Counselor Edition: Bobbi-Jo Uses Data To Make Sure Every Kid Has A Plan.
Bobbi-Jo Wathen of Middletown High School, Connecticut.
Bobbi-Jo Wathen is the Director of College Counseling at Middletown High School in Connecticut.
1.The Team
The Middletown High School has 5 school counselors, of which Four have students assigned to them for counseling.
There is one Counselor without caseload, and her only job is to make sure every kid has a plan!
They have roughly 300 students in each grade.
Using a dashboard, they can interactively track what students have done,
Pairing that information with Software like Naviance,
They can see where a student is and where they need to be.
It all starts with 8th Grade data.
2.Grade Nine
With the help of the 8th Grade data, Bobbi-Jo and her colleagues monitor students who are at risk of not having a successful freshman year.
They may be at risk due to attendance, behavior, or grades,
So they are assigned to the School Counselor with small caseload,
And they are in smaller classes for increased attention.
These students are brought early into the Career Center where they start to explore
Things they like,
How that translates into a career,
And what they need to do to get into that career!
So that conversation starts Freshman year, with an advisory every single day!
Steps Taken
Every week the lessons are pushed out for the School Counseling advisory, and about College Career readiness at least once a month:
Every student must have an account on RaiseMe,
To track the kinds of Scholarships that they can get by just having good grades, and
Doing community service, Or
To Explore careers,
And then Explore Majors and then
Explore Colleges.
3.Junior Year
Working alongside the English department,
They offer lessons connected to College essay, resume, and the College process.
The college application process starts January of the Junior year.
Before Bobbi-Jo, the College Process would start only after the students were Seniors!
4.Senior Year
In the Senior year, they conduct an initial Senior Survey and match that against the data they have so far.
The big questions they ask the students on the Survey are:
What is their plan?
What is a career or major they want to pursue?
What are their fears?
And the Counselor uses this data to filter and say,
Okay, this college coming in to visit, these are the majors they are really good at,
Target kids based on the data and the survey,
And have them come sit with the college, or
The military is visiting, and these kids are interested in military, or
Those kids don't have a plan yet, Let's invite them in.
So it's really Data Driven!
Ongoing Review
The Counselors have bi-weekly data meetings, to look at where the kids are.
Identify the kids that haven't made satisfactory progress.
And the focus shifts to those kids for that week.
They are asked to come in to the Career Center and,
Have individual meetings with the Counselor,
To make sure that kids don't fall through the cracks!
As Bobbi-Jo says, “If you use data, the data doesn't lie”.
5.On with the Podcast
In this Episode, Bobbi-Jo talks about her background, about Middletown High School, Data-Driven Counseling Approach, Belief Gap Challenges, Success Stories, and her Advice for High Schoolers.
Listen to the Podcast with Bobbi-Jo Wathen of Middletown High School,Connecticut.(40-Minute Listen).
Hope you find the stories and articles in the Newsletter inspiring and helpful. Please give me feedback or leave a comment to let me how I am doing. Thanks!
Finally, Thanks to all my guests who have been generous with their time and counsel on my Podcast.
Have a Great Week!
Venkat