At Scotland Early College High School, we are interested in a holistic approach to learning.  We realize that there are a variety of skills necessary for long-term success and we hope to partner with all stakeholders (parents, community member, other educators, RCC, businesses, etc.) to better prepare our students for life after SEarCH.  We have amazing teachers who work diligently and teach rigorous academics.  But we realize that often long-term success is impeded, not by a student's academic ability, but by a lack of social, emotional, personal, employability, coping, and other life skills.  

We hope for long-term accomplishment for each of our students.  We know that a student's prosperity isn't limited to themselves and SEarCH.  We expect that all of our students will become contributing members of society.  Therefore, students' personal success is an achievement for our communities, businesses, neighborhoods, and economy.  As they prosper, we prosper.  For this reason, we have decided to create a Comprehensive School Counseling Program to help us address a variety of skills which we hope will have lasting effects on our students' lives.  

SEarCH Comprehensive School Counseling Program addresses the following domains of students’ lives:

• Academic Development - Learning to Learn
• Learning is a lifelong process.  Rigor is an important part component of our school’s make-up.  We understand that if the subject being taught is easy, then our students are not really learning.  Learning comes with difficulty. We want to instill in our students, and parents, that learning is more valuable than obtaining good grades.
• Career Development - Learning to Work
• School is a student’s workplace.  While we encourage our students to further their education when they leave SEarCH, we understand that work is in everyone’s future.  We want our students to have necessary skills to be successful in the workplace; the skills that employers are looking for. Employability skills are often outside of the scope of English, Math, Science, and History.  We want to partner with parents in this endeavor. Parents, talk to your children about your workplace. Inform them of appropriate and inappropriate behaviors in the workplace. And, if possible, take them with you and let them see what work is really like.  
• Social/Emotional Development - Learning to Live
• Character Building is important for long-term success. We realize that students have lives outside of school.  Often, they deal with issues at home that are out of our control. However, we can try to help students learn skills necessary to deal with life issues.  We encourage parents, and community members, to assist us in supporting our students. We understand that students have a better educational experience when they are in good health (physically, mentally, emotionally) and when they are persistent and determined to reach their goals.
• Community Involvement - Learning to Contribute
• Citizenship is an ongoing process.  Community involvement builds character and helps to develop responsible, productive citizens.  By being involved, students build relationships with others; they network. They learn to communicate with people different from backgrounds, to work as a team, and to balance school and community involvement.   When it is time to apply to college and for scholarships, these experiences make a huge difference. Students are able to write about how their community involvement has changed them for the better, document community service, and gain an amazing reference.  We encourage our students to be involved in their community and ask for parents to support their community involvement.

This program will be implemented through the following components:

• School Counseling Curriculum
• Individual Student Planning
• Responsive Services
• System Support
• Student Advocacy