Letter To The Editor

By Editor | May 29, 2024

This article was submitted to the paper for publication. It has to do with what happens to students after they graduate and what kind of information can be learned for following up with them.
Every year, at this time of the school year, high school counselors are asking seniors, “What will you be doing next fall??”
About half will say, “I’m going to college!” Okay, which college? Have you been accepted? Have you applied for financial aid?
Some will have opted for a Technical School or Trade School. The major problem with the above two choices are: Where will the money come from? Up to ten percent might show interest in military service. This does provide an income and some educational opportunities. Others will be seeking full-time employment. For some, that will merely be an increase in hours at their current part-time job. A few will soon marry, some will “Mooch” off their parents as long as they can. Quite frankly, the above decisions and choices are quite important.
The WORST decision might be going into debt to study a college major, which has a poor track record for employment, or your plans might backfire. You might not be accepted at your choice of colleges. That scholarship or financial aid package may not happen. It would be a total disaster to graduate from college in four years only to find there is no employment opportunity in that field.
The above comments point out the importance of the school counselors! BUT the above decisions are merely plans! The student’s plan may not be commensurate with his/her finances or skill set. Only a fraction of college applicants are accepted. The financial plan backfires.
In other words, the counselor’s survey is a guest mate? It does not have much accuracy or reliability.
A better plan is to do what is called a “Follow Up Survey” five years later. This task too usually falls on the school counselor(s). This plan possesses much more reliability! It provides solid answers.
Almost all graduating classes have class reunions, and the five-year reunion is typically the first important one. Furthermore, it involves teamwork in locating those young people five years later. That class reunion is a ready source to obtain “snail mail” addresses, E-mail addresses and cell phone numbers.
Said questionnaire will survey each person regarding their education, employment, military, etc. during the past five years. Are they married? Do they have children? Has their original plan totally changed, or been modified?
What high school classes helped them the most? What classes did they “not” take, but now wish they had? Favorite teachers? Suggestion of classes the school might add? The value of Okaw AVC? Participation in athletics?
The first request for answering the survey will not be satisfactory. Therefore. A second and/or third attempt is. I know it can be done; here’s my best example.
Before I finished my Master’s Degree in Counseling (Student Personal Services), I was temporarily hired by a high school with 75 students per grade level. I chose to survey the graduates of not just five years ago, but also 6,7,8,9 and 10 years ago. I was able to locate 97 percent and contacted them by “snail mail”.
I had ‘returns’ of 67 percent, but if that percentage sounds low, it was my fault. I had been warned that my ‘two page’ questionnaire was too long and recipients would prefer to not answer that many questions. But then came the hardest part. I typed up charts, graphs and tables for presentation to the faculty, school board and their newspaper.
The final report included no student names; each had been assigned a code number. Many of the responses in ‘tables’ had the class separated into upper, middle and lower thirds regarding class rank. That is, you don’t expect graduates from the lower third or even middle third to be college graduates.
So, Vandalia Schools, are you ready for the above challenge? Start soon.