2023 - 2028 Strategic Plan

Student Support

We aspire to develop an exceptional school counseling office that will provide unparalleled social, emotional, and academic support and services to prepare every Skutt Catholic student to achieve excellence as a student and put them on a trajectory for post-secondary success.

Goal 1:

Support the school counseling office to ensure it has the resources and structure to be successful.

Provide the school counseling office with the resources and structure needed to effectively meet the needs of our students. This involves assessing the current resources available to the counseling office, identifying any deficiencies, and providing the necessary tools, and staff.  By ensuring that the counseling office has the resources and structure needed to be successful, students will be better supported in navigating the challenges of school and life.

Goal 1 Objectives:

  • Document specific responsibilities and structure of the current school counseling office.
    • Develop a specific job description for school counselors (Completed Oct 2023)
    • Change roles and responsibilities, hire a new Career and College Counselor and move from part-time to full-time behavioral health specialist (Jan 2024)
  • Conduct a comprehensive needs assessment to identify the school counseling office’s needs to achieve success, and develop strategies to address any identified gaps or weaknesses.
  • Provide ongoing professional development opportunities that allow the school counseling office to ensure they have the skills and knowledge needed to deliver high-quality services.
    • Dr. Deane, Ms. Cox, and Mr. Williams completed Hope Squad advisor training in May 2025. This gives the counselors the knowledge to use the Hope Squad curriculum and materials in developing a school-wide Hope Squad. 
    • Summer of 2024 Mr. Schumacher went to the DIA school counseling fellowship in Massachusetts Why: Strengthen counselors’ confidence, competence, and connections for successfully accompanying students to a meaningful life beyond high school. How: College campus visits; workshops with leaders in mental health, college, and career counseling; discussions, Mass and Meditations
    • All School Counselors are now NeSCA and ASCA members, providing training opportunities and updates about trends and solutions to counseling related items. ASCA set best practices for the profession. 
    • The school is a GPACAC member now to help counselors stay current on college admissions processes and changes; Mr. Schumacher attended the GPACAC breakfast at Creighton Prep on 9/19.  
    • August 2024 Mental Health First Aid Training 
    • Dr. Deane to COWS tour of WI private universities (Spring 2024) 
  • Establish and implement best practices for school counseling services, based on research and the needs of the community.
    • The Catholic Charities model has changed to a more short term model, so we can serve more students. The minimum number of sessions for a student who is program appropriate is 15, which is based on the American Psychiatric Association’s recommendation for the age group. 
    • Communication between the on-site Catholic Charities therapist and school counselors has improved to provide a more comprehensive care experience to students. Some improvements: 
      • Full-time therapist, allowing us more time for meetings
      • Behavioral therapy tracking has been improved so all counselors are in the know about the status of students receiving therapy and scheduling is more clearly defined. 
      • The therapist has commented that the addition of two counselors has improved the team approach dramatically. 
    • Adding a full-time college and career counselor has allowed for more family engagement with the college admission and search process. His dedicated learning to Scoir, in particular, has improved our ability to filter, run, and read reports as well as communicate with large groups of students who meet filtered criteria. 
    • We have added three “study rooms” where students can receive accommodations/tutoring and complete make-up testing, receive virtual care from a doctor, phone a parent, or emotionally regulate in other ways. The feedback from teachers and students has been extremely positive, and the rooms are in use everyday.
  • Regularly promote the effectiveness of the school counseling office, and provide continual feedback that allows the office to make adjustments as necessary to ensure it continues to meet the needs of students and the school community.

Goal 2:

Evolve our personalized academic assistance to support students in achieving their goals.

We desire to evolve our personalized academic assistance to provide students with the support they need to achieve their goals. This involves identifying the current strengths and weaknesses of our academic assistance programs and finding ways to enhance them. By providing more personalized assistance, we can better address the individual needs of each student and help them to reach their full potential. This goal may involve implementing new technology or tools, partnering with outside organizations or experts, or developing new programs or initiatives to provide targeted support.

Goal 2 Objectives:

  • Document the current academic support systems available to students, and develop data available to help determine success, including support options for all levels of students, as well as how we use our branching minds software.
    • Survey students and teachers for feedback on support services (ongoing)
    • Move away from Naviance to SCOIR (Jan 2024)
    • Hire an additional career and college counseling position (Student Success Advisor) (Jan 2024)
    • Reduce class sizes in all areas by increasing staff (Spring 2024)
  • Conduct a comprehensive needs assessment to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the academic assistance programs, gather feedback from students and teachers, and identify areas for improvement.
  • Research best practices in academic assistance for all students, that will serve our school community.
    • Best practice is to use valid, reliable, and consistent data to determine where students are falling short. We are moving to the ACT suite of assessments beginning with the placement exam in 2nd semester. This change has been communicated to families, and the PSAT is now invitation only (which has also been implemented). This year-to-year ACT data will allow us to MUCH better academically plan with students to reach goals because we can get very granular about the skills they need to earn better scores and be in the college ready zone. 
    • 9/19: Mr. Schumacher and Dr. Deane attended a “PreACT and ACT Test Data for Student and School Success Workshop” at ESU 3 to help us prepare for this change and how to access, view, and act upon the data available. We are very excited for this change!
    • The student rooms offer a best practice. These rooms allow students to limit disruptions to whole classes. 
  • Implement success plans for students based on their needs and goals, and communicate these effectively to students and their parents.
  • Continuously monitor, adjust, and evaluate, academic assistance support practices, including ongoing promotion of available resources, communication strategies, and staff training to meet the needs of our students to achieve their goals.

Goal 3:

Provide comprehensive support and strategic partners to help students identify and achieve postsecondary success.

Providing comprehensive support and strategic partners to help students identify and achieve postsecondary success. This involves identifying the individual needs and goals of each student and connecting them with the necessary resources and partners to support their postsecondary plans. These resources and partners may include college and career counseling, scholarship and financial aid information, internships, job shadowing, and other opportunities to gain practical experience and explore career options. By providing comprehensive support and strategic partners, we can help students to build a roadmap for their postsecondary success and achieve their goals beyond high school.

Goal 3 Objectives:

  • Document current practices, specifying intended audiences and groups for post-secondary success, as well as how we use our Naviance software programming.
    • The “College Hub” portion of the School Counseling Page should be ready to publish by 9/27. The counseling page is getting an overhaul that will feature the “core four” areas of counseling support: Academic, Behavioral Health, College, and Career. Each area will have an interactive “hub.” The next hub that will be revised is BehavioralHealth. 
    • Senior College Readiness informational meeting for parents
    • Junior College Readiness informational meeting for parents
    • College funding and Financial Assistance meeting for Junior and Senior parents by EduQuest
    • School Counseling Website updated to the “Core Four”
  • Conduct a comprehensive needs assessment to understand the strengths and weaknesses of post-secondary preparation and investigation.
  • Research to determine best practices of successful post-secondary readiness programs in schools as well as use alumni to reflect on their post-secondary experiences.
  • Adjust and enhance post-secondary preparation practices by developing an overall communication, implementation, and marketing plan for our community that promotes post-secondary success.

Goal 4:

Promote our social-emotional health resources through a comprehensive program for our school community.

Promoting our social-emotional health resources to all our stakeholders will ensure a comprehensive program for our school community that addresses the social and emotional well-being of students, staff, and parents. This goal involves promoting awareness of the resources available to support mental and emotional wellness and providing opportunities for students and staff to develop the skills and strategies needed to manage stress, build resilience, and navigate the challenges of life.

Goal 2 Objectives:

  • Document the current social-emotional health resources available to our school community, and identify the intended audiences for each resource, as well as our partnership with Catholic charities.
    • This will be the next improved Hub of the counseling website.
  • Conduct a comprehensive needs assessment to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of our social-emotional health programming, and gather feedback from everyone in our community.
    • Teacher feedback: one-on-ones for too many students per hour can leave students out of the classroom for too long. We have adapted to two student one-on-ones per hour (previously three per hour minimum), which has received good feedback.
  • Hope Squad replace Prevention Counsel
  • Research best practices for social-emotional health programs in schools, and identify areas for improvement based on the needs assessment and best practice review.
    • The Catholic Charities shift to a 15-week model. An area of improvement for us is to serve more students (i.e. 18 students aren’t taking all spots for the whole year). This shift helps us improve this area tremendously. 
  • Implement an overall communication and marketing plan to enhance the visibility of our social-emotional health offerings to the school community, and implement changes to improve their effectiveness.
  • Continually evaluate, and adjust social-emotional programming practices based on feedback from our school community to ensure ongoing success and effectiveness in meeting the social-emotional needs of our school.

©2024 V.J. and Angela Skutt Catholic High School

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