By Eileen Oldfield, Staff Writer
Preparing for life in and beyond high school used to involve many meetings with school guidance counselors, career and skills assessments and the inevitable dash to keep college and scholarship deadlines straight and to get the applications out on time.
At Hillsborough High School, however, a Web-based program lets the students and their guidance counselors track almost everything involved in getting through school.
The Naviance Family Connection program offers Web-based resources allowing students to research learning strategies that work with their learning styles; discover their talents, values and interests; prepare for the SAT or ACT; research colleges and careers; compare themselves to applicants to various colleges; find scholarship opportunities; and sign up for meetings with college representatives.
The high school guidance department began using the Web-based program, created by Hobsons, of Cincinnati, in 2007-08, for seniors’ college searches and extended the program to include the junior class in 2008-09, along with job searches and registering for college visits.
This year, the department opened the program to freshman and sophomores, Director of Guidance Hillary Charney said.
Each year, the guidance department meets with the students in each class to discuss uses for the Naviance system and how to apply the resources offered, Ms. Charney said.
During a student’s freshman year, the department concentrates on identifying learning styles and study strategies to help the students during school. Typically, the students will take an online test after meeting with the school counselors and meet again after receiving their report cards to see how the suggested skills were applied.
”We’re doing something where they can explore themselves,” Ms. Charney said. “… We want the kids to figure out how they study best. We also want them to figure out how to succeed in high school.”
During a student’s sophomore year, the counselors concentrate on helping students reach their career path establishing what a student “wants to be when they grow up.”
The Naviance system includes a career test linking a student’s interests to possible career choices, descriptions of the particular careers and information on the degrees and experience needed to obtain the jobs, Ms. Charney said. While the program selects potential careers based on the student’s personality and interests, a student can choose careers outside of the listed recommendations.
A student’s junior and senior years focus on applying for colleges and exploring colleges, and the Naviance program helps students identify ways to prepare for college entrance exams, figure out the college environment they’d prefer, the majors that interest them, find scholarships, reach application deadlines and find the schedules for college representatives visiting Hillsborough High School.
Though scholarship and application information can change from year to year, the program is updated annually.
”This is the wonderful thing about this program it’s Web-based so we don’t have to pay for updates,” Ms. Charney said.
She added, “I happened to be at the Lafayette College visit. The representative who came is the person who will read their applications. Seven students attended, and, by the end of the session, she knew everyone’s name.”
The district pays a flat rate for access to the system, and all high school students are able to use it, she said. The guidance department staff can use the system for checking application statuses and to see where students are applying.
While some schools using the system allow parents to have a login name and password, past problems with parents logging on and applying to schools without their child’s permission caused the department to nix parent logins, Ms. Charney said. Instead, the department encourages parents to meet with their children about college and scholarship applications.
Since the Naviance system tracks where students apply and attend it allows the guidance department to see the schools Hillsborough students attend each year. In the future, the guidance department hopes to add alumni surveys for recent high school graduates and by spring 2010 institute personalized student learning plans required by state mandate, Ms. Charney said.
