Board Presentation February 12, 2013
Conduct a review of the K-12 Guidance Program with emphasis on increasing student and parent awareness of the college selection process and post-secondary opportunities for students.
Year long process in which counselors evaluated activities & data, surveyed students, parents & staff multiple times to collect information about practice and procedure in grades K-12 Developed a mission statement Created a comprehensive list of activities on three levels: elementary, middle & high
Divided activities into the following categories: Transitions Career Exploration Scheduling/Records Communication/Collaboration Collaborative Meetings Counseling Classroom Education/Character Education Building Management
Each activity was outlined and mapped to the American School Counseling Association student school counseling competencies Counselors provided evidence of each activity Identified improvements Information was collected and organized into 3 books
Provide a Comprehensive School Counseling Program that fully integrates with the educational program and addresses the academic, personal/social and career needs of all students, at appropriate developmental levels. The program will include continual evaluation measures to assure student needs are being met in our ever changing world.
The following have been identified as ways that counselors have made changes in grades K-12 to support students and parents in becoming more aware of the college selection process and post- secondary opportunities for students :
Immediate access to notices, attendance, & grades Student accounts have encouraged them to be more responsible for their work Encouraging parents to add their email to their portal account
This is the 5 th year that Career Day has been in place in every elementary school. This is the first year the event was extended from one day to a full week, and included all grade levels. Each day students participated in various activities such as: o College Exploration Day o “Dress for Success Day” o College Tour Day o 5 th Grade Career Day o Grade level activities PTA & parents participated Classroom education took place in 5 th grade
Students will complete surveys designed to promote self awareness Career and college exploration will be recorded in Naviance and continue to be available to the High School Counselor Home & Careers classes will use Naviance for career activities When students enter High School they will be trained in the use of Naviance so they can: o Begin to build their activity resume starting in grade 9 o Be familiar with using Naviance as a planning tool o Continue to use student and parent accounts for communication
Our plan this year is to use Naviance in the 7 th grade to: o Administer an interest inventory o Collect student data to plan for Career Day in October of 2013 Attempting to recruit additional Hauppauge Alumni to serve as presenters
Created an electronic format with an interactive table of contents posted on the Infinite Campus portal & website Re-organized the guide to enhance readability Added course numbers Added NCAA information Added career and college exploration information
Students will enter initial course requests Course requests will be confirmed at an individual scheduling meeting with their counselor Counselors will use the following for placement: o Teacher recommendations o Current and previous academic progress o Career and college goals o Assessment history o Course prerequisites & recommended criteria In order to measure this process all course changes will be tracked for the 2013/14 school year
In addition to scheduling course requests for the 2013/14 school year, parents and students will be registered for Naviance Each grade level will be assigned an appropriate task list to complete in Naviance Juniors will be scheduled for a Junior Planning Conference at the same time as the scheduling meeting As we move forward, parents and students will have a better understanding of Naviance
Counselors work with students to connect electives to potential future plans. If a student is unsure of their future plans, Naviance provides tools for immediate access to explore interests, careers & colleges.
Every presentation in 2011/12 was changed for 2012/13 based on survey information or critical review: ◦ 8 th Grade Orientation ◦ PSAT Score Back ◦ Junior College Night ◦ Senior College Night ◦ Introduction to International Baccalaureate ◦ Financial Aid ◦ Portal trainings / used Promethean screen recorder
In addition to the traditional letter, the following methods of communication have increased attendance at presentations: ◦ Infinite Campus dialer ◦ Naviance emails ◦ Personal invitations ◦ Electronic sign ◦ Announcements
Before 2007/08 the majority of college applications were submitted by US mail. Counselors managed and tracked every application on a card, and eventually on Naviance. Since 2008, there has been an acceleration to the online college application process. There has been a steep increase in the size of each grade level cohort at the High School. The number of college applications submitted per student increased. Online college applications proved to be difficult to track as counselors did not have accessibility to the application. Students did not have any easy way to communicate their status in the online process with counselors.
In 2012/13 all college application materials have been tracked online using Naviance When accepted by the college, transcripts, teacher recommendations, college applications, mid year reports, supplemental materials, & the High School Profile are all submitted electronically Number of college application materials bundled and sent in envelopes has decreased significantly Naviance allows the counselors to: o Check the status of a student admissions process o Verify that colleges have received materials
College visits to the Career Center were not done 5 years ago This year there have been 33 college visits to the Career Center Onsite college admissions o Adelphi University o LIU Post o Dowling College o St. Joseph’s College
In 2009/10 the average senior caseload was 80 The average senior caseload was 107 in 2011/12 With the addition of another counselor in 2012/13 each counselor has an average caseload of 87 students
All students now have access to CoreCourseGPA.com Allows students to put in personal transcript information to evaluate NCAA eligibility Information has been added to 8 th grade orientation & HS Course Guide
At Thanksgiving students were invited to a luncheon and were interviewed by counselors and administration regarding the college experience Plan on surveying students at the end of their freshman year in college using Naviance
Videos using Promethean Desktop recorder Column in the Soaring Eagle Portal messages Naviance email messages Encouraging parents to add their email address in Infinite Campus and Naviance for easier communication
Professional dialogue focused on improvement of practice Collection of evidence allowed all counselors to view program K-12 Career & College preparation was revised Looked closely at the ways counselors interface with teachers, parents, and students Everything we do was evaluated through the lens of a K-12 program Created a K-12 Guidance plan
Creation of a Guidance Advisory Board for an annual review of our Guidance Plan Impress upon parents the importance of taking the PSAT in grade 10 Consider increasing classroom education at the High School level Explore other means of SAT and ACT test prep Create a collaborative process with PPS to support transition planning for special education students Continue to use the evaluation process established in 2011/12 to update the Guidance Plan Use Facebook and the new website to further enhance communication
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