For SECONDARY SCHOOLS

Creating a Culture of Student Success™

Recent studies of high school models of reform indicate a compelling need to personalize the high school experience for students in such a way as to address their individual interests, goals, and academic abilities. Life Decisions Group has created a comprehensive and innovative program designed to create cultures of student success in high schools by providing that personalized experience for every student. By developing and implementing effective decision-making skills and surrounding themselves with resources and support teams, students and schools together, can and will create cultures of success using these components.

• A Summer or In-School Reading Assignment stresses the importance of students making good decisions regarding their educational and career choices. All incoming students begin their high school experience having read or reading It’s Your Decision, A Commonsense Guide to Making Better Choices.

• A Student Assembly, It’s Your Decision™, held early in the school year reinforces the reading assignment and is presented by a school’s own previously-trained guidance and/or teaching personnel.

• A Student Success Planner is completed by students, in cooperation with their Success Team, as they gather and organize information. This Planner serves as a foundation for on-going discussions and decisions that the students make throughout their four years of high school.

• A Peer Mentoring Program provides additional support for students as they meet with trained peer mentors at specified times during the year to address topics discussed in It’s Your Decision, A Commonsense Guide to Making Better Choices. Group discussions cover the importance of making good decisions throughout life, utilizing an effective decision-making process, creating positive relationships, developing personal and leadership skills through school activities, conducting meaningful self-assessment and career research, and most importantly, becoming a successful student.

• A Success Team, put together individually by each student, is comprised of those individuals the student believes can provide the information and support needed to address personal and/or academic issues and to move forward with educational and career decisions.

• In-Service Training is provided for counselors who want to present It’s Your Decision™ student assemblies. Participants receive a CD that includes the It’s Your Decision™ presentation, a detailed Presenter’s Guide, and It’s Your Decision, A Commonsense Guide to Making Better Choices.

• A Parents’ Program engages parents in the process as the school develops a culture of student success.

• A Post-Graduation Survey allows school administrators to assess the impact this program has on the decision-making skills of their students and on the outcomes of their initial college or career decisions one year after graduation.

• Creating a Culture of Student Success Toolkit™   A comprehensive and innovative collection of tools designed to create cultures of student success in schools by providing a personalized experience for every student.

By engaging all students at all levels and focusing on the development of effective decision-making skills and the personalized utilization of those skills, high schools can create cultures that emphasize, encourage and engender individual success.