Recently, Mr. Jeff Griffith, principal, Ms. Susan Suleski, guidance counselor, Dr. Amanda Whitworth, dean of students, and Mrs. Stephanie Stewart, prevention specialist, have decided to start a “submission form,” called the Request for Services. This form is for students to submit a response to let administrators/counselors know how much help they need, and how soon. The form consists of six questions: the date of your submission, your first and last name, a brief description of your needs, if this is an emergency, and who you would like to talk to.
“We decided that the form would be a good way to keep things organized and for the building, as a whole, to keep track of where the students are. So instead of the students coming to us and us not being in our offices, in this way we could come and get the students,” Dr. Amanda Whitworth, the dean of students, said. “I think from an adult perspective it’s been helpful. We know who needs help, we can come and get them when it’s convenient for us and for them instead of having students in the hall or wandering around looking for us. I think it has definitely prevented more students from being in the hallway.”
The form has many benefits, obviously keeping students from getting out of class and wandering in the hallways, and leaving teachers less disruptions in class of people asking to go talk to someone.
“Another benefit of this is that we can see which students need the most help, and which students need more support than others. We can gauge too, one of the questions on there asks how immediate their situation is and I think that’s helpful too because then we can get to situations that need the most help; we can prioritize,” Whitworth stated.
Now, although this change has many benefits, students could lose chances from this too. This could include not getting to talk to the right person, their response could not go through correctly, and people could easily mess with the form and not use it appropriately.
“Sometimes there are immediate needs and when one of us is maybe out of the building and students don’t know that, and they ask for a specific person, and someone else sees them, that could be a loss to the person in need,” Whitworth said.
In conclusion, this form could be very beneficial in many ways. Teachers are hoping that this helps in classrooms and hallways. If you need immediate help, go to your student bookmarks and click “Request for Services,” fill out the form, and click Submit!
