SHS Counseling Newsletter

The South Counseling Team WELCOMES you to the 2025-2026 school year!

We hope you had time to rest and rejuvenate over the summer and are returning with a renewed excitement and focus for the school year.

We will be emailing you a monthly newsletter that highlights events, announcements, programming, and information you will need to have a successful year - so please be on the lookout for these!

• Meet Our Team (Counseling Team Updates)
• Counselor Appointments
• Upcoming Events & Reminders
• Schedule Change Policy
• PSEO Check-Ins
• My Life Plan
• Senior Planning

BIG NEWS!!! Our Counseling Team has been redesigned!!

What does this mean??

We now have six Counselors (up from four previously) to support students. We will have one Counselor dedicated to our 9th graders and their families. The rest of the Counseling Team will work with 10th-12th grade and participate in "Gear Up" and "Get Ready" Grant Programming. These grants offer specified supports to certain grade levels, helping counselors to better support our student's overall graduation rates and experiential learning opportunities.

Here is a brief description of what our team can do:

School Counselors

All students are assigned a School Counselor. Counselors are here to advocate, support and guide students. Our offices are safe, affirming and confidential. All students are welcome - no exceptions. We strive to assist students along their pathway towards graduation in all things academic, career related, and personal/social emotional. We will be here for you at each step!

It's true, your Counselors do more than just scheduling! Our work consists of the following supports:

Academic Advising

• Guiding toward an appropriately challenging course load based on student interest and ability
  
• Staying on top of credit checks and creating student schedules
• Ensuring that all students are on track to graduate
• Providing various credit recovery options
• Supporting academic challenges and collaborating with various departments to best meet your academic needs

Social-Emotional Counseling

• Creating a space that is safe, welcoming and confidential
  
• Addressing issues around anxiety, depression, substance use and general well-being
  
• Guidance in peer and family relationship challenges

College and Career Readiness

• Helping to navigate toward post-secondary fit (college, gap year, military, work)
  
• Implementing career/personality inventories through My Life Plan

Counseling Clerk

Our Counseling Clerk does an incredible amount of work behind the scenes to enable Counselors to do what we do on your behalf! From appointment scheduling to retrieving student records, our clerk (Renee Magney) is a key part of our team!

College and Career Center Coordinators

These coordinators (Katie Hanson & Kelsey Massey) will be crucial to your post secondary planning at South. We encourage you to get to know their classroom, visit them often, and look out for their weekly newsletters that promote all things College and Career!

Scheduling time with your counselor has never been easier!!

You can create your own appointment with just with a few clicks of a button. Click here to visit the South High Counselor webpage where you will find a link to a booking page for each counselor. You can select the date and time that works for you and what you hope to meet about.

When scheduling, please consider the following:

• Try best for a time before or after school, or during passing time (preferably, to minimize missing class), or during a class that you are caught up in
• During the school day, you'll need a pass from your teacher
• If the matter is urgent, inform the clerk

For any student new to South, coming from another MPS school, out of district, or out of the country, you must complete South's new student registration packet and meet with your counselor.

Please come to South during these windows in order to complete this registration process:

• Drop in between 10-1
• Monday 8-18 - Wednesday 8/20
• OR email Simon.GuamanMainato@mpls.k12.mn.us or Monica.Avila@mpls.k12.mn.us to schedule a time

We are so excited to have a bustling building again. It gets awfully quiet around here without students😆 Please come to the Back to School Night on Tuesday August 26th. At this time you will be able to complete all processes/tasks necessary to begin the year with success!

• Pick up your schedule and student planners
• Pick up your student ID
• Get help logging into Student and Family portal (Infinite Campus)
• Fill out registration paperwork
• Learn about all the programming South has to offer you and your students
• And more....

Tuesday August 26, 2025

• 9th Grade Only: 4:30 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.

• All Grades & All Nations: 5:30 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.

South’s course schedule is built each year based on the requests of students in the spring. We encourage students to have conversations with their teachers and families before making thoughtful and informed selections. This approach holds students to their commitment to their requested courses!

Student schedules are completed for the entire school year in August. Schedule changes will only be made for the following reasons:

• A student does not have the prerequisite for a scheduled course

• A course is at an inappropriate academic level for the student

• A scheduling error occurred (no class during specific period, duplicate classes, etc.)

• A senior is missing a class required for graduation

• A Special Education need

• A scheduling conflict exists that doesn’t allow for a requested course

• A class balancing issue

Schedule change requests will not be considered for the following reasons:

• To have a different teacher

• To get into a different lunch

• To switch the order of classes

• To be in the same class as a friend

All schedule change requests must be made by filling out a google form. All requests are due by 12:00PM on the Friday, August 29th. The Counseling Team will review all requests and communicate the outcome prior to the first day of school.

If you plan to take PSEO courses this fall, please email your counselor or book a time to come to South and discuss the courses you've chosen. We will need to ensure your PSEO courses fit around your South schedule and make sure that you will get high school credit for the PSEO college classes you've chosen.

**This meeting must be taken care of by August 29 and Counselor availability will be limited... We encourage you to reach out ASAP to schedule that check-in!

When we meet, we will need to see your College schedule and we will need you to fill out this

South PSEO Contract (please print this or make a copy first in order to fill out electronically).

Click HERE to view the PSEO Checklist.

Counselors will continue My Life Plan lessons, in small groups and in the classroom. My Life Plan is the district-wide College and Career Readiness curriculum for all students in grades 6-12. Students complete multiple college and career readiness activities at each grade level which include surveys, inventories, discussions, and other hands-on activities. Lessons are connected to one another in a meaningful way and offer time for reflection and interaction so that students will gain real awareness of all the possible post-secondary options available to them and how to reach their goals.

In addition to the in-person lessons, South students will be accessing the platform Xello that will serve as a hub for many things:

• Virtual surveys, inventories, lessons
• Career and College exploration
• Resume builder
• Provide a portfolio/collection of college and career information that students generate during these lessons
• Connecting South to Common App and Colleges for submitting transcripts, letters of recommendation, etc. during the college application process

The goal of My Life Plan is to provide a comprehensive, equity-based, and proactive curriculum leading to all students being prepared for their postsecondary goals. Over the 4 years, this will result in a valuable "portfolio" that captures all your student's preferences and goals, that will aid them in their post-secondary preparation.

Parent's... be on the look out for your invitiation to access Xello and join your student's Xello journey!

There will be a lot of post-secondary planning information coming your way. Seniors will be meeting directly with counselors and CCC coordinators to talk through the tasks and activities for senior year. But just as a preview...

The CCC coordinators, Katie and Kelsey, have organized college representative visits here at South along with providing ongoing access to college/career news, updates, applications, scholarships, trainings, etc. at the following link CCC Website. To see which colleges are coming when, check out their Google Calendar on the CCC Website. You will also be receiving a weekly CCC newsletter that will keep you up to date on all of these things.

Tigers.... Get ready for a great 2025-2026 YEAR!