Enterprise High School is excited to welcome new counselor Toni Cook to its staff. They are thrilled to have someone with years of experience at various schools and age groups who will be able to benefit the students at the school.
“I’ve been in school counseling for over 20 years. My first job was at Quitman Junior High School. I’ve been both high school and elementary. The last time I was in counseling, I was a high school counselor at an independent school, so I have done both public and independent school counseling. I have administrative leadership endorsements from where I went through some administrative training,” stated Toni Cook. “I recently was at Jones College as the navigator at the Clarke County center. I was there for two years and taught duel credit classes and adult education classes. I will still be working for Jones as a duel credit and teaching the business and office technology classes. I’ll also be doing some online classes for Jones as well.”
Her experience helps her know more about what colleges are looking for, and she will be able to help students in each grade know what they will need to be successful and get where they plan to be after graduation. In fact, this knowledge helps her as she arranges each student’s class schedule to both meet the requirements for graduation and helps them prepare for their desired field. Helping students be successful is one of her favorite things, so she makes sure to take plenty of time out to help the seniors and make sure that they are prepared to graduate and continue their lives after high school.
“My favorite thing about the job is working with seniors and helping them prepare for their future: getting them prepared for college, getting scholarships, and helping them see all the different opportunities that are out there once they leave high school,” expressed Toni. “One thing I really like to work with is trying to help improve scholarships and helping the seniors be able to get the funding they need to be able to go to college because I know how important that is. We have to work to make sure that they understand the importance of an ACT scholarship because that is so important in all colleges now and is what a lot of the money comes from. I will spend some time in their college and career readiness classes and their ACT prep. We have some great admissions counselors from colleges that will come in and work with our seniors to help them fill out applications and make sure that they’ve met all of their checklists. As the seniors come in to start school, I’m going to be pulling them in to see what their plans are for college so that we can see how much time we have to do different things since some colleges won’t accept an ACT score after December. We just have to see how much time we have to do different things to get them where they want to be when they graduate. I want to help them be successful.”
There is one big challenge that she has while working with the seniors: deadlines.
“The most challenging part of the job is time management and making sure we get everything done in a timely manner,” informed Toni. “The most stressful part will probably be making sure I help all the seniors get all their applications in on time and meet the different deadlines.”
Not only does she plan to do everything she can to help the seniors, but she will also be working with the other classes as much as she can to make sure that they know what they need and can start to work on everything in a timely manner. She wants them to understand that every year of high school is important and that they can’t wait to try and get everything they need. They will need to be focused and intentional with all of their decisions as soon as they start at the high school. That is one of the things she enjoys watching. She can clearly see the growth in each student from their freshmen year to their senior year.
“I love to watch them come in as a ninth grader and see how they change and develop over the years. I want to make sure the freshmen understand that they have to start thinking about their GPA their ninth grade year because they aren’t going to be able to get it up where they want it just their senior year,” expressed Toni. “They need to think about the ACT and even doing community service because that’s important. That’s what they’re looking for in employment and in college now. They’re looking for a well-rounded student and not just a student with the highest grades anymore.”
She will also have another major responsibility to go along with helping out the students and making sure they are prepared: testing.
“I work with testing and will do any type of testing that we hold on campus: ACT, PSAT, AP tests, and state testing,” said Toni.
Despite her busy schedule and responsibilities, there is one thing that Toni will always make sure she has time for: the students. She wants to make sure that they are okay both academically and mentally with all of the stress that they endure in life. That is why she has an open door policy for any student in the school.
“My door is always open,” explained Toni. “I love to have students come and sit and talk with me. I’ll listen to them and help them any way that I can.”
This upcoming year at Enterprise High School will be a great one for all of the students and staff. They can take pride in knowing that they have a new counselor with a wealth of experience who genuinely cares for each individual that she works with.
