Signing up for your senior year of high school classes as an eighth grader is intimidating and seems far-fetched. The counselors say it is too. Following a malleable path, students are encouraged to set their eyes on the future with support from their counselors and computers.
Missouri introduced ICAP, The Individual Career & Academic Plan, in 2016. This plan was voted into legislation by the Senate to encourage students to create their Academic Plan to keep them on track for graduation and lead them toward a particular career they’re interested in.
“Rockwood Technology has worked with Infinite Campus to create a program for it to be done through Infinite Campus so we would have an electronic file of the four-year plan,” Counselor Kristina Raymond said.
Counselors had days of presenting to freshmen, sophomores, and later juniors over the four-year plan with the intent of encouraging them to take advantage of its “fluidity.”
“It’s not that we expect freshmen to know what they want to do after high school at all,” Raymond said. “We know that what they think they might do after high school is going to be fluid after four years. However, it is to spark conversation with teachers, counselors, and parents, with Career Interest Inventory, to just start thinking about classes that might help them towards what they want to do after high school.”
Career Interest Inventory is a program Rockwood School District (RSD) is looking into for investment to supply class suggestions for future career dreams. RSD hopes to include this feature in the Academic Plan through Infinite Campus to support students’ academic journey.
“This is also going to tie in nicely in the future,” Raymond said. “Hopefully, it’ll suggest classes for students to take based on possible career interests down the road.”
Although this system of programming classes is new to students, the four-year plan has been used by counselors for years.
“The four-year plan is something that I do with every student, but it’s all been hand-written,” Raymond said. “Now it’s going to be digital.”
This document will be free to access by students from the beginning of the school year until the middle of February if they feel the need to make changes.
“All the students need to do is hit save.”
Counselors will have access to the Academic Plan for the rest of the year and students are encouraged to meet with their counselors if they have questions or want to change their schedule.
“[The Academic Plan is] just a communication tool between students, parents and counselors,” Raymond said.
