initiatives are a privilege system that rewards students for doing the right thing, and the Ram Ambassadors who are the role models of our school. The ambassadors assist teachers, students, volunteer their time with the community and train their peers in the Character Counts program. Montwood High School has been very fortunate to find partners in the community willing to support the education of our students. Our Culinary Arts Department has established partnerships with “The Crave Kitchen”, “The Running Chef” and El Paso Community College all providing internships or in kind donations to the program. Our students with special needs are offered many opportunities for job training from many generous businesses; The Miracle League, Furr’s Cafeteria, Insights Museum, Sun Metro, Wal-Mart, Olive Garden, Peter Piper and Golden Corral assist with our special populations. Our guidance and counseling department is fortunate to have partnerships with the following businesses in our three domains: ACADEMIC-University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso Community College, New Mexico State University, Art Institute, National Hispanic Institute, and Making it Count. CAREER-Army, Air Force, Marine, Navy, Western Tech, Law Enforcement Agencies, El Paso Community College and DARS. PERSONAL/SOCIAL-STARS (assistance for rape victims), TX Advisory Board, United Behavioral Health, Center Against Family Violence, TX Attorney General and Confidential Drug Testing. The success of our program could not be possible without the continued support of our Partners in Education.

Volunteer Involvement

Our parent liaison Idelia Gutierrez has been an active member of the Montwood High School team for 2 years. She works closely with Vangie Franco our Communities in School representative as well as Mario Holguin our LMSW. All three are vital to the success of the MHS counseling initiatives. Ms. Idelia Gutierrez, can be contacted at (915) 937-2435 or at igutie01@sisd.net. Ms. Gutierrez offers monthly classes to our Spanish speaking parents entitled “Ingles Sin Barreras,” English Without Barriers for our large population of Spanish speaking parents. Town Hall Meetings are offered every semester with topics such as healthy relationships, dating violence, MADD, Drugs/Gangs as well as sexting and juvenile law.

Focus for Improvement

Our focus for improvement this year is to increase the number of students served in personal-social domain for the 2010/2011 school year from 2009/2010 by 20%. Interventions include one-to-one counseling, guidance presentations, crisis intervention as well as group

counseling. The groups were developed based on round table discussions with 162 teachers, ten groups were suggested and 34 referrals were made. Another area of need in our border city is help for our students who are being affected by the violence in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, a twenty minute drive from our school. Guidance lessons for these identified ESL students will be implemented affecting 176 students. Our second goal for this school year is preparing our seniors for completing the necessary steps for transition to postsecondary education. Counseling intervention will improve student’s knowledge of this process from the July 2010 pretest to the 2011 posttest by 10%.

Keeping You Informed

The counseling department at MHS is committed to continuous and effective communication by a variety of means within the entire learning community to keep stakeholders informed. Informing the community establishes trust and rapport and builds a sense of community that is critical to student success. Information is disseminated via, personal, electronic and print media in English and Spanish when necessary. Personal

• Eighth Grade Parent Night & Student Tours • Ninth Grade Family Block Conferences • Senior Parent Night and Assemblies • Staff Development/Faculty Roundtables • Classroom Presentations • Department Head Meetings • ARD/504 Committee Meetings • Individual Parent Conferences • Advanced Academics Parent Meetings • Financial Aid Workshops & Go Center • Scholarship/College Information Workshops • Counselor Open door policy

Electronic • Individual Emails/ Senior List-Serve • Counseling Webpage www.sisd.net/montwoodhs/ • Daily Audio & Scrolling Monitor Announcements • Global Call-Out System • EHAC (grades & attendance program) • Handouts & Flyers

Print • Grades/Standardized Testing Results • Newspaper • Guidance materials • Marquee

Principal’s Comments

Montwood High School’s counseling team is comprised of seven dedicated counselors and a master social worker who assist our 2650 students. Our team is actively involved helping our diverse student population with achieving their full potential by focusing on the developmental needs of students in the realms of personal/social, academic and career planning. The counseling team collaborates and plans program goals designed to empower a diverse community of life-long learners to be academically successful, career oriented, emotionally balanced and self- reliant. Our counseling team disaggregates data to develop, apply and assess a developmental guidance and counseling model which is based on the national standards set forth by the American School Counselors Association (ASCA). Counselors’ conference with students in regards to student achievement, attendance, programs of study, assessments, and post-secondary plans to meet individual needs. By collaborating with administration, faculty and staff they incorporate the Campus Improvement Plan and provide our students with a safe and positive learning environment.

Student Support Team

Montwood High Schools counselors work together with faculty and staff as well as district personnel to provide services to our valued students. The core student support team at MHS consists of a Dean of Instruction, seven counselors, one master social worker, four clerks that assist with registration, customer service, transcripts and scheduling with 170 years of experience in the field of education. All certified personal hold credentials applicable to their occupation.

Members of the SST hold a variety of professional memberships in organizations such as Texas Counseling Association, American School Counselors Association, Trans Pecos Association, Texas Association of Secondary School Principals, to name a few. Other support team members include the principal, assistant principals, Communities in Schools worker, our parent liaison, school nurse, attendance clerks, special education diagnosticians, campus testing coordinator and well as our three lab coordinators and the ESL program coordinator. Counselor’s responsibilities are broken down into academic, career, personal/social domains based on the ASCA National Model. By specializing in different areas we have been better able to meet the developmental needs of all students. Our counselors are involved in at-risk team planning, alpha teams, crisis response teams as well as the School Improvement Team and other committees vital to the success of the school. As essential members of these varied groups we are able to support our students.

CORE STUDENT SUPPORT TEAM

Education Years

of Service

1 Dean of Instruction M. Ed 17

7 Counselors (1Lead) M. Ed. 94

1 Licensed Master Social Worker

LMSW 9

1 Scheduling Clerk 14

1 Counseling Clerk 1

1 Registrar 20

1 Transcript Clerk 15

The faculty and staff also play a vital role in the success of the counseling program by supporting the counseling and campus mission, referring students and indentifying areas of need on the campus.

School Climate and Safety

Montwood High School counselors are committed to providing a positive, supportive and safe environment for all students. A positive school climate helps to foster and influence youth development and significantly impacts the learning process. Montwood High School provides all students the opportunity to become involved in numerous and activities and clubs that are meaningful to them. Enrollment was 70% in extracurricular organizations. The enrollment breakdown is shown below.

Key programs are available to assist students in making educated decisions in order to develop and maintain a safe environment on our campus. Presentations on sexting, dating violence, healthy relationships and STD’s, Town Hall meetings, drug and gang awareness, and MARS (Multiagency Referral System) have been presented to our student body and have also been available to the community. Our philosophy is that parents are a student’s most important and influential teachers, we provide them with opportunities to be a part of the many presentations we offer our students. These presentations are called Town Hall meetings and are held in the evening to accommodate parent work schedules. The graph below demonstrates the increase in Town Hall meetings offered to parents from 2008/09 to 2009/10, an increase of 50%. The reason for the increase was based on interest and positive feedback from parents.

Measures are taken to ensure the safety of all students and staff. Faculty and staff are required to wear ID badges as well as visitors and visiting district personal. Yearly welcome assemblies are conducted with each grade level to introduce campus faculty and review student expectations for the upcoming school year. Each semester campus emergency crisis drills are conducted. At the end of the school year, Montwood implemented a new tardy system called Plasco to ensure students use their time in between classes wisely. As a result a 5% decrease in tardy rates was realized in the short time the system was implemented.

Student Results

At Montwood High School we have implemented programs in an attempt to close the education gap. We share a common vision with our school and district to provide all students with every educational opportunity possible. Our counseling department in collaboration with our dedicated teachers worked effortlessly to encourage student college readiness. The graph below demonstrates an increase of 10% from 2008/2009 to 2009/2010 of college ready seniors who took the SAT:

An improvement the personal/social domain of our program was an increase in the participation of small group; an increase of 53% was calculated from 2008/09 to 2009/10. The groups offered were Self-Esteem, At-Risk Population, Teenage Mothers and Teenage Fathers. Border Violence, Grief, LGBT, and Anger are group opportunities that will be offered to students in the upcoming school year. The following graph demonstrates the increase in students participating in group counseling.

Montwood High School has designated an at-risk period where students are grouped by grade levels and / or academic need. One of our Tier II goals for the year was to help our students with the many processes involved with graduation. Each counselorwas assigned three senior level at risk classes. Our goals included helping students identify potential colleges, the admission process, scholarship information, obtaining a FAFSA pin number for themselves and their parents, and completing the FAFSA. Our intervention proved to be affective, of our 596 students 563 applied and were accepted to their college of choice, that’s 95%! 65% of our seniors completed their FAFSA prior to graduation. The graphs below show theses successes:

Major Achievements

Montwood has implemented a vision that supports the growth and development of each student by:

• Established a Go Center which provided counselors with an area to assist students.

• Continued use of Career Cruising to all juniors through our college readiness classes. Implemented a campus at-risk period to target academic areas of weakness and provided character education lessons for all students.

• Realigned counselor duties to reflect the ASCA domains and provide a more efficient means of delivering the MHS counseling program.

• After disaggregating standardized testing data and grades, counselors met with students individually to recommended courses during registration. Students are encouraged to enroll in more rigorous courses (AP courses or Dual Credit).

• Last year the seniors were awarded over $7.5 million in scholarships and grants.

• Of the 14 Socorro ISD Broad Prize scholarships awarded to the district, five were awarded to Montwood High School students. These scholarships were awarded to students who had a financial need and demonstrated a record of academic improvement during their high school career. This was the highest number of any High School in Socorro ISD.

• Our outstanding ESL program was awarded the Best Practices Clearinghouse award. As a result of this honor of our ESL department served on a panel to serve as a model for other ESL programs in Texas.

• A campus counselor presented at the state Texas Counseling Association conference on Transitioning Military Families.

Measurements

Montwood High School counselors disaggregate and evaluate data to monitor the Counseling program and to assess students’ strengths and weaknesses. These results are used to design and implement programs and interventions to address the needs of students. The following assessments are utilized: Academic: To guarantee academic success the following are used: TAKS, TELPAS, Special Education Assessments, 10th grade PLAN, grades Career: The Career Cruising computer program is utilized extensively during the junior year as part of a college readiness curriculum to guide students in their career choices. Interest inventories are utilized. Personal/Social: To ensure students well being the following measurements are collected and evaluated: Vision/Auditory Screenings, Office Referrals, and Individual referrals by teachers, parents, and administrators.

Community Partnerships/Resources

Montwood High School is proud to be a part of the Professional Learning Community. This initiative has fostered an environment for collaboration among our faculty, staff and administrators. This initiative is centered on three principles; focus on learning, a collaborative culture, and focusing on results. The PLC committee met once a month, they are credited with the implementation of many positive school wide initiatives. Two of these