Academic Advising
Each student is assigned an Academic Advisor who is available to help her in her academic endeavors. Academic advisors provide guidance to students regarding academic performance, growth and achievement. They encourage the student to believe in her ability to succeed. A student meets with her Academic Advisor a minimum of twice a year. She discusses her academic progress and plans her yearly coursework. Her Academic Advisor makes sure that she fulfills her graduation requirements. The Academic Advisor also reviews the student’s standardized test results. If a student needs additional assistance, her Academic Advisor helps her find tutoring or other programs of assistance.
To request a meeting, the student should send an email to her Academic Advisor.
The Academic and College Advisors also plan student activities and parent meetings that help students plan, monitor, and manage learning.
Academic advisors meet with students on academic probation and students earning a D or F in their classes. They provide encouragement and advice on how to study, prepare for tests, manage time, and /or access tutoring support. Academic advisors communicate with parents/guardians when a student achieves academic excellence, or when a student is having academic challenges.
College and Career AdvisingCollege advising is available to all SJHS students throughout the academic year. To request a meeting with her College Advisor, the student should send him/her an email.
College Advisors perform the following:
- Guide students to online college and university resources; maintain a collection of brochures and other material received from colleges and universities;
- Enable and guide the students use of Naviance which facilitates the college application process;
- Help administer standardized tests, provide information for college entrance tests, and meet with students after they receive scores;
- Supply students with information about various types of financial aid and procedures to apply for aid;
- Provide information about and encourage students to apply for college scholarships;
- Administer college scholarship examinations, if necessary;
- Organize the yearly College Fair;
- Schedule college talks with college representatives;
- Organize small group meetings during freshman year to address career interest and college preparedness;
- Set up appointments with students, starting their sophomore year, to discuss all matters pertaining to college entrance.
Naviance Family is a web-based planning and advising system that helps students research careers, colleges/universities, and majors. Students can keep track of their test scores, activities, and awards in Naviance.
Naviance facilitates the college application process to assure all requirements are met. College Advisers post and students are notified about Cal Grants and other scholarship on Naviance. Students are encouraged to apply for Cal grants and other scholarships and awards.
Parents/Guardians are also given access to Naviance in order to support their daughters throughout the College Application process.
The Career Guidance Program at Saint Joseph High School provides the following:
- Career information (available on Naviance), including surveys and assessments
- Career Exploration through guest speakers
- Guidance to assist each young woman as she discovers her capabilities and interests
- Guidance towards career options that match her capabilities and interests
Wellness CounselingThe Wellness Counseling Program helps students understand and cope with themselves, their environments, and their interpersonal relationships. The Wellness Counselors are specially trained in school counseling procedures and are available on campus for students and/or parents/guardians to help with home, personal, or school-related problems. The counselors also facilitate support groups to meet specific student concerns, e.g., grief counseling.
If the need exists for more in-depth counseling, the Wellness Counselors, after consultation with a student’s parents/guardians, may refer a student to an outside agency or therapist whose philosophies are consistent with Catholic teachings.
Peer HelpersPeer helpers are prepared to support peers experiencing stressful situations that do not require professional intervention, such as academic and personal pressures, and concerns about getting along with boyfriends, peers, and family members. Under the supervision of the Wellness Counselors, Peer Helpers provide help and assistance to fellow students and play an integral role in helping students’ transition to a new school and making connections with others.
Peer Helpers are available each day before school, during lunch, and, with special permission of classroom teachers, during class. They are prepared to support their peers in crisis, and they follow specific guidelines and ethical standards.
In addition to working with their peers, Peer Helpers serve the SJHS community during the following events and activities:
- Day In the Life of a Jester: Peer helpers facilitate small groups of 8th grade students who are visiting our campus for the day.
- 8th Grade Social: Peer Helpers help with this welcome event for all 8th graders entering Saint Joseph High School and St. John Bosco High School.
- Freshman/Transfer Student Orientation: Peer helpers facilitate small groups and lead discussions pertaining to high school life. Students are allowed time to ask questions and to tour the campus.
- Freshman Family: Peer Helpers are assigned freshman families and are a resource for their family as well as responsible for providing information and support as the girls’ transition to high school. A family is also provided for our transfer students.
- Emergency Preparedness Team Members: Peer Helpers are placed on teams, led by faculty and staff members, and are assigned specific tasks to assist in the event of an emergency.
- Conflict Mediation: Peer Helpers address students and lead discussions regarding common areas of conflict among friends/peers.
- Anti-Cyberbullying: Peer Helpers work with the Campus Ministry department and CSJ Circle members to present information, resources and methods to prevent, avoid, and address cyberbullying.
- Senior Seminar: Senior Peer Helpers and CSJ Circle members work with St. John Bosco Youth Ministry leaders to plan and present a special program designed for SJHS and SJB senior students to discuss relevant issues in a co-educational setting.
- Digital Citizenship: Peer Helpers help facilitate the Digital Citizenship class.
Student Inclusion and Learning AssistanceThe Saint Joseph High School Inclusion Policy is designed to assist those students who qualify for the college preparatory curriculum but have learning challenges or disabilities that require minor adjustments for success. Our policy is aligned with the ADLA Administrative Handbook, Chapter 14 School Inclusion
http://handbook.la-archdiocese.org/chapter-14.
Saint Joseph High School is committed to serving the needs of each student. If parents/ guardians feel that their daughter may need an adjustment to enable her to fully participate in the general education curriculum, they should contact the SJHS Wellness Counselors, who are STEP Coordinators, to initiate the STEP process.
SJHS can provide minor adjustments for a student that improves her learning without compromising the curriculum. Common types of adjustments include the following:
- extended time on class tests 30 minutes and quizzes 15 minutes,
- preferential seating in the classroom,
- extra time for assignments (assigned by teacher and STEP coordinator)
- note-taking help (copies of teacher notes and/or student notes),
- tape-recorded lectures,
- tests read orally,
- distraction-free environment for testing.
Support Team Education Plan (STEP)Saint Joseph High School uses the STEP process as the framework for identifying and assessing student challenges and providing support to students to reduce or eliminate the impact of a learning challenge or disability.
The STEP process has the following steps:
- Teacher or parent/guardian or Academic Advisor contacts the STEP Coordinator to initiate the process.
- STEP Coordinator creates a Student Success Team (SST) to create the STEP Action Plan; this includes the student’s teachers, her Academic Advisor, and the STEP Coordinator
- STEP SST gathers information on student performance.
- STEP SST meets and creates an Action Plan / STEP
- STEP SST or meets with the student and parents/guardians to review the Action Plan
- Teachers and students implement the adjustments outlined in the Action Plan.
- Teachers and Academic Advisor monitor student progress.
- STEP SST has follow-up meeting to make sure the adjustments are helping.
Professionally Diagnosed DisabilitiesIf the parents/guardians provide documentation (appropriate documentation from a medical doctor, a licensed or credentialed psychologist, or an Individualized Education Program (IEP) assessment from a public school showing that the student has a professionally diagnosed disability) and request that the STEP SST include and consider that information in the STEP plan, the SST will
- Fill out the Parental Request and Consent box on the STEP,
- Identify any related minor adjustments within the STEP,
- Obtain the written consent of the parents/guardians in the space provided on the form, and
- Provide the parents/guardians with the copy of the archdiocesan pamphlet Procedural Safeguards for Students with Disabilities and Their Parents or Guardians [NF3].
Disability Discrimination Complaint and Review ProcessIf the parents/guardians have a complaint or disagreement involving the student’ physical or mental impairment or disability and it is not resolved by SJHS, the parents/guardians can submit the complaint to the Department of Catholic Schools, as described in the ADLA Administrative Handbook Section 14.3 Complaint and Review Process
https://handbook.la-archdiocese.org/chapter-14/section-14-3
Drug Free School ProgramSaint Joseph High School is a Drug Free School. The school community is committed to providing a learning environment free of drugs and alcohol. The school has a proactive comprehensive drug, alcohol, and tobacco use prevention education program, managed by the wellness counselors. The program is designed to provide guidance within the framework of the teachings of the Catholic Church and the charism of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet. This multi-faceted prevention-education program is implemented across the curriculum and co-curricular activities. Specific aspects of the program include the following:
- building student awareness through lectures, discussion, guidance programs;
- working collaboratively with community agencies to enhance education;
- providing an active Peer Helping Program;
- providing counseling from Wellness Counselors;
- having disciplinary consequences for violations of rules pertaining to sale, possession, and/or use of drugs or alcohol;
- providing parents with information about illegal substances at Parent Education Evenings;
- providing parents with information about intervention and referral services (available through the Wellness Counselors); and
- employing INTERQUEST, a private non-police-affiliated company which uses canines to screen student lockers, book bags, automobiles, and school common areas for illegal substances.
The school has adopted a proactive approach to eliminate any illegal substance. The goal is not to catch students doing wrong, but to encourage them to think and make good choices. Students attending school-related functions (dances, retreats, etc.) are subject to search of personal property and may be asked to take a breathalyzer test.
