West Virginia School Counseling Protocol Virtual School
School Counselor Performance Standard 1: Program Planning, Design and Management The professional school counselor plans, designs and manages a comprehensive, developmental school counseling program aligned with the West Virginia Model. Function 2D – Individual Student Planning: The professional School counselor coordinates an ongoing systemic approach to assist individual students in establishing personal goals and developing future plans. Indicator 2D1 ‐ The professional school counselor facilitates a collaborative approach to student academic and career planning. Function 2F – Student Supports: The professional school counselor assists in developing comprehensive student supports within the school and community to support academic, career and personal/social development of all students. Indicator 2F3 – The professional school counselor teams and communicates with other stakeholders to identify and anticipate obstacles to student success and to identify and provide programs, resources and support that lessen/eliminates their impact and promotes student success. GOAL: The school counselor will partner with school leadership to facilitate a
systemic approach to promoting and enrolling students into virtual school courses.
Activity Description: This protocol describes the counselor’s role in assisting school leadership in facilitating the enrollment of students in a virtual school course(s). WVVS (West Virginia Virtual School) provides original course credit. It is important to have a process that ensures counselors are knowledgeable of the WVVS process, and should share this with staff annually. This protocol outlines how counselors will maintain VS information and a process for facilitating, promoting, and providing enrollment information for students and parents. Providing best practices for coordinating student and parent workshops/seminars, this protocol also provides best practices for working with a school/community committee to assist with disseminating VS information and provides guidelines for training staff and teachers to support the VS process. Rationale: The West Virginia Virtual School was created by the West Virginia Legislature on July 1, 2000. The mission of the Virtual School is to assure consistent, high quality education for the students of West Virginia through courses delivered via technology, promote efficacy and equity in course offerings, and provide options for implementation across the public school system. The Virtual School initiative helps bridge the barriers of time, distance and inequities for all West Virginia students by providing access to resources and courses that may not be available to students in their home school. 1 Developers: Pam Bauman, WV Department of Ed. OIEP Pressley Ridge White Oak; Bill Blair, Jefferson High School; Sharon Gainer, WV Department of Ed. Office of Technology; David Gaudino, Marshall Co. Schools Career Technology; Patrick Leggett, Point Pleasant Junior Senior High School; Kate Middleton, G.C. Weimer Elementary. Approved by State School Counseling Protocol Committee on April 29, 2011 West Virginia School Counseling Protocol Materials: CR = Counselor Resource 1. Student Records and access to internet and computer 2. Student handbook with process delineated 3. WVVS Course Catalog (http://virtualschool.k12.wv.us/vschool/courses/coursecatalog.cfm). 4. CR1 ‐ WVVS Flier 5. CR2 ‐ PPT for Staff 6. CR3 – WV Virtual School Provider List Procedures: 1. At the beginning of each school registration year, the entire staff needs to have a presentation of courses available through WVVS and the registration process. 2. CONTACT both the Virtual School Contact and the Email Contact for your school, if you do not fill those roles yourself. Any local policies/procedures should be reviewed before talking with students. 3. IDENTIFY those students for whom a virtual course is appropriate. The student’s need for a virtual course may be defined by the lack course offerings at the school, the lack of time to take all courses requested, the desire for additional courses, and/or other reasons that are situation specific. 4. CHECK the WVVS course catalog to see if the course is available (http://virtualschool.k12.wv.us/vschool/courses/coursecatalog.cfm). 5. SCREEN the student for online readiness (http://virtualschool.k12.wv.us/vschool/vsort/index.cfm) and discuss online process. 6. COORDINATE effort with site virtual school contact for enrollment of student. At this point, the virtual school contact will complete the process with the student. 7. AP COURSES must be entered into your school’s ledger on the College Board web site – communicate this with your school’s AP Coordinator. The course will be found under the virtual course provider’s name (e.g., Florida Virtual School). 8. GRADES for virtual courses are entered into the student’s transcript using the West Virginia Uniform Grading Scale as defined in State Board Policy 2515. A suggested WVEIS code is given for each virtual course in the detailed course description in the online course catalog. All virtual courses are entered with a “V” in digit five of the WVEIS code to designate “virtual.” Limitations:
Counselors are not to be sole facilitator, supervisor or coordinator of the school’s efforts. Additional Resources Available: 1.
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WVVS Web Site: http://virtualschool.k12.wv.us Policy 2515: http://wvde.state.wv.us/policies/p2515.pdf List of VS providers for WV VS (docx) Sample flier for parents and students (pdf) Sample PPT for staff (ppt) Contact WVVS at 304‐558‐7880 for additional information.
Evaluation: Number of referrals to Virtual School; number enrolled; student records; student; documentation of presentations about Virtual School; student, parent, and teacher feedback about Virtual School and the process. 2 Developers: Pam Bauman, WV Department of Ed. OIEP Pressley Ridge White Oak; Bill Blair, Jefferson High School; Sharon Gainer, WV Department of Ed. Office of Technology; David Gaudino, Marshall Co. Schools Career Technology; Patrick Leggett, Point Pleasant Junior Senior High School; Kate Middleton, G.C. Weimer Elementary. Approved by State School Counseling Protocol Committee on April 29, 2011