With these texts from the Holy Scripture in mind, we begin the awesome calling of giving guidance and direction to the students entrusted to us. When we meet with students, we need to begin by discussing the importance of setting goals. We prioritize the goal selection process as follows:

Our goals should enable us to honor God.

Our goals should reflect our interests, natural talents, and values.

We should consider some steps we can take to accomplish our goals.

We have to be flexible, realizing that God may lead us to adjust or change our goals.

Before we meet individually with students they will have an opportunity to respond to each of the above goal considerations in question-and-answer format. In a group-counseling situation students will complete a personal data form that relates to their general interests, areas of work in which they are interested, education levels they hope to attain, and more specific post secondary plans. Sophomores will complete a projected course schedule plan. Parents will have opportunity for input.

We meet individually with all of the students at least once each year to discuss individual concerns and goals. The seniors have first priority since they have a number of important decisions to make early in the year. This school year (2007-2008) we continue to use a career and guidance tool called DISCOVER. We believe that DISCOVER has a number of advantages over other career guidance programs. We use the internet version so that the students can access it at home which invites parental involvement. DISCOVER is very user friendly. It is easy to alter information should the student change his/her mind after initial input. DISCOVER has an extensive student inventory which includes the Interest Inventory, Abilities Inventory, and the Values Inventory. Once they complete the inventory section they can get information about occupations suggested by their inventory as well as other occupations of interest. They can then get information about colleges anywhere in the United States. They can also get information about college majors and perform a job search. The student can then print out their personal portfolio which provides a wealth of information for the students as well as parents and counselors. We will be meeting with each student to make sure they understand how to use DISCOVER. They will be assigned a User ID and password, and can then use DISCOVER from any internet connection.