The High School Guidance Department aims to help each individual students achieve academic and personal success. The high school has four guidance counselors whose primary role is to assist students with any academic, personal, social, emotional or family issues or concerns. As well, our counselors play a large role in college and career counseling. All students are encouraged to see their counselors throughout the year. The atmosphere in the Guidance Office is friendly and informal and the counselors are very accessible. Students may drop in at any time – before or after school, during study periods, or at breaks and lunch.
Individual Counseling: The counselors are trained to help High School students with school related problems arising from academic, personal, social or family conflicts. Some common problems include adjustment to school, changing peer relationships, parent expectations and study habits.
Group Guidance: At different times through out the year, the counselors will conduct group guidance sessions. These sessions are designed to help students gain insight into their behaviors, understand their attitudes, interests and capabilities, and learn how to make intelligent decisions. Special interest group guidance sessions can also be suggested and requested by students, i.e., Dealing with Divorce, Developing Studying Skills, Adjusting to Moving Away, etc.
Academic Follow-up: The academic follow-up service is a series of systematic checks coordinated through the Guidance Office to determine whether the educational program is meeting the needs of the individual student. It may include regular progress reports, individual testing, individual counseling or consultation with student, parents, teachers, counselors, and administration.
Scheduling and Placement Service: The counselors assist with the scheduling of students into classes. Students who experience academic difficulties in the regular classes may be provided additional support services through the Learning Support (LS) or English as a Second Language (ESL) program.
Decision Making: An overriding theme of all counseling is to help students make good decisions in their lives. Whether it be decisions pertaining to personal issues, relationships, academic college or career decisions, we help students developing their decisions making process and encourage them to explore all consequences and facets of their choices and decisions. Through this process, we also help students develop a better awareness of themselves and their strengths.
Responsive Services: Another role of counselors is to respond and help students through any personal or family that emerge over the course of the year.