As a new semester has started, the Guidance Counselors are looking forward to improve themselves and are creating goals to achieve them by the end of the semester.
Heather Northrop, the school’s guidance counselor for freshmen in the Holland and Boyle house, said that she is “hoping to improve on building relationships with all of [her] students” and to think about new ways “to be as accessible as possible to [her] students”. Northrop is looking forward to “meeting MHS's future 9th graders when [she goes] to visit the 8th graders this spring” and getting freshmen prepared for sophomore year and being successful throughout high school.
Some goals Northrop has for this semester are to meet “with any students [she has] not yet met this year and getting to know them a little better”, meeting with students several times through classes to begin to talk about college and career opportunities after high school, and “visiting all five of Malden's K-8's to talk to the 8th graders about class options for next year”. She also would like to meet with every student on her caseload to discuss course selection for sophomore year. She plans on accomplishing these goals by “meeting with students individually, visiting students in the classroom, going to the K-8 schools to visit 8th graders”.
Taryn Belowsky, the school’s guidance counselor for freshmen in the Jenkins and Brunelli house, has goals that revolve around “assisting students achieve academic and social success”. This will be done through the two guidance classroom lessons left for this year and “a senior panel for the freshman to hear from current seniors”. She also wants to help as many 9th graders as possible to go to 10th grade. She is trying to achieve this through individual meetings, teacher meetings, and parent meetings.
Belowsky believes the Senior Internship program is great as it is something she is a part of every spring. She is “looking forward to the senior internship exhibition where seniors who went on internship present about their experiences”. As a guidance counselor, Belowsky is looking forward to improve on getting as many students to pass 9th grade as possible. She stated that “this is always difficult and at this point in the year some students need special plans to make this happen”.
Even though the second semester of the school year can be more challenging than the first, it is a good time to set new goals and improve on things that you think you could have done better on.
