School Counseling Positive Impact Awards
Carrie McCain, a guidance counselor at Hughes Middle Academy, was presented with the School Counseling Positive Impact Award from Clemson University. The School Counseling Positive Impact Award (PI Award) seeks to recognize school counselors who make a difference in their schools and who collect and disseminate data to demonstrate their effectiveness.
Carrie McCain led a mentoring program at Hughes Academy, coordinating mentoring activities for 78 students who were matched with adult mentors. By comparing data from the 2012-13 academic year to data from the 2013-14 academic year for all 78 participating students, they found that the program helped decrease disciplinary referrals (from 1.7 per student down to 1.2 per student) as well as improve academic performance (more classes passed), as demonstrated in the graph pictured here.
Blythe Elementary Academy Counselor Claire Barnett led a Soaring to Success study skills group for 5 students, meeting weekly for 45 minutes during the first semester and bi-weekly after that. She incorporated creative approaches to teach the students organizational skills, test-taking skills, and general study skills. Data she gathered revealed improvements in MAP reading and math test scores (see table below) as well as varying improvements in course grades.