Counseling Services

Professional school counselors provide services to students, parents, school staff and the community in the following areas:

Counseling Core Curriculum

This curriculum consists of structured lessons designed to help students achieve the desired competencies and to provide all students with the knowledge and skills appropriate for their developmental level. The school guidance curriculum is delivered throughout the school's overall curriculum and is systematically presented by school counselors in collaboration with other professional educators in K-12 classroom and group activities.

Responsive Services

Responsive services are preventative and/or interventive activities meeting students’ immediate and future needs. These needs can be necessitated by events and conditions in students’ lives and may require any of the following: individual or group counseling, consultation with parents, teachers and other educators, referrals to other school support services or community resources, peer helping.

Individual Student Planning

System Support

System support consists of management activities, establishing, maintaining, and enhancing the total school counseling program. These activities include professional development, consultation, collaboration, program management, and operations. Professional school counselors are committed to continual personal and professional development and are proactively involved in professional organizations promoting school counseling at the local, state and national levels.

Attendance Policy

Teachers welcome correspondence between parents. However, please note that emails or phone calls to teachers or other NGMS staff regarding your son’s or daughter’s absence from school will not excuse his or her absence.

Gwinnett County Public School policy(GCPS Attendance Policies and Procedures) stipulates that students who are absent from school need to send a doctor note or handwritten parent note to the school – within 48 hours of returning to school – stating the reason for his/her absence. This written documentation is given to the homeroom teachers.

This written documentation is forwarded to the grade level clerks for filing, and should the reason for the absence be one noted below, your child’s absence is designated as “excused.”

Excused absences include:

Personal illness
Serious illness or death in the immediate family
Court order
Observing religious holidays
Weather conditions making travel to school dangerous
Serving as a Page in the GA General Assembly
Parent/guardian being sent overseas for or returning from active duty

If your son or daughter accumulates 5 unexcused absences, you will receive a courtesy call from the grade level counselor regarding this status. However, please feel free to contact us anytime you have questions or concerns as it relates to school attendance.

College and Career Readiness

CAREER READINESS:

Career Explorations: https://www.gafutures.org/career-exploration/
Bureau of Labor and Statistics: https://www.bls.gov/k12/
ONet Online: https://www.onetonline.org/
Career One Stop: https://www.careeronestop.org/

COLLEGE READINESS:

Here are some programs that you may wish to explore in high school to prepare you for college:

International Baccalaureate® (IB) https://www.ibo.org/programmes
Advanced Placement: https://apstudents.collegeboard.org/
Dual Enrollment: https://www.gafutures.org/

Middle School Success Tips

PMS School Counselors work to deliver a comprehensive school counseling program in three domain areas: academic, social/emotional, and career development to enhance students’ growth. We work collaboratively with students, teachers, family/caregivers and the community to support our students. Below are a few helpful links to support families.

Academic Development:

Please be sure to sign up for the Parent Portal AND ParentSquare to have access to the academic progress of your student. In addition, students also need to utilize the My eClass Portal to have access to additional communication with their teachers and to stay on top of their academic assignments and progress.
Need a tutor? https://www.gwinnettpl.org/news/access-tutor-com/

Social Emotional Development:

Need a different way to ask your tween/teen how their school day was? This post on Edutopia's website offers various ways to get the most information about your child's day. Try them out today! 15 Questions to replace "How was school today?"

We want all of our students to feel welcomed and a part of a safe learning environment at Pinckneyville! The climate of our school is the Counseling Department’s main priority. We are consistently striving to assist our students in helping to create this type of environment for everyone to have an enjoyable learning experience.
We also have a list of counselors/therapists that work with children when the need arises to work out concerns that are beyond our expertise. If you are need of these resources, please feel free to ask!

Bullying:

There is a zero tolerance rule about bullying at Pinckneyville, in addition to it being against Georgia state law. However, we would like to share more information on what bullying is.

This article is informative. "Rude" vs. "Mean" vs. "Bullying".
Stop Bullying: https://www.stopbullying.gov/

If you have more questions, please contact your grade level counselor.

Mental Health:

Peer Leadership

Mission: PMS Leaders/Heroes serve as leaders in the PMS school community. The organization helps students develop leadership skills, be role models, and engage in community service. A few activities include giving new student tours, helping with school wide special events, and developing special projects that positively impact the PMS school climate. Students are required to apply and complete an interview process at the end of each school year.
Sponsors: McKenzie Johnson, Tamia Smith, Karen George, and Kim Gray
Regular Meetings: The 2nd and 4th Friday each month; meetings will occur during school hours
Location: Location varies

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