School Counselor–Led School-Wide Advisory Program Effectiveness

Abstract

In the fall of 2013, Fountain-Fort Carson High School implemented a new “Advisory Period” for all students at all grade levels. Incoming ninth-grade students were randomly assigned a faculty advisor and stayed with the advisor over the course of their 4 years of high school. School counselors wrote the Advisory programming which included academic and attendance progress monitoring in addition to mentorship with the intent to connect student with a caring adult to positively impact graduation and attendance rates while reducing dropout rates. Previous graduation rates were compared for students who did not have Advisory and those who had either 1, 2, 3, or 4 years of Advisory. Researchers hypothesized an increase in cohort graduation rates for those students who had participated in the entire 4-year Advisory program compared with students who either did not have Advisory or had 1 to 2 years of Advisory. The variations in graduation rates between groups of students that did not have Advisory and those who did were shown to be statistically insignificant.