Guidance
The Guidance Department provides guidance classes, individual counseling, testing programs, special services, and guidance personnel.
Click here to view the January 16, 2013 Junior Parent College Night presentation.
Services Available To All Students
- Guidance classes
- Individual counseling with school counselor and school psychologist
- Language-learning interventions including study/test taking skills and organizational skills
- Naviance/Family Connections
- Learning Style identification
- Parent Information Breakfasts and Evenings for College Admissions
- College application process
- Class scheduling support
- Guest speakers
- Standardized Tests (PLAN, PSAT, OGT)
Family Connection
The Guidance Department is excited to introduce Family Connection, a service designed especially for students and families. Family Connection is a comprehensive website that you and your child can use to explore interests, identify strengths, and help in making plans about careers and colleges. Family Connections also provides resources and individual tools to assist students with the transitions of high school. Family Connection is linked with Naviance Succeed, a service that we use in our office to track and analyze data about college and career plans, so it provides up-to-date information that is specific to our school.
Family connection will allow you and your child to:
- Get involved in the planning process for college and careers. Learn more about your strengths and abilities by completing interest inventories, surveys, and assessments.
- Research colleges and compare GPA, test scores, and other statistics to historical data from our school for students who have applied and been admitted in the past.
- Research hundreds of careers and career clusters and take career assessments like “Do What You Are”.
- Connect to many outside resources, including college websites, scholarships, standardized test sites, NCAA clearinghouse, etc.
Each student has a personal page on Family Connections. Freshman students will be introduced to Family Connections in Learning Life Skills. The guidance classes in subsequent years will continue to use the many tools and features of Family Connections, culminating in senior year, when students use Family Connections to apply to college.
Information will be sent home periodically during the year about this exciting new website. Parents will also receive activation codes to access the many features of Family Connections, at later dates during the year.
Click here to learn more about Family Connection
Special Services
Psychology. School psychological services are available to students and parents for consultation, counseling, and assessment regarding academic, behavioral, and emotional concerns.
Speech and Language. School speech and language services are provided by our language-learning specialist four days a week to develop and improve language-based learning strategies for students needing such assistance. Individual and/or small group sessions can be scheduled.
Student Assistance Council (SAC). The SAC council meets regularly to address individual student issues that may be having a significant, adverse effect on educational performance. The council is comprised of an administrator, school counselors, school psychologist, and the speech-language pathologist (language-learning specialist).
Health Care. The school nurse is involved in the total health program of the school. Her responsibilities include immunization and health history reviews and record-keeping, health screenings and the subsequent follow-up of any referrals, first aid and health care, policy formation and implementation and consultation.
At Ursuline Academy, supports for students are developed within the context of Ursuline core values and philosophy: attention to the needs of the individual; emphasis on the development of the student as a whole person; openness to diversity; recognition of the gifts and dignity of every student; promotion of academic excellence; and empowerment of the student.
