FHS Guidance Department Looks to Increase Student Success and Engagement

The Foxborough High School Guidance Department is making great strides towards improving their student’s overall experience throughout their high school career.

“We feel we are a comprehensive guidance department,” said Foxborough High School Principal Jeffrey Theodoss.

Theodoss along with Guidance Staff Member Andrew Servideo, presented a review of guidance services at Monday's School Committee meeting.

Guidance services reviewed included group counseling, offering an individualized approach to the needs of each grade level, specialized programs such as financial literacy, College to career components, parent awareness, and programs of studies nights.

Servideo noted that with the help of the program Naviance, students are now gaining insight into their personality type and how their patterns of interests and personality traits match up with various careers.

The Naviance program maintains data on colleges all across the globe. Naviance keeps track of recent college applications, student statistics and admissions decisions.

Student’s results from the program can be accessed on their individual Foxborough High School online accounts.

The department also touched upon the new course offerings at the High School this year, which include new English electives, Forensic Science, and AP History being renovated into a two-year program.

“Instead of cramming the information into one year, the two year program looks into more depth,” they said.

The GPA scale is also changing at Foxborough High. The original scale based on 6.0, will change to 5.0.

“We want to make sure students are understanding what there GPA is. We want to make sure the GPA is clear, and is the same system as the Colleges/Universities are at anyway,” said Servideo.

Lastly, Theodoss described the “Warrior Huddle.” 

“What we have done is create a faculty and student advisory program. Every student should have an adult who can advocate for the student,” said Theodoss.

Students are assigned a group and divided up randomly with two teachers to every group. The goal is for the students and teachers to make more interschool connections.

“We want our kids to know they are supported in a certain capacity. It creates a larger network for all our subjects,” noted Theodoss.

Subjects covered during group huddles include goal setting, community service, student decisions, and senior advice. The groups meet every third week for 30 minutes.

“One of the purposes of it is to have students have somebody to go to. They develop a relationship with a person outside of someone they already have a neutral relationship in school,” said Superintendent Debra Spinelli.  “All high schools are trying to do this but most are struggling. I give Foxborough a lot of credit for getting it going.”

For parents interested in learning more about the different services of the Guidance Department, Theodoss suggests visiting the school council, attending parent and principal coffee hour, or to make an appointment with guidance, who will answer any and all questions.