As students are virtually preparing for next year’s classes, HHS counselors Sarah Sweetman and Anda Weaver are helping to organize a student- driven scheduling process. Usually, counselors meet with students one-on-one in person, but there have been a few adjustments to this year’s interactions.

“In years past, counselors would meet with each student on their caseload and go over course requirements for graduation purposes. Also, [counselors would go over] any programs [students] were interested in and [make] sure that all of those courses were accounted for their schedule of next year. Each counselor would go back to their office after they’ve met with all 300 or more [students] on their caseload and sit at their computer and type in the code of every single class for each student based on what they selected. It was very time consuming, and it [took] many steps. We [as counselors] would always talk about how [scheduling] can be easier. Last year when COVID-19 hit, we weren’t able to meet with our rising freshmen as we normally would. We had to kind of think outside the box. That’s where the transition to the new process began, and now we’re kind of doing it fullforce,” Sweetman said.

This year, students are instructed to select their courses through PowerSchool. All teachers have made recommendations and they are listed to help guide students on making the best choice academically. Sweetman and Weaver were able to learn more about this type of scheduling to get a better understanding and guide others in the process.

“Last year when we weren’t able to meet with our rising ninth graders, Mrs. Linden and Ms. Warren figured out how to utilize PowerSchool to give those students access to select their courses. There [were] some limitations when it came to electives. Us counselors had to try to reach out to these students and figure out electives. Ms. Weaver and I this year, [aren’t] going to be able to meet with every one of our students in a timely way, said, ‘Let’s learn more about how to do this course selection in PowerSchool.’ We were able to get training on it [and] learn more about it,  so we just started organizing it and developing it. That’s kind of where we’re at now,” Sweetman said.

As juniors start to prepare for their senior year, counselors have created virtual events for students to learn more about what’s ahead. 

“We’ve been having numerous conversations about [our rising seniors] even as we’re brainstorming new things and coming off of the scheduling focus. [We’ve been asking, what] are we going to do to continue to prepare our seniors?’ Your responsibility is beyond your classes next year. We are certainly thinking about doing a ‘boot camp’ type of opportunity for juniors going into their senior year so that they know college applications deadlines, [that the] FAFSA needs to get done and how to use Naviance. [We’re thinking about doing] things like that so [juniors] know that going into the summer, and [they’ll] be prepared to get after it when [they’re] here for senior year. We have Ms. Du who is our college advisor who’s rocking it on Instagram and hosting all these fun events to interact with seniors this year. It’s going to be the same for our rising seniors next year. So we definitely have a lot of initiatives and a lot of things we try to offer to prep all of our seniors and not only just for the college process,” Sweetman said. “We don’t want our [juniors] going into senior year blind, confused and unsure of what to expect. We hope to definitely work with [the rising juniors] before you leave for summer.”

Although there is a potential of going back in person next year, Weaver hopes to continue using this scheduling process through PowerSchool.

“I think we’ll probably continue to use this system because we like how students can pick their own [classes]. But the only thing that might change is that we’ll [still stop by] and talk to students and do presentations. It will be a blend. It will still have that virtual component of the picking but then obviously more human [interaction for follow ups],” Weaver said.

To learn more about the scheduling process, visit https://www.harrisonburg.k12.va.us/hhs/Department/75-HHS-Counseling-Department/3950-Untitled.html .