All Aboard the Naviance Express

All Aboard the Naviance Express: Encouraging Your Entire School Community to Use Naviance

Betsy Stangel, College CoordinatorMount Carmel Academy, New Orleans, Louisiana

Why Should You Get Everyone Involved?

Use and support of your own school community enables you to use Naviance to its potential.

Purpose today is to briefly explain (1) our school’s usage, (2) the tactics we use to get our community to use the program, (3) our plan for the next steps, (4) and sharing some lessons learned along the way.

Mount Carmel Academy’s History of Naviance Usage

Why Mount Carmel Academy first implemented Naviance

Mount Carmel Academy is located in the Lakeview area of New Orleans and on August 29, 2005 our school sustained a near fatal blow as a result of a levee breach during Hurricane Katrina less than one mile from our campus.


Campus was inundated with ten feet of flood waters and school operations were halted at that physical location for an entire semester.


Three main issues:(1)Difficulties with communication,

(2) The need to send data for current students to register at new schools, and

(3) Senior college applications.

As a result Naviance was incorporated into our emergency preparedness plan.

Working in High School College Advising in New Orleans Post-Katrina

Reaction of students involved polar opposites:(1) from getting as far away from there as possible, to (2) staying home in case it happens again to be close to family.

Both views required different advising because students were now looking at a significant number of different colleges and majors.

On the school side we were faced with maintaining a paperless, remote access method of being able to handle school submissions.

Working in High School College Advising in New Orleans Post-Katrina

Research at similar schools who used Naviance helped us determine that it was the program we were going to use.

Naviance Family Connection and Naviance Succeed allowed us to address the two pressing issues that we faced in college advising at our school.

The Rest of the World Post-K

Whatever your reason for discovering Naviance:

•The program is amazing in its capacity to fulfill the needs of all schools.

• You need to commit to learn about its features that will work for you.

I attended NSI in 2010 and feel that it changed my proficiency and confidence. I am not sure if I could have accomplished what we have done without commitment to stay updated on the material available.

Learning How to Encourage Your Community to Want to Get On Board

It is Not Just a College Program

We know that Naviance is more than just a college program, but figuring out how to explain this to everyone involved is the biggest problem we faced.

Define the members of your school community and find the way that Naviance can help them.

Students Teachers as Club ModeratorsParents CoachesGuidance Counselors Alumni CoordinatorsFaculty Planned Giving/Development Staff Administration

Look at Change as Positive

“After the Saints Won the Superbowl” vs. “After the Storm”

Anytime you present something new to your community it is a challenge:

• change is often resisted,

• faculty already has so many things they are supposed to do,

• but if you give them a tool to make life easier you’ve won!

Suggestions to help make it work

Try not to make it sound like a new religion and acknowledge that it will not be everything to all people.

Administrative support is key!

Non-Intended Uses Will Surprise You

I am a believer in the philosophy of “there has to be an easier way” instead of “this is the way we’ve always done it.”

Use this philosophy in working to establish your plan for each defined member of your community.

Resources:•Naviance Support via phone and email•Naviance Network online•Naviance users in your community

We are Making Progress

Now my school community asks me:

“Is there a way we can use Naviance to do this?”

Tickets to the Train For Our Community Members

Administration and Using a Plan of Implementation

Administration supported implementation….so the challenge we faced:

(1) Who should have rights to the data in Succeed, and

(2) What features of family connection would be used by which grade levels each year as we progressed into using the program.

Develop Your Plan of Implementation

To deal with these issues you must:

• Commit to learn the program, and

• Set up a realistic plan of implementation one step at a time.

The key is making sure it is based in reality as far as time and commitment of all involved.

Balance Community Member Involvement

We recommend that you have one site administrator and tight controls on “rights” to access certain activities you may find yourself faced with leaders and followers that you will have to figure out how to use to help your cause.

Use your community members:

• make the best use of their talents and strengths• it helps compensate for those who feel left out

Guidance Department

Guidance Counselors were de facto required users and depending on your school setup the features you experience may be different.

Guidance Department, continued

Things that Guidance Counselors Found Useful:

•Photos

•Same database that the teachers use

•Documents

•Document Library for our online publications

•Email feature

•All Test Scores – feedback says it needs more information

•Surveys

•Journal entries for documenting when needed – all grades levels

•College planning

Guidance Department, Continued

Counselor Feedback

The counselors are the best critics and give me ideas at least once a month to pass on to the Naviance Network.

Remember:• Naviance is not all things to all people, and • You need to be open to change and development for overall department success.

Getting Students On Board

Initial set up was difficult because the students looked at it as a task that they had to do with a finite term.

(1) Login, (2) Complete a task,(3) logout, and(4) forget.

Getting Students On Board, Continued

Suggestions:

•Do not force it.

•Get the “approval” of the seniors using it to deal with college planning.

•Use the club moderators for the things that the students want to know about and things will change for the positive.

•The more carrots instead of sticks we use, the more the usage increases!

Getting Parents on Board

The thought of another login and password to the parents was daunting.

As student usage has increased their interest has as well and we now offer the parents the choice of having a separate login than their child.

Parents reply that they like:• Career Resources•College Planning •Resources that we post online

Parent Usage, continued

The ability to have a parent login is offered at : 8 th grade interviews and 10th grade interviews and after junior year in preparation for college planning.

For those without a login: For those with a login:We keep their data in the student section get benefit of being able to replyEmails are still sent to surveys for parents**They can login with their child see multiple children on one

account

Things that Interested Teachers

Teachers were the first community members to get on board because of letters of recommendation for college submissions.

We have always required all teachers to use it for letters of recommendation. No paper letters are to leave our school unless a paper school and we still route through our office.

Teacher Usage

The letter of recommendation audience of teachers was limited to a few.

There was little incentive to login and look at data to learn more about students because they felt like it was not helpful to them.

Things that got their attention Future Involvement PlansStudent photos Career PlanningJournal entries Document Library Brag Survey Results Biography Pages of teachersTest ScoresLearning Style Inventories Resume

Club Moderators & Coaches Use Has Skyrocketed

Use the Group Feature to set up your clubs and athletics and let the moderators/coaches help you figure out what they need.

Things that work for these community members:• Emails to students and parents

• Attachments to those emails such as maps, permission slips

• Ability to track outstanding members via journal entries –collaborative for moderators, teachers, counselors, students and parents

• Surveys

Next Steps in Our Plan

Next Steps in Our Plan

We plan to increase our community of users to use Success Planning as well as the Alumni Tracker.

We anticipate that the success planning and the student app will increase the student usage.

Lessons Learned & Tips to Keep Everyone Happy

Learn the Program and Take One Feature at a Time

The fastest way to lose credibility with anyone is to implement a program and not know enough about it.

We heeded that warning and established our community of users and set out clear steps of which users would use the program each year.

Learn the Program and Take One Feature at a Time

Establish what authority you can on specific areas of the program and use them.

Then learn more and expand.

Data Management

Data input is something that we had issues with and in our experience it should be limited to one or two people maximum to make sure things are consistent.

Invest the time and find the right help to make sure that this is done correctly.

Feedback and Professional Development

•Meet to assess usage by each community group - Example of a major modification using eDocs for our

school this year and it WORKS

•Empower members of your community with feedback options

•Plan with your administration for updated professional development on the program and it needs to include an on-boarding session for new people each year. Be sure to invite experienced users to that session for the new ones for (1) refresher and (2) to share good experiences of how they use it.

Parting Words of Advice

• Learn as much as you can about the program

• Use the Naviance Network online and with other users whenever you get the chance

• Brainstorm with your school community

• Create your plan

• Update your plan every year as you accomplish that year’s goal and to add new one in its place

Betsy Stangel College CoordinatorMount Carmel AcademyNew Orleans, [email protected], ext. 213

mailto:[email protected]

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All Aboard the Naviance Express