The mission of the School Counseling Department at RMHS is to support academic achievement, career planning, interpersonal relationships, personal responsibility, and other skills essential to being a productive citizen. This is accomplished by:
• School counselors meeting with students regularly to review, guide and support them through the academic and career planning process. School counselors plan and manage the process for students reviewing and updating rigorous comprehensive plans to support students’ high school and post-secondary educational and career goals.
• Specifically, counselors enroll students, review their school records and create a schedule for them each year. Counselors use data to insure that students are enrolled in Honors and AP classes when they possess the skills and ability necessary for this level of rigor and challenge. In this sense, counselors address equitably the needs of the diverse school population and advocate for educational excellence for all students. Counselors resolve schedule conflicts and coordinate the articulation process each year.
• Counselors provide information and support to students and families about academic programming, community resources and alternative school options. They provide prevention, intervention and crisis response services to families and students. Counselors refer students to Alternative programs, when necessary.
• School counselors promote personal, interpersonal, health, academic, and career development for all students through proactive classroom programs and other services. Specifically, counselors offer 9th grade orientations to students and parents, evening parent education seminars, evening workshops on various aspects of college and career planning, a career interest inventory program for 10th graders, student and parent meetings for 11th graders about the college process, transcript review and credit summaries for every 12th grader as well as 12th grade class meetings about the college and career process. Counselors advise all 11th and 12th grade students to meet with the College and Career Information Coordinator. A teen pregnancy group is co-led by a school counselor and school nurse. Student mentor & peer mediation programs are counselor-coordinated. All counselors provide students with resources within the school for academic help.
• Counselors regularly collect and analyze qualitative and quantitative data to identify and address student needs, particularly around attendance and academic achievement. Edline, Pinnacle, Attendance, SASI and Filemaker Pro are some of the computer programs used by counselors. Counselors also review Loss of Credit and Attendance letters with students and their parents.
• Counselors regularly collaborate with teachers, administrators, parents and students to identify school needs and counseling services, in an effort to assess and improve the effectiveness of the counseling program on a regular basis. Teachers schedule their own meetings with parents to discuss student class performance concerns.