Guidance

Guidance
The Middle School guidance and counseling program offers classroom guidance, group activities, parental programs, and counseling support for individual students.

Fifth Graders
For fifth graders, classroom guidance is offered during the second semester, once per cycle. The program is taught by the guidance counselor and is designed to help emerging adolescents learn important life skills. Several weeks are spent on topics such as values, clarification, friendships, cooperation, decision-making, refusal skills, and drug education. The goal of this program is to increase the interpersonal and intrapersonal skills of the pre-adolescent. These classes are tailored to fit the developmental needs of the students.

Sixth Graders
The Discovery Program is a once per cycle sixth-grade guidance class, which meets first semester. The guidance counselor teaches a program called Project Alert, a comprehensive drug education program, as well as addresses issues such as decision-making and feeling identification.

Seventh Graders
Seventh-grade guidance classes are taught once or twice throughout the year as needed. The seventh-grade guidance curriculum gives students strategies to help them learn assertiveness skills. They are then taught ways to use these skills to effectively manage and improve their peer relationships.

Eighth Grade
A small group of eighth graders may become peer counselors. Selection is conducted at the end of the seventh grade year. In the fall of eighth grade, selected students complete peer counselor training to become active peer counselors. These students are taught to be active listeners and positive role models for their peers who are experiencing problems with friends, academics, or parents. These peer counselors are supervised and trained by the Middle School guidance counselor.

All Grade Levels
Support groups are offered at all grade levels for students. Some topics may be students who are experiencing a change in their family structure, students who are new to our school, or any other identified need. Students come to this group on a voluntary basis and are encouraged to develop skills to help them adjust to the changes in their life in a positive way. Students in these groups provide support for one another and are bound by the rules of the group to keep all discussions in confidence.