McCourt counselor earns R.I.’s top award
Cindy Lancaster named ‘Counselor of the Year’
CUMBERLAND — The Rhode Island Schoo l Counselor Association has named Joseph L. McCourt Middle School counselor C indy Lancaster as its 2016-2017 RI School Counselor of the Year.
Lancaster received the award in a ceremony at Johnson & Wales University on Friday.
“I was kind of blown away, to tell you the truth,” she said of finding out. “It's a really big honor, and I feel humbled by the award, because I'm in very good company, but I also recognize that it really takes a team in order to be honored like this.”
She cited Kerry Carlson, the middle school's other counselor, for being a good partner in her work.
This is Lancaster's fifth year at McCourt and sixth year as a counselor, having worked for a year at John J. McLaughlin Cumberland Hill School. Her past and present efforts include advocating for undocumented students, working on the district's new transgender policy and forming McCourt's gaystraight alliance.
The GSA formed last February after a seventh-grade student came out to Lancaster. It was unusual for a student who wasn't headed out of McCourt's
“I was kind of blown away... It’s really a big honor, and I feel humbled by the award, because I’m in very good company, but I also recognize that it really takes a team in order to be honored like this.” — Award recipient Cindy Lancaster
doors to come out to the counselor.
“Every year students have come out to me, but typically it would be in eighth grade when the band is practicing 'Pomp and Circumstance,'” Lancaster said.
The seventh-grader expressed interest in a group, and so Lancaster formed one. It has since grown from an informal lunch group of four to 14 students. According to Lancaster, only 7 percent of middle schools nationwide have GSAs.
In another area concerning LGBT youth, Lancaster has worked on the Cumberland School Department's policy affecting students who identify as transgender or gender non-conforming. The School Committee passed the policy in March, and Lancaster has since worked on designing professional development to help teachers implement the policy.
“She's a voice for all students, especially the ones that really need it,” McCourt Principal Jason Masterson said, “and she makes every single child feel as special as possible, to get them to feel as comfortable as possible with themselves and in the school environment.”
He also noted that Lancaster has worked to align McCourt's counseling model with the American School Counselor Association's national model for counseling.
Lancaster's decision to become a school counselor was one that came later in her career, after she spent 18 years teaching English at North Cumberland Middle School.
“I found myself getting more and more interested in what was going on in the students' private lives,” she said, “and wanting to work more and more at that end of things.”
She had a student being raised by a grandparent, with the student's mother in jail and
father in Florida, Lancaster said. The grandmother wasn't able to take care of the children, and so she took the parents to court, but the father didn't want custody.
Lancaster described that story as “a turning point” and “the final straw.”
“What am I doing here teaching short stories and semicolons?” she thought to herself. “I really wanted to work more with kids who are in crisis and help families.”
She took a class at Providence College “just to test the water” and loved it. She took a sabbatical to go to school full-time at PC for a master's of education in school counseling. This is her second master's degree, following a master's of education in reading and literacy skills from Rhode Island College.
Lancaster holds a bachelor's degree in humanistic studies from McGill University, in Montreal.
Before starting as the school counselor at Cumberland Hill, Lancaster did her internship at Classical High School in Providence. While there, she worked with the Coalition of Advocates for Student Opportunities to get in-state tuition for undocumented Rhode Island students.
Lancaster's award follows several honors for Cumberland School Department employees over the past year. Last October, the National Association of Secondary School Principals named Cumberland High School Principal Alan Tenreiro as its National Principal of the Year.
In April, the Rhode Island Association of School Principals named Masterson its Secondary Principal of the Year. And in August, CHS math teacher Kristen Jahnz received the $10,000 Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching.