Written by: Jon Watson, High School Counselor, A-K
We have finally made it! The end of the 2020 portion of the school year is finally here, and we could not be more proud of all of our students, staff, and families for all of the work they put in this year. We know this year was not easy, and many of us took on new roles or modified versions of the roles we thought we knew. We learned that it took a team approach, and we are thankful for everyone involved in making this first part of the school a success. Throughout the year we saw an increased amount of stress and anxiety from everyone at some point, and we want to make sure everyone feels supported going in the break, and at the start of the New Year. Below are articles written throughout the counseling department with more information on how to find and utilize supports over the break and outside of school hours. If you have any questions feel free to reach out to your counselor, but please know that counselors will be on break as well and are not expected to reply during the two week break. We will be back in the office on January 5th. Resources As we move towards a well-deserved holiday break from the stress of Remote Learning, we want you to know that the D’Evelyn counseling team is thinking of you. This challenging time of COVID is not going to go on forever and soon students will be back to school. We look forward to that day. During these uncertain times, it is essential to address and tend to the wellness and mental health of our children and ourselves. According to a recent nationwide study by George Mason University on teacher and student wellness during the COVID-19 pandemic, 46% of teachers reported encountering student mental health concerns such as anxiety, depression, academic stress, trauma and grief more often than they did before the pandemic. Below you will find a variety of resources to support you and your family while school is not in session. The ones that we found helpful are student mental health supports, family resources, and the virtual calm room. Here is a link to the district mental health hub. https://www.jeffcopublicschools.org/services/mental_health_services/mental_health_hub If you feel like your child is experiencing emotional distress, there are several community resources available to assist you during this challenging time.
Seniors Scholarships Now that the application season is starting to come to an end, we want you to start considering looking for scholarships. Although scholarships may be hard to win, there are thousands of scholarships out there, and you never know what will happen if you don’t apply. The counselors have put together a scholarship page in the Senior Google classroom for you all to access whenever you would like. This page has a handout that has all of the top scholarship search engines to help you find scholarships, the handout has directions on how to utilize the Naviance scholarship search, and it has information on the best places to look for scholarships. The page also contains a google spreadsheet of all the scholarships that are shared on Thursday’s in the classroom. We have started a segment called “Scholarship Thursday” where we roll out 2-3 new scholarships to students every Thursday. We are hoping this takes away some of the stress students have from looking for scholarships. The universities and colleges you decide to attend are going to be your best bet in receiving some type of scholarship aid. The next best place to look is going to be through the D’Evelyn Education Foundation Scholarships. Those will be shared with students in January. We have over 20 scholarships that students are eligible to apply for, and they are only competing against themselves! Please tell your students to take advantage of these scholarships once they are available. Scholarships do take some time to complete, but you do not need to reinvent the wheel. The majority of scholarships have essays that need to be completed, but a lot of them have very similar prompts. Students may need to tweak the essay in some way, but don’t be afraid to use essays that have already been written if it meets the prompt. Students can contact the counselors at any time to receive more scholarship information. FAFSA The FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) is available for students and their families to apply for, and we highly recommend that you do, even if you don’t think you will receive any funds. We say this because the majority of schools won’t provide scholarships to students if they have not applied for the FAFSA. The FAFSA is completely free to apply for, and you DO NOT have to accept any funds that are offered to you if you do not want them. Universities and colleges like to have this information for their own financial aid packages that they offer students. The website is https://studentaid.gov/h/apply-for-aid/fafsa. You will need your prior-prior year tax return information, and you will need to complete it with your student. If you have more questions we have information on our website, or you can contact your counselor. Application Deadlines There are more college application deadlines that are arriving in the near future. Please make sure you take advantage of the break, and finish your applications. As second semester gets going you will not want to stress about last minute applications and your homework assignments. Big deadlines are January 15th and February 1st. They will be here before we know it, so double check when your deadlines are and start planning ahead. ALL GRADES Course Selection Early in second semester the counselors will be presenting in classes about course selection. This will fall around the end of January, and we want students to be thoughtful of the classes they are choosing. For our older students, we want to make sure they are choosing classes that they are interested in, and that will help them as they start thinking about applying for college. For our younger students, we want you to use this time to start exploring classes to discover those subjects that you enjoy and excel in. We want students to be thoughtful with their selections, and we encourage family discussion on possible class choices. We will have more information about this next semester. HAVE A GREAT BREAK!!! Comments are closed.
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