Foundational Components

Mission Statement

The mission of Lake View High School Counseling Center is to advocate for students, through engagement with all stakeholders, to promote their life-long success by addressing social, emotional, and educational needs while building a framework for their future.

Program's Definition

The school counselors, supported by various stakeholders deliver the school counseling program to students. An advisory council made up of various stakeholders help to make decisions based on need. We work towards having a balanced program by collaboratively planning, implementing, evaluating, and advocating for a comprehensive program. We deliver programs identified by needs assessments in order to meet the demands and challenges of students based on the program curriculum scope of the Texas Model.

Rationale

The Lake View High School Counseling Department strives to empower students to be life-long learners and problem solvers so that each student is a productive contributor to our community and world. The counseling team uses many data gathering practices to determine student needs and implement strategies. The Texas Model for Comprehensive School Counseling Program competencies are the base for providing a program to foster the development of self-advocacy skills, personal-social-emotional wellness, and academic-career success in a compassionate and supportive environment. Our program has become a more important and validated part of our school climate.

Many of the societal factors today that have had much influence on our young people have proved to be a challenging force with which our counseling staff has had to face. We, as well as others in our high school, have had to adapt, adjust, advocate, and assist in the process in creating new goals and interventions that affect positive, systematic change. Our roles have certainly changed, and our counselors have met the new challenges with positive energy and turned the “roadblocks” into “stepping stones” for our students, as well as our faculty and staff. We have learned to make the most of our time and resources, linking our goals to needed change in student growth and success. We have become an equal partner in the success of our students with integrated curriculum and strategies that provide a meaningful balance in our program. The counseling program is an integral part of the overall educational program and serves as a critical link to the academia and community. Fostering personal growth for students is the collaborative effort of the school, home, and community which leads to responsible and productive citizens. We hold our students to high standards, assisting them in setting goals for their future, and strive to have them reach their full potential.

Through our advisory council and advocating for our program through community involvement and staff trainings, our partners in education now realize and recognize how our efforts enable students to attain certain skills and competencies. Our counseling center staff all have various ways we were educated and bring to our program different talents, gifts, and skills. This enables us to understand the uniqueness of our students and creates an awareness of our students’ strengths, gaps in learning , and possible developmental delays. Knowing and understanding these things about our students, not only helps us to differentiate and reach our students where they are but allows us to have a better perspective on their social and emotional learning. Our program has used both formal and informal assessments to determine direction, growth, and needed areas of intervention. We realize that student test scores, even though just a small glimpse of a students’ overall educational picture, provide valuable information which assists us in setting goals and drives our program in positive and effective directions for the greatest impact on our educational growth as a campus.

Assumptions

The Lake View High School Counseling Department provides each of the delivery system components by certified school counselors. The parents and community are involved through the advisory board, booster clubs, and school wide events held throughout the school year. We meet with our principal and immediate supervisor to create, plan, implement and review school-wide activities. Our immediate supervisor plans with us once a month during professional learning communities to help us track our goals and encourages professional growth through the basic responsibilities of the Texas Model. They provide professional development, time to plan, and resources for implementation. Funding for events and programs are provided through Title 1, at-risk, parent involvement funding, the activity fund, and our school counseling budget set aside for us by the campus.

Continued support is also given through our community, Region 15 Center, Angelo State University and Howard College. We partner with them to implement Dual Credit, college visits, college and career day, professional development, FAFSA nights, Concho Valley college nights, Leadership Forum, Rise and Teach conference, and High School Parent and Senior Nights.

Program Goals

Program goals were developed by gathering data from the credit verification report and from Panorama, our data gathering system in our district. The advisory council met to review credit verification reports and retention rates for each cohort. In addition, we reviewed Panorama data that was gathered through Eschool. Panorama gathers data from grades every nine weeks. As we reviewed different modes of data through our collection, we discussed our highest needs on our campus in our advisory meeting and took notes of areas that we wish to grow in as a campus. From the notes, we wrote SMART goals to address areas of high need for our campus and reviewed them with the advisory council. The SMART goals were developed and reviewed with our advisory council based on high areas of need on our campus.

Evaluation of Comprehensive School Counseling Program

The comprehensive school counseling program is evaluated throughout the school year. We review several pieces of data to determine campus-wide needs. A needs assessment was developed to determine student needs and areas of improvement in the program. The needs assessment is sent to students at the end of the previous year to determine need. Panorama data is developed and reviewed every quarter to monitor grades, attendance, behavior and Social Emotional Learning. In addition, we review reclassification rates, campus data related to credits, and graduation requirements/completions throughout the year. Pre and Post tests are also given to students to evaluate small groups.