Counseling Services Information

 

The role of a School Counselor varies in every district.  At CNS High School, the School Counselor works with students on graduation requirements, college and career planning & decisions, personal matters, and scheduling concerns.  We counsel students on academic, career, and social/emotional issues.  Sometimes, if issues are such that long term therapy is required, we may refer students and their families to therapists outside of the school system.  Students are welcome to come to our offices before school, during lunch, or after school to make an appointment to see us.  Emergencies or students who are upset are handled immediately.  We also have a Student Assistance Counselor who is available to see students regarding substance abuse and other mental health issues AND a full time social worker who also assists our students with the many day to day challenges they face.

 

Schedule Changes

 

Students may request schedule changes up until June 1^st of the prior school year.  Any request made after that date will only be considered if extenuating circumstances apply and with administrator approval. No courses will be dropped until the completion of a 4 day cycle at the beginning of the semester. After the 4 day cycle, courses may be dropped until the 5^th week. After five weeks, students will NOT be permitted to drop a course. If a course is dropped within the first five weeks, no grade is computed into the student’s average. Required courses for graduation may not be dropped at any time.  In addition, ALL STUDENTS must have at least 6 courses plus PE in their schedule at all times.  If dropping a course would bring them below that number, they may not drop that class.  

 

Teacher Changes: Absolutely NO teacher changes will be made unless a student had a course with a teacher before or the student’s sibling was previously in the teacher’s class and there were documented problems.  If this is the case, these requests must be brought to the counselor’s attention within the first FIVE days of the school year.  No changes will be made after that date.

 

Level Changes: A student cannot request a level change for a full year course until the end of the first 5 weeks.  NO requests will be considered AFTER the 10^th week of school.  If a level change is requested, a determination will be made as to the appropriateness of the level change.  The teacher, student, parent, school counselor, and Principal must agree that the student has been working very hard in the class, has stayed after school many times for extra help, and is truly misplaced.  The Principal will make the decision about whether or not a level change will be allowed.  If the level change is approved, the grade for the original course will remain and be averaged into the final average for the year of the new course.  Level change decisions may be appealed to the Executive Principal. 

 

Teacher Conferences

 

Communication between parents and teachers is very important.  Parents are encouraged to speak to teachers on the phone before requesting a parent conference.  Often times, a phone call will be all the communication that is necessary to get the required information.  However, if a conference with all the teachers is deemed necessary by the counselor or the parent, it will be scheduled for 2:10 on a day the counselor and the parent are both available.  Parents wanting to meet individually with only one teacher may certainly do so without needing to have a counselor present. These individual meetings may be scheduled directly with the teacher. 

 

Academic Progress

 

Progress reports or report cards are generated for every student every five weeks.  Clicking on the Progress Reports/Report Card Dates link on the counseling web page can access a schedule of when these reports are generated.  Many times, parents want to know how their students are doing in between progress reports.  The School Counselors only have the information from the progress reports or report cards.  They do not have information about their students’ progress in between those dates.  For parents who need additional information, they may either contact their child’s teacher directly, check the SchoolTool Parent Portal, or they may request that their child start the weekly progress report process. 

 

Weekly progress reports are offered as a courtesy to parents and students who are concerned about grades. The Progress Reports can be accessed on the CNS Counseling Webpage, or they are available to be picked up by the student in the counseling office on Thursday and/or Friday.  The student brings the progress report around to his/her teachers on Thursday and Friday (it takes two days to see every teacher with block scheduling).  The report is given to the teacher on the way into class and picked up from the teacher by the student on the way out of class.  The student brings the report home to their parents on Friday.  It is the student’s responsibility to bring this report home.  It is the parent’s responsibility to make sure their child is doing this and reviewing the report each week.

 

Grades can also be monitored on the SchoolTool Parent and Student portals if a teacher is currently using this feature. If you need assistance with getting connected to the Parent Portal, please send an email to gradebook@nscsd.org. For more information on how the Parent Portal works, go to the district website at nscsd.org, hover over the green Parents Tab along the top, go to SchoolTool Online Grade Book, and click on SchoolTool Parent Guide. This will provide you with information on how to look up information in SchoolTool.

 

 

Homework Requests

 

If your child is ill, and will be out of school for three days or more, homework may be requested from our Counseling office.  (Students out for one or two days only miss one of each class and should see their teachers upon their return to get the work that they missed.)  Please keep in mind it does take some time for the teachers to receive the request and get it back us. Teachers have 24 hours after the homework request is submitted to return any work to the counseling office.  Please make arrangements for someone to pick up the requested work before the student returns to school.  No homework requests will be made for family vacations or other unexcused absences.  If you know in advance that your family is taking a trip and your student will miss school, it is up to the student to request the work from his or her teachers in advance of your trip.  Family vacations are considered unexcused absences.