Coalition for Glen Cove

  Guidance chairperson, Laurie Lynn,  speaks at Coalition for Glen Cove meeting

Coalition for Glen Cove vice president Larry Fischer, guidance chairperson Laurie Lynn, and Coalition president Helen Kotzky at the November meeting of the Coalition.

Laurie Lynn, chairperson of the Glen Cove Guidance Department, was the guest speaker at the November meeting of the Coalition for Glen Cove. Ms. Lynn has been a guidance counselor in Glen Cove for several years, and before that was an admission officer at C. W. Post University for eleven years.

Ms. Lynn explained that there are three guidance counselors in the Glen Cove middle school and five in the high school, including three bilingual counselors. A student meets with the same guidance counselor for the three years of middle school and then with another counselor during the four years of high school. Each middle school counselor meets each year with about 250 students while each high school counselor meets with about 180.

Students find that going from fifth grade in an elementary school to sixth grade in the middle school is a big jump. Every sixth grader talks with a guidance counselor about career choices, helped by a computer program called Choices Explorer that can be used by the student and his or her parents at school, at home, or at the library. Choices Explorer includes a career finder quiz, the connections between courses and careers, videos showing careers, and suggestions of ways that volunteering in the community can lead to a career. Some middle school students have had limited experience outside their families, friends, and neighborhoods and some have unrealistic expectations about how many people actually work as professional athletes and entertainers or in the fashion industry. Each year during School Counseling Week guidance counselors encourage teachers to talk about careers and college choices. High school students participate in the twice-yearly National Hispanic College Fair at Molloy College.

Counselors, who can look at all of a student’s activities, grades, and interests and know the problems that the student has outside of school, act as student advocates during meetings between students, parents, teachers, and administrators. The Guidance Department works with Ellen Li, the district student records administrator, and has access to PowerSchool, the program that records student attendance and grades.

Although guidance counselors talk with students about careers that do not require a college degree as well as those that do, most Glen Cove graduates go on to college. Guidance counselors use Naviance, a program that lets a student’s standardized test scores and grades be compared with those of Glen Cove students (without using names) who have been admitted by the colleges the student is interested in. Every guidance counselor gets first-hand information by visiting five colleges each year. After advising students which colleges are appropriate for their career goals and abilities, counselors describe the letters of recommendation, essays, transcripts, and standardized tests that each college requires and make sure that the materials are submitted on time. Each high school guidance counselor guides about fifty students to college each year.