Cs or higher in all of his classes. We developed these goals during our weekly check-ins.
Which involves JC and I logging onto his school web portal and recording his grades in each
class, checking his attendance and referrals. The following paragraph explains the process of
how we developed his organization goal.
During an observation his history teacher asked the class to take out their homework so
they could grade it, but JC could not find his homework. When we met later that day during our
check in we discussed the importance of turning in homework, and brainstormed ways to prevent
this from happening in the future. He came up with the idea of his teacher signing his planner as
proof that he wrote everything down for class. He mentioned he use to have to get his planner

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signed at his old school. I offered the idea of giving him five minutes before we meet each week
to organize his backpack and binder in the counseling office, then I would check his progress
after. He agreed that this intervention would help him stay organized and to help him turn in his
homework.
His weekly goals are usually measured by teacher observation, student self-tallying
(grade checks), or random observations depending on the goal, subject, or classroom.
After establishing the importance of getting good grades we brainstormed ideas to meet
his long term goal of getting Cs or higher. This process involved exploring around to find out
what were JCs obstacles in achieving higher grades. Along with weekly goals working towards
his school year long goal, I used our weekly sessions to implement interventions and counseling
methods to assist him with reaching his long term goal.
A method that I used frequently was the miracle question, for example he told me he did
not know why he had to sit in the back of his English class, he did not know how to switch seats
and that his teacher just did not like him. I responded by saying something like, if you woke up
tomorrow and went to your English class and a miracle had happened, your English teacher liked
you and thought you were a great student, what would that look like to you? He responded by
saying she would move my desk and smile at me and call on me when I raise my hand. I
followed up with asking what his actions would look like. He explained how he would be sitting
quietly with his book out, reading and listening to his teacher when she is talking.
By using the miracle question from BSFTA we were able to determine what kind of
student JC needs to be in order to make the changes necessary to get Cs or higher. JC decided he
would sit quietly in his English class and wait till the end of the period and ask his teacher if he
could switch seats to be closer to the board. We also came up with the idea to write down his

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answers when he did not get called on and turn them into the teacher at the end of class. For this
intervention my thoughts were to create a way to show the teacher that JC is trying to participate
more in class and by writing out some of his thoughts and bringing them up to her would make
her call on him more during class. He ended up only writing his responses twice, after that he
told me he was okay with the amount she calls on him. I also spoke with his English teacher after
we made the goals, and informed her of JCs goals and that he was going to ask her to switch
seats. She ended up switching his seat the next day without waiting for him to approach her. I felt
uneasy that I interfered with the process JC and I discussed, but he did not seem to mind the next
time I spoke with him.
Another goal we made to assist himself in meeting his long term goal of getting Cs or
higher was to be on time to class. Looking at his cumulative file I noticed most of his tardies
were in his history class. When I broached the topic with him about the tardies in history he said
it was because the teacher was mean and did not like him. JC was doing what Gerald Sklare
considers wanting others to change instead of the client themselves changing. To make a goal out
of this I used Sklares technique of a reverse reciprocal relationship question. I asked JC what he
would start doing if the teacher was nice to him and did like him. JC responded exactly as
planned by saying he would be on time to class. I followed up with a reciprocal relationship
question by asking JC how he thinks the teacher would feel if JC was on time to class. JC said
happy (Sklare, 2014).
Over time JC seemed like he was becoming slightly more connected to his teachers, so I
needed a way to connect him outside of the classroom too. One way I thought of increasing his
connection with school was simply increase the amount of enjoyment he has at school. So as his
grades went up I started introducing games to our one on one check-ins, such as Janga and

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connect four. Then I asked JC if he could show some of the students in Club BOND how to play
these games. Club BOND is a lunch time club a colleague and I run for students who may not
have a lot of friends, to come and play fun games with other students. He like the idea of
showing others how to play his games so he agreed. JC ended up going to three meetings.
Outcome
JC is currently at his school year goal of earning Cs or higher in all of his classes, he has
maintained his goal for a complete month. I believe he was able to do this because of the buy in
JC had for the interventions we implemented. He was open to change after we built rapport and
trust. I think all along he wanted to work hard to achieve higher grades, he had had negative
thoughts about himself and school that were interfering with his success. I think our weekly
check-ins helped him by regularly being aware of his progress and getting positive reinforcement
from seeing his grades going up week to week.
I monitored the effectiveness of my counseling by using the likert scales that JC took
week after week and also his change in grades. If the average number on his likert scale test was
going up his connectedness to his teachers and school would have increased. Because my
interventions did not have a controlled measurement it is hard to say the interventions are
directly correlated to the students success. However, before the intervention was implemented
his grades were consistent and since implementing the interventions I have data showing changes
in behavior.
Looking at the longevity of my interventions is where I may have not been able to be
effective. He is going in to high school next year and most likely will not have the one on one
support he did this past school year. I asked JC to create an ecological model three times
throughout the school year and gave him examples of items to put on his model, see appendix C.

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As the year went on his ecological models grew little by little. Although it would be nice to use
this as evidence of school connection, I am not positive the increase in adding more to the model
is from an increase in school connectivity or from making a model three different times. Looking
back on the time I spent with the student I think I should have spent more time building
independence into his interventions. For example finding ways he could do more selfmeasurement for making sure he is keeping his backpack organized. Although I did get him into
Club BOND a few times to build relationships I did not measure if any of the relationships he
may have created lasted outside of Club BOND.
Some other ecosystemic factors that are effecting the student are his home life and
community. I did not make any community connections with JC. I did reach out to JCs mother
to inform her of his progress throughout the school year. The more his grades increased the more
I called home with praise, but we did not discuss much else as far as support. I found it difficult
as an intern school counselor to offer interventions at home and to increase his connection with
his community.
Recommendations
In the future, I would recommend to continue with solution focus therapy. I believe he
responded well to it once we established rapport. I could also see Person Centered therapy by
Carl Rogers working well, if a school counselor is allotted more time to spend with JC (Steven,
2008). For future interventions I would brainstorm more ideas with him to get involved into the
social aspect of school and community. I believe doing a club or hobby search in school or in the
Fallbrook community and getting him to be in contact with those groups could assist him in
building more connections in his ecosystemic web.
Conclusion

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I believe the interventions that were carried out with JC helped the him as a whole in
meeting personal goals and understanding how interconnected school goals are with personal life
successes. My original hypothesis was targeted throughout the school year with some additional
hypothesis as necessary as time progressed. Recently JC and I have reviewed his successes
through looking at his output data, after doing so he shared his appreciation for all the work we
have embarked on this school year. I believe our interventions have made a major difference in
the connection JC has with school.

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References

McNeely, C. A., Nonnemaker, J. M. and Blum, R. W. (2002), Promoting School Connectedness:

Evidence from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Journal of School
Health, 72: 138146. doi: 10.1111/j.1746-1561.2002.tb06533.x
Sklare, G. (2014) Brief counseling that works: A solution-focused therapy approach for school
counselors and other mental health professionals. Thousand Oaks, Califronia: Sage
Publication
Steven, J.C. (2008-2014). Client Centered or Rogerian Counseling. Retrieved from
http://www.basic-counseling-skills.com/client-centered.html

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Appendix

Appendix A
The following is a copy of the likert scale given to JC once a week, during our check-ins.

On a scale from 1 to 10 circle how you are getting along with your English teacher? 1 being not
getting along at all and 10 being you get along perfectly.

10

On a scale from 1 to 10 circle how you are getting along with your English teacher? 1 being not
getting along at all and 10 being you get along perfectly.

10

On a scale from 1 to 10 circle how you are getting along with your Math teacher? 1 being not
getting along at all and 10 being you get along perfectly.

10

On a scale from 1 to 10 circle how you are getting along with your STEAM teacher? 1 being not
getting along at all and 10 being you get along perfectly.

10

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On a scale from 1 to 10 circle how you are getting along with your History teacher? 1 being not
getting along at all and 10 being you get along perfectly.

10

On a scale from 1 to 10 circle how you are getting along with your science teacher? 1 being not
getting along at all and 10 being you get along perfectly.

10

On a scale from 1 to 10 circle how you are getting along with your P.E. teacher? 1 being not
getting along at all and 10 being you get along perfectly.

10

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Appendix B
Case Processing Summary
Cases
Included
N

Excluded

Percent

Total

Percent

Percent

Month1

100.0%

0.0%

100.0%

Month2

100.0%

0.0%

100.0%

Month3

100.0%

0.0%

100.0%

Month4

100.0%

0.0%

100.0%

English Teacher Rating by Month

Month1
Mean

Month3

Month4

.2500

1.0000

2.2500

2.7500

.50000

1.15470

.95743

.50000

N
Std. Deviation

Month2

History Teacher Rating by Month

Month1
Mean

Month3

Month4

.0000

.5000

2.0000

2.5000

.00000

.57735

.81650

.57735

N
Std. Deviation

Month2

P.E. Teacher Rating by Month

Month1
Mean

Month3

Month4

10.0000

10.0000

10.0000

10.0000

.00000

.00000

.00000

.00000

N
Std. Deviation

Month2

Math Teacher Rating by Month

Month1
Mean
N
Std. Deviation

Month2

Month3

Month4

4.7500

5.0000

4.5000

5.0000

.95743

.81650

.57735

.81650

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Appendix C
Ecological Models Throughout the Year
November 2015

February 2015

April 2015

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