The Guidance and Counseling Department of Canyon High School - Essay Example

Program Audit Number) May 6, (Faculty) Program Audit 0 Background Canyon High School is a four year high school located in the Santa Clarita community in California. The school is located in the Santa Clarita community on Nadal St. Santa Clarita, CA 91351. Furthermore, this lies in the William S. Hart Union High School District in Santa Clarita. The gates of Canyon High School were opened in 1968 and currently has a population of 3100 students ranging from grade 9 to 12 (Great Schools 1998-2015). Its professional staff includes 7172 teachers, six counselors and one counselor secretary. Besides provision of a wide variety of learning experiences, it also emphasizes a college preparatory program. The school also has a mission that is in line with the mission of the counseling program in order to help in the achievement of a self-sustaining system based on compatibility. One of the most important services worth considering in this study that is very much existent in the school is counseling. Its main purpose is to counsel students in the development of their academic, career, personal, as well as social abilities. The guidance and counseling department of Canyon High School also happen to be forming the subject matter of this report and is based on the ASCA National Model. Additionally, football is also one of the activities carried out by students in Canyon High School. 2.0 Counseling Department School counseling programs as depicted by ASCA National Model (2008a) are collaborative not only meant to help students but also to help teachers and parents. They should be made integral part of students daily educational environment. The daily duties that were presented by the counselors included participation in the planning, implementation and evaluation of student schedules, addressing students special needs, consulting with teachers, staff members, as well as with parents so as to improve students’ academic performance, interpretation of standardized test results purposed to help students choose their careers wisely, consultation of teachers on the school guidance curriculum, attendance of professional development seminars and conferences. This was to keep them updated in their field of guidance. That was not all; the counselors not only conduct but also fully participate in the Student Success Team meetings. They also work hand in hand with the administration in the enforcement of Canyons discipline policies. On top of all that they also respond to parents through emails by sending pertinent information. I also discovered that guidance and counseling program of Canyon High School is categorized into four broad elements. The elements are namely: Organizational framework which encompasses structure, activities and time element, content element, resources element, and development, management and accountability element. The content element has student standards which are domain grouped student competencies specified by grade level or grade level groupings. The organizational framework is made up of structural components; definition, assumptions and rationale. It also has suggested distribution of total counselor time percentages. Finally, it has program components and sample activities which addresses responsive services, system support, guidance curriculum, and individual student planning. The resources element is subdivided into personal, financial and political sections. The last bit of the program which entails development, management and accountability element is further categorized into planning, designing, implementing, evaluating, and enhancing sections. All these elements work collectively in the sustainability of the full guidance and counseling body. 3.0 Program Foundation According to ASCA National Model (2008b), in order to identify program focus, personal beliefs are identified by school counselors. These beliefs show how all students benefit from the school counseling program. In attempts to build the beliefs, the counselors come up with vision statements which define what the future will look like based on student outcomes. Additionally, the counselors also go ahead to create mission statement which is aligned with the mission of their school then develop program goals which determine the measurement of vision and mission. A philosophical structure of the program suggests that the program serves teachers, parents and students. However, the program does not meet any ethical guidelines and standards. This is to mean that it fails to meet all the eight standards against which a comprehensive school guidance and counseling program gets audited. The foundation of the school counseling program is now made of a statement of philosophy. This is an implication that Canyon High School program has got principles that guides the development, implementation and its evaluation. The program audit also revealed the completion of an agreed-upon belief system about the ability of every student to achieve and addresses every student’s right to the school counseling program. This implies that every student is guaranteed of help by the program. It also appeared that the program is working on closing the gap activities of under-served student populations as well as focusing on primary prevention and intervention on student development needs. Identification of persons involved in the delivery of program activities also appeared implemented. Planning, management and deciding on the person to evaluate the program have not yet been decided. This philosophical statement has been presented and accepted by the administration as well as counselors and advisory council. Canyon High School has an accepted mission by the administration, counselors and the entire school board for its counseling program. The mission statement is an implication of how the school is determined to produce responsible and successful people through the counseling program. The mission itself entails the student as primary client since it is written for every student. It is also linked with the vision and mission of the school, state and district with full indication of the content to be learnt. Finally, the mission has long range results desired for all students. The program audit also revealed that all the domains and goals for the program had been implemented. However, response to competencies were rather uneven, none were accepted. “Aligning your school counseling program with national standards requires a rethinking of priorities, time, resources, and outcomes.” (Dahir 2000). This requires the entire involvement of the whole school community in the academic integration, career and social development of students in the school. Seemingly, Dahirs presentation has been covered by Canyons program. Therefore, Canyon has to a great extent implemented the National Standard for School Counseling programs. 4.0 Delivery system 4.1. Guidance curriculum A larger portion of the guidance curriculum is still being worked on. This includes students receiving the content to acquire knowledge as well as attitudes and skills that should enhance their academic carrier and social development in a rather systematic manner. Another thing being worked upon is to avail materials, equipment and facilities that support the program delivery. However, this curriculum has never been effective with no measurable content. This implies that the entire curriculum is yet to be accepted by the administration as well as the counseling body. 4.2. Individual Student Planning It appeared that Individual Student Planning had been fully implemented into program. The implementations involves systematic approach to help students make appropriate plans for education, systematic approach to help students understand themselves as well as interpret individual tests, distribution of effective material to help in the individual planning, and a tool to help students in making educational plans. 4.3. Responsive Services Wide criteria of responsive services had also been implemented except that every student K-12 receives prevention education to be able to address life choices in academic, personal/social development and career. Students gain assistance in solving immediate problems which interfere with their academic, career as well as social/personal development. The implementation in the responsive services section catered for referral students with difficulties in learning. The services also addressed peer facilitation, collaboration counseling of crisis, and counseling of individuals. Furthermore, there is a system set in place to carter for student intervention. 4.4. System Support System support criteria with mainly management activities also happened to be fully implemented. The only missing criteria revealed by the program, audit was that of counselor to provide professional development to the staff members regarding the school counseling program. However, counselors now participate in professional development activities and there has been comparative creation of system support services with administrators and counselors. 5.0 Management System All the criteria under administrator agreement have been implemented. This also includes those under the school counselor. This is an implication of an already strongly dedicated counseling program in Canyon High School. To support this suggestion further, all the criteria under the advisory council had also been implemented. Use of data and student monitoring as well as closing the gap is also under full implementation as evident in the program audit. All action plans which involve guidance curriculum and closing the gap have got their criteria implemented too. All these add onto the strong dedication of the program. However, the criteria falling under the use of time and calendar has its greater part non-existent with only master calendar implemented. 6.0 Accountability It was quite discouraging that almost all of the criteria under results report were unaccounted for. Counselor performance evaluation and the program audit also happened to be unaccounted for. Generally this meant that the program was never audited annually and therefore it had never been approved. The program is therefore not strong enough as it ought to be, perhaps it will be when all these are implemented. 7.0 Recommendations I felt that the counseling department does a great job in the school, more so in helping students organize themselves. I would highly recommend that the performance of the counselors be evaluated in order to achieve better performance. This would also have positive results on the results report of the entire program in question. The management system of the program is highly appealing and I would therefore recommend that it is maintained at that same level or even improved further. Under the delivery system, the guidance curriculum require more attention as is should be the architect of all the close occurrences in the program such as the gateway to transforming individual student planning. This is because it appears to me as one of the most effective planning of all. There also has to be an establishment of closeness between the counselors and students. In order to achieve this I would recommend that the counseling calendar be thoroughly looked into and time set aside for the counselors to be having private friendly sessions with the students. More resources should also be allocated to the department including staff due to the high population in Canyon High School. NACAC (2006) revealed that a counseling program can be improved by continual development and assessment of the counseling department priorities as well as outcomes, and increased counseling staff to improve student-to-counselor ratio. Furthermore, it would be much better if counselors spent more time providing direct services to students. References ASCA National Model (2008a). The American School Counselor Association. Retrieved from: http://www.ascanationalmodel.org/ ASCA National Model (2008b). A Framework for School Counseling Programs. Executive Summary. Retrieved from: http://www.ascanationalmodel.org/Ascanationalmodel/media/ANM-templates/ANMExecSumm.pdf Dahir, C. (2000). The National Standard for School Counseling Programs: A Partnership in Preparing the Students for the New Millennium. NSSP Bulletin 84 no61668-76. Retrieved from: http://www.lclark.edu/live/files/4372 Great Schools (1998-2015). Canyon High School. Retrieved on: May 7, 2015. Retrieved from: http://www.greatschools.org/california/canyon-country/3052-Canyon-High-School/ NACAC (2006). Effective Counseling in School Increases College Access. Research to Practice Brief. Retrieved from: http://www.nacacnet.org/research/research-data/Research%20Member%20Only/McDonough.pdf Read More