BY RACHEL BARBER
[email protected]
Last Wednesday, Roseville Joint Union High School District held a Parent Advisory Committee meeting to discuss next school year’s Local Control Accountability Plan funding. As I reflected on this year’s spending, I took special note of the $70,000 spent on the college and career readiness software provider: Naviance.
If that name doesn’t ring a bell, think back on the day in Fall when us sophomores all got a Chromebook and instruction from a counselor to logon to a website where we took a “Career Cluster Finder Quiz,” which results told us we’d thrive in careers ranging from manufacturing to marketing.
As I watched my senior friends receive college acceptance letters, I wondered, “Did they use Naviance to be ‘college ready’?” After asking them, the answer I mainly received was no. I furthered my investigation and began to ask my friends in AVID the same question but received the same answer. I then realized, if I hadn’t looked at the LCAP budget, I myself wouldn’t have been so curious in the online program.
After thoroughly going through its features, Naviance exceeded my expectations. In addition to the Career Cluster Finder, it gave me a place to organize a list of colleges I’m considering, eight different links that helped me research colleges which I thought I knew about or had never heard of, scholarships I could apply to and more.
Although I was pleasantly surprised by how useful Naviance really was, I also grew confused. Confused as to why it took me so long to find it and confused as to why it took me going through the LCAP spendings to hear about this program. I was concerned that my senior friends applying to college never utilized this recourse and that my AVID friends were puzzled when I brought up the word “Naviance” to them.
Here I realized that ever since that counselor-instructed Fall day, no one had brought up the word to me either.
Both AVID and Naviance have the similar goals of college and career readiness but because AVID is an on campus class, it seems to be stressed. This is understandable, but leaves those not in AVID without the knowledge that they can use Naviance as an alternative in order to get a similar experience. While the AVID program has some benefits that Naviance does not offer, Naviance could prove to be beneficial for a larger number of students because of its online accessibility.
The day after my exploration of the site, I explained it to a few of my friends. Their response was what I figured, “What? I thought that just told you what you have to do when you grow up.”
The students I’m around have very little understanding of what Naviance does and how useful it is for students as we prepare to apply to college. Yet, I have seen very little excitement brewing about it nor any hardcore push by administration nor my teachers about its importance.
In the few times students have been exposed to Naviance, we have only seen one meer aspect of all it has to offer. Considering the $70,000 pricetag, the lack of promotion and enthusiasm doesn’t make much sense. The program is worth the money, but RHS staff seems to be negligent in their lack of promoting it.
