School Counseling
The counseling program at The Franciscan School aims to support students in having the best school experience possible. If there are emotional or social issues having a negative impact on a student’s ability to learn, the school counselor will work with the student to help him or her to be successful.
Counseling for students at The Franciscan School includes individual small group counseling and classroom guidance lessons. Students may be self-referred or referred by a teacher, administrator, or parent.
The school counselor is also an integral member of a student’s educational team and assists in providing observations and writing behavioral plans. The counselor will consult with teachers and partner with parents to reinforce positive school behaviors and address issues that affect a student’s learning.
In addition, the school counselor serves as a liaison between The Franciscan School and outside resources to include when outside assessing is needed to determine how best to serve a student. After testing is completed, the counselor communicates special needs and appropriate accommodations to the teacher and works with the Educational Support Team to provide support and assistance.
Learning Assistance
The Franciscan School employs two educational resource specialists (one for grades K-5 and one for grades 6-8) to serve the needs of the students with identified learning differences as determined by a psycho-educational assessment or other diagnostic assessments. The specialists also work with classroom teachers to employ best practices to assist the students with learning differences.
We also have a part-time reading interventionist that provides targeted reading interventions for K-2 students who need additional help developing their literacy skills. The reading interventionist works with small groups or individual students to address specific areas of difficulty, such as phonemic awareness, decoding, or fluency, to help close any learning gaps.
The Franciscan School is committed to all students succeeding to the best of their abilities. In the event that a student has a diagnosed special need (documented by licensed medical personnel) accommodations may be offered that can be reasonably made within the normal general education classes and when the school has the resources (academic/staff) available to accommodate the students’ needs. Additionally, working in conjunction with the Educational Team, TFS offers the possibility of a modified program dependent upon the needs of a student and the ability of that student’s team of support to work with TFS’s Academic Support Program in helping that student to find success.
The Diocese of Raleigh Catholic Schools are exempt from the mandate of providing services for IEPs and 504 Plans. If a student cannot be accommodated within the school program, every effort is made to assist with placement in another school program beyond The Franciscan School.