Saving the Freshman (Guidance and Career Development) (Essay‪)‬

The current educational reform agenda requires that stakeholders in the school community help all students graduate. The U.S. Department of Education's A Blueprint for Reform: Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act sends all stakeholders a clear message to take action that results in every student completing high school both college and career ready. This message and other reform measures have strong implications for school counselors, who are often excluded from conversations about academic achievement and college and career readiness planning. If we are to reach the goal of educating every child entering the American school system, school districts must focus their efforts on successfully transitioning freshmen into high school. Statistics reveal that many of our nation's students are not achieving the goal of a high school diploma. Especially in large urban and small rural districts, freshmen often enter high school and fall behind in credits, and then they dropout. Keeping freshmen students on track for graduation must be a priority if we are to meet the demands of a global workforce, which requires that every student obtain, at the very least, a high school diploma. Research informs us about the critical importance of the first year of high school--the ninth grade--since it is the last chance to put students on track to graduate.