Career Education
Below is a brief outline of how Dassa McKinney addresses Chapter 339 of Career Readiness
School District: Moniteau Area School District
1. School Counselors and Assignments:
K-6: Chad Dillon Student Ratio 1:625 Dassa McKinney Elementary
cdillon@moniteau.org 724-637-2321 (x3125)
7-12: Wade Vogan (letters A – K) Student Ratio 1:337 Moniteau High School
Wvogan@moniteau.org 724-637-2091 (x1702)
Laura Kleemook (letters L – Z) Student Ratio 1:301 Moniteau High School
Lkleemook@moniteau.org 724-637-2091 (x1701)
2. School-Counseling Department Mission Statement
The mission of Moniteau School District’s School Counseling Department is to provide a comprehensive developmental program that ensures every student’s mastery of academic, career, and personal/social development through a cooperative partnership with students, family, school, community and postsecondary institutions.
Individuals possess within themselves the power to control the quality, growth, and satisfaction in their lives. Our counselors fulfill a vital role in helping students meet their personal, social, educational, and career needs. Through a comprehensive, developmental school counseling program, students are assisted in acquiring the skills, knowledge, and attitudes necessary to become effective students, responsible citizens, productive workers, and lifelong learners. Counselors use their expertise to provide counseling, instruction, consultation, prevention, and intervention services to support the school’s academic mission, to enhance the learning process, and assist students in making informed positive choices fulfilling their personal potential.
The program’s ultimate goal is for all students to graduate with the competencies necessary to make self-directed, realistic, and responsible decisions, and to be successful contributors to a rapidly changing global society.
The Moniteau School Counseling program is based on the following beliefs and principles:
All students have dignity and worth.
All students can learn, grow, and achieve.
Each child is unique and has his/her own developmental needs that impact learning.
The school counseling program supports the school’s academic mission by promoting and enhancing the learning process for all students through an integration of academic, career, and personal/social development.
Each student has certain educational responsibilities and rights.
The school counseling program is comprehensive and systematically implemented.
The school counseling program functions in collaboration with students, school staff, parents, guardians, and the community to ensure student success.
The school counseling program is managed by state certified counselors.
The Pennsylvania Standards for School Counseling Programs and the ASCA National Standards for Students shall set the standards for the school counseling program.
Professional School Counselors shall uphold the ethical standards specified by the state of Pennsylvania and prescribed by the American School Counselor Association and the American Counseling Association.
Program Goals:
Personal/Social Counseling Goal: The School Counseling Department will raise awareness and provide resources for the on-going mental health needs of our students. Through a discussion with Administration topics and questions are shared in order to guide the in-service training the School Counseling Department has throughout the 2017-18 school year. In the end, the department’s goal is to increase the quality of support available to students throughout the district as well as the coordination of those supporting groups to offer more seamless transitions for students from one intervention to the next.
Academic Counseling Goal: The School Counseling Department will update and incorporate both Career Cruising and PA Career Zone into the curriculum. This will be a phase-in approach. The district is currently revising and possibly overhauling the course selection process for students and reconsidering the manner in which students select classes. As part of this process we will be realigning all the scheduling lessons and resources to match with our new goals.
Career Counseling Goal: The district is also changing the manner of career counseling moving more towards a multi-environmental career model including job shadowing, co-ops, Vo-Tech, work release, and college visits. Along with classroom career lessons and Career speakers this will give our students a variety of opportunities to engage with Career Readiness.
4. Stakeholders:
Students
The students play a key role in communicating to us their needs so we can properly align our program goals to meet those needs. Through a variety of developmentally appropriate activities and programs we will aid students in establishing lifelong personal and professional goals. The School Counseling Program will help provide students with a heightened self-awareness as well as a variety of skills including but not limited to: interpersonal communication, problem solving and goal setting.
Parents
The parents are charged with the role of helping their children make responsible decisions through goal setting and realistic planning for the future. The school counseling program will make a variety of resources available to parents to aid in the process of directing and assisting their child in college, career of any type of post high school planning. Parents benefit from the insight counselors can offer through seeing their child daily in a different context.
Educators
Educators will benefit from the school counseling program because the added support from the school counselors will help align the program to avoid unnecessary repetition of certain material while reinforcing other topics. Educators play a key role in the implementation of the program because they see the entire population of students on a regular basis and can simplify the process of disseminating the information to the student body. Educators can also work collaboratively with the school counselors to ensure that subject specific career information is being covered.
Business/Community
The business and community will benefit from the collaborative sharing of resources that will occur between themselves and the school counselors. The business and community partners are integral to the program offering insight into the local economic climate and the jobs and positions available. The business and community partners also offer crucial information about the quality of the job applicants and employees they are getting from the high school and how the school counseling program can better prepare students for the needs of the community and businesses.
5. Role of the School Counselor:
School Counselors fill a variety of roles including leader, advocate, collaborator and instrument of systemic change. These roles are all vital to the school system because of the scope and influence a properly utilized School Counselor can have. At Moniteau High School School Counseling looks a little different than at other schools based on the staffing, the resource allocation, and the location of the school district.
Leaders
Involved in district level leadership initiatives such as Penn United, the Entrepreneurship Academy, BOTS IQ, and Agricultural Certificate Program.
Serve as District Testing Coordinators for all district testing including but not limited to: PSSAs, Keystones, ASVAB, NOCTI, AP, and PSATs.
Trained in current best practices such as SAP, ALICE Training, Childline and Child Abuse Registry, and Chapter 339.
Provide direction and guidance on the delivery of college and career information.
Make all aspects of college and career exploration available to all students.
Function as the point of contact for teachers, parents, administrators, businesses, and postsecondary institutions with regard to the comprehensive school counseling plan.
Advocates
Work to achieve the best possible academic options for our students regardless of their post high school aspirations.
Develop a variety of environments to ensure all students have a connection with a faculty or staff member.
Provide counseling services that cater to academic, career, and social/emotional interests of students.
Make post high school college and career exploration methods available and accessible to all students.
Foster relationships with outside service agencies designed to best meet the needs of our student population.
Collaborators
Fortify and renew our involvement with professional communities that best ensure personal and professional growth in our field.
Regularly reach out to stakeholders to promote healthy communication between all groups.
Participate in district and building level committees.
Agents of Systemic Change
Move towards a more cohesive comprehensive guidance plan from kindergarten through 12th grade.
Consider all available data to examine the direction and effectiveness of the guidance plan.
Focus on students whose needs are not currently being met through our program.
Educate stakeholders on the importance of improving the quality of our services.
Make available any information that stresses the importance and impact of a well-staffed comprehensive guidance department in the execution of the guidance plan.
Career and Technical Center Strategy- Describe your activities/events and
interventions for increasing awareness for student/parents and educators regarding
your local Career and Technical Center. Include these in your curriculum action
Plan and stakeholder strategy charts. (Areas may include: Awareness ideas,
recruitment, communication between sending school and CTC, professional
Development ideas for teachers, parent information and using current CTC students
To educate all stakeholders about the benefits of various Programs of Study and
College articulation credits). Report data on how many students currently attend
and their completion rates and set goals for increasing retention rates once they
attend the CTC (Use the Data Collection Form to report this).
Annually in November, all 9th grade students at Moniteau High School attend a tour at the Butler County Vocational and Technical School (BCVTS) introducing the students to the BCVTS program options.
Through the Moniteau School District, parents are made aware of the initial BCVTS visit.
All students considering BCVTS submit applications before the scheduling process at Moniteau School District is finalized.