Mission Statement

• Leslie Burns - Juniors / Seniors
• Ian Blair - Freshmen / Sophomores

 

The counseling staff’s mission is to help students match their skills, interest, and abilities with plans that meet their educational and future goals and to challenge students at as high a level as they can be successful while supporting ESLR achievement. We aim to serve as advocates for the students, allies for the teachers, and liaisons with the parents.

SLVHS Guidance & Counseling Program

The Guidance and Counseling Department at SLVHS has adopted the national Standards for School Counseling Standards. These standards focus on helping students achieve competencies through three areas of student development: academic, career, and personal/social. The mission of the guidance and counseling program is to promote and enhance student learning through these three areas by helping students match their skills & abilities, interests and knowledge, values and preferences with plans that meet students’ educational and future goals. Examples include the following:

ACADEMIC: The counseling staff guides students through a vast array of academic options with the aim of challenging students at as high a level as they can be successful.

 

PERSONAL/SOCIAL: The counseling department with staff serve as a gateway, providing access to a variety of options to involve students in school-related activities as well as providing assistance through trained adult and student support personnel.

 

CAREER: The Counseling staff works with staff to promote career awareness and exploration through a variety of school-based and work-based activities.

 

Career Assessments

Ninth grade students learn about themselves, their preferences, personalities and strengths, and how these elements can be utilized in career selection. The True Colors survey and Learning Styles surveys are completed with counselors through the Naviance online platform.

Tenth grade students continue to use Naviance online. Tenth graders take a career interest profiler and career clusters survey  as they learn about the world of work. This helps as they consider their extracurricular interests, elective courses and career options.

Eleventh grade students take the  Do What you Are and Strength Finder surveys. They then relate results to career interests and for post-secondary options and they use the College SuperMatch to explore appropriate post-secondary placements. Many students participate in CTE classes and Work Experience.

Twelfth grade students complete and revisit College SuperMatch and Emotional Intelligence survey and work on their Senior Exit Portfolio. Many students participate in CTE classes and Work Experience. 

SKILLS FOR A CHANGING WORK WORLD

Today’s successful students and future employees must have many basic core skills and be adaptable to change. The job market requires that employees in the work environment continually learn new skills because technology is constantly changing and information is being made available at ever increasing rates. The traditional concept of an employee who works alone is being replaced with groups of people who work as teams. These teams are becoming self-supervised instead of being managed or headed by a supervisor. This change requires that the people who are members of these teams have self-discipline and excellent interpersonal skills. They need to be people who can work and communicate well with all types of people. Team players emphasize group achievement rather than individual achievement; yet, each individual of the team must have the skill to set goals, make the goals come alive to the other team members, work towards the goals and actually achieve the goals established by the team. As a result, the employee of tomorrow must be willing to work cooperatively in-groups while being self-motivated. The world of work is ever expanding and changing. The excitement of new opportunities and rewarding experiences is waiting for the skilled worker of tomorrow.