The Counseling Department at Gaffney Middle School is here to support the personal/social, academic,and career aspects of your childs education.

We are working towards developing a strong school counseling program, which will include individual counseling, Individual Graduation Plan meeting for 8th grade students, small group counseling, mentoring program, and classroom guidance lessons, as well as many other projects and events.

We will base the topics of classroom guidance lessons on needs assessment data of the students and teachers, as well as character education. Small group counseling topics we hope to implement will also be based on the needs assessment of the students and teachers.

Individual Graduation Plan meetings are conducted with each 8th grade student and his or her parents. IGP meetings are required by the state of

South Carolina, and are designed to help students begin thinking about their career plans and ensure they are on track to graduate.

These meetings will begin in January of this school year.

Career education is a large piece of our school counseling program. Career Day will be in November. We will have several local businesses visit GMS and share with our students. We want to expose students to as many career experiences as possible in order to help them make decisions about their future careers. Eighth grade students will also participate in virtual job shadowing at school and all grades can participate in Job Shadowing Day.

Students are always welcome to visit the counseling departmentf they need to speak with a school counselor.

One of the biggest jobs that we have is advocating for students. This means that we will do our best to meet any needs of our students.

We rely on you as the parents, as well as teachers to help us understand any needs that your student may have, whether they be academic or everyday needs.

We look forward to working with your child this year!