Developing a Shared Agenda

1. Developing a Shared Agenda Involving Others and Maximizing Professionals to Improve College and Career Readiness WACAC Share-Learn-Connect Conference, University of San Francisco, 2014

2. Workshop Presenters & Overview • Introduction and Foundational Research • Dr. Esther Hugo, LMU School of Education • Getting Administrators on Board and Using Data • Guadalupe Navarrete, Head Counselor, Sequoia HS • Bringing it All Together with Innovation and Creativity • Teresa Ignaitis, College and Career Advisor, Sequoia HS

3. Counselors: Cure for the Common Core

4. Common Core State Standards Challenge ...to here? How do we get from here... All studentsleave high school college and career ready Common Core State Standards specify K-12 expectations for college and career readiness ...and what can Counselors do to help?

5. Local Control Budget Overlaps CC • SB 1458 passed in 2012 -Senator Steinberg • Test results will constitute no more than 60% of the value of a secondary school • Measures graduation rates and college-going rates – 40% • From API – EQI – Equity Quality Index

6. College Board Applications • Increasing the number of college applications from one to two increases the probability of enrolling at a four-year college by 40 percent, and increasing the number of applications from two to three can increase a student’s probability of enrollment by 10 percent.

7. Pipeline Steps Reduces Income Gap Q: What do college preparation and college attendance look like at your school? • Creating aspiration about college and understanding the doors it opens • Taking the appropriate curriculum and staying on track • Preparing for and taking college entrance exams • Applying to college

8. Nine Principles of the College-Going Culture

9. Getting Administrators on Board! • Administrators are not trained to understand how the guidance counseling piece works • It is our job to educate them about our purpose and mission • We need to do it in a way that will make sense for them and how our work also helps them achieve their goals for the school • We need to make their participation as simple as possible by providing them with all of the information they need to make the decisions we need.

10. Start with your Counseling Team • The counseling team has to be a united front • You need to clearly know what your goals are as a team and how you want to accomplish them • Come up with your mission statement for your department • Research data that will help support your case about where the need is at your school • Come up with a detailed plan as to how you plan to make it happen • Clearly state what you need and what it will cost

11. Strategize as a Team • Come to an agreement as to how you want to make your presentation to your principal: • As a team • With one or two delegates • Use your data to present the problem you are trying to solve

12. Understand your Administration • Get to know your principal and what is dear to him/her: • What are their goals for the school and for the students • How do they want to achieve those goals • What are their strengths and weaknesses as administrators • What is their learning style

13. Make Your Presentation Strategically • Present your concerns and ideas in a way that works with what they too want to achieve • Show how it works well with what they want to achieve • Clearly state the type of support you need from them • If in meeting with the staff –show how you will use your time • If the need is financial bring exact figures and how it will benefit the student body and the results you will gain that makes the expense worth while

14. Simplify their involvement • Principals are very busy and have little time: • If you need them to come to your meetings to support you, make it easy for them. • Talk to their secretary to put your meeting in their calendar • Offer to write their speech • Offer to get them a sandwich or coffee to save them time • Update them on what you are doing and how it is going – especially share all your positive accomplishments • When ever possible gather data that will show you are achieving your goals and that they can use in their own presentations with parents community and district

15. Know Your District Administrations • They too have a great deal to do with what happens at your school sites • Participate in key committees • Share the load of participation with other counselors • Strategize together how you will learn about what is out there and how it can help you achieve your goals.

16. Understandings • The administration at the school wants and expects all students to consider college as an option • Provides time at staff meetings for trainings and updates on college information • Communicates to teachers about giving time to counseling for post-secondary education • Backs up support by allocating resources to expand college going population

17. Working With Staff MOST IMPORTANT: Form relationships with teachers and have a mutual respect for each other • Schedule around their schedules if possible • Do not allow students out of class unless absolutely necessary • Meet individually if need help • Provide resources if asked • Work closely with Senior teachers • Include ALL populations (IB, ESL, Sp Ed) PUT YOURSELF OUT THERE AND LET THEM KNOW YOU WILL HELP THEM

18. All Staff Information Trainings • Counseling Department shared calendar and roles by subject departments • Discussed how teachers could help students with their post-secondary plans and how counseling could help them • Staff Meeting Training on Letters of Recommendations, PSAT Information, and Naviance Overview

19. Collaboration with English Department • All of our seniors write a personal statement in English • Guidance counselors require a School Report(SR) Survey to be completed by any senior applying to a private school By collaborating, all seniors now complete the Guidance SR Survey as a pre-writing assignment for their personal statements. • I go into all senior English classes and show students why and how to complete the survey (ten minutes) • I then go into all senior English classes and go over how to write a personal statement (45 minutes)

20. How to Get TEACHERS to Help You Get Information to the Students/Families • Each week I send an All Staff email that includes some of the following requests by grade level: • Upcoming events • Upcoming deadlines • Resources available • Desired Actions • See events listed on classroom board • Teachers allow you in class for short messages • Teachers print out/read the weekly emails • Teachers send students to College/Career Center • Teachers offer extra credit if students attend • Teachers are asking for resources and sending students to your office

21. Working With Families • Need to work with all students and families • Attend Spanish Parent meetings make yourself known • Families need to understand how to access and be responsible for post-secondary information My Two Main Sources: • Read weekly emails • Will refer students/parents back to information in Weekly Email if they are emailing something I have mentioned and they should have read • Attend evening presentations • Will refrain from answering individual questions if will be answered at an upcoming meeting (post PowerPoint on website after event for families who do not attend) • Go to Parent Center and ask for help if Spanish speaking • Students need to make all meetings with me in person

22. Weekly Email on Naviance • Grade specific • In both English and Spanish • Contains: • Upcoming events and due dates • “How To” Information – Ex: How to Sign Up for SAT • Student opportunities - Jobs, contests, scholarships • How to easily get emails: • Naviance downloads parent emails from Infinite Campus nightly • Students receive Naviance account as a freshmen in Life Skills class during a guidance counselor presentation

23. How YOU Get Families to Your Meetings • Marquee • All Call • Naviance Weekly Email • Website Calendar • Individual Emails by Counselors • Parent Center (Title 1 Funded) Calls to Spanish speaking parents • Drop In to Classes to Remind Students

24. Getting Families to Attend Your Meetings: Strategies This event was not the best attended in the past Normal Communication: Marquee, All Call, and Weekly Email Messages, Listed on Website Added Communication: Multiple messages to staff about having students attend, presented at Spanish speaking meeting, asked counselors to write individual messages to their community college students to attend, had Parent Center call Spanish parents to come Outcome: Biggest turn out ever over 200 people that included equal numbers of Spanish and English speaking families

25. Presenter Contacts: • Terri Ignaitis, Sequoia High School College Advisor • tignaiti@seq.org • Guadalupe Navarrete, Sequoia HS Head Counselor • gnavarre@seq.org • Esther Hugo, LMU, UCLA • Esther.hugo@gmail.com