In January 2017, NHIS received the notice that they met the requirements to be a Recognized ASCA (American School Counselor Association ) Model Program (RAMP) school.

NHIS received this RAMP designation because the counseling department has aligned their support services with the criteria in the ASCA National Model.

ASCA helps guide counselors to do an even better job at what they do. ASCA guides them through a process to help counselors help students by giving advice to them or help with any issues they have with other students, families, parents or anything in general. They teach lessons to the counselors to build process with the students.

Debra Yamakawa, counselor, said, “ASCA is the national organization that school counselors across the nation are members of, and being a member helps you with access to resources, access to professional development so we can better serve our students, so, we also join the organization so we can collaborate with other counselors. Not just in Hawaii but in other states.”

ASCA helps the counselors help the students with ideas on how to help the students. They can give students help in what they are interested in for a career or after high school.

“It helps us, help you, by giving us better ideas on how to support you. So we talk about it, see what works, see what doesn’t work, and how we can, what kind of information and data we should collect, stuff we do like surveys for students to see where you’re at, what you’re interested in, what kind of supports we can provide.” said Yamakawa.

“It helps us to organize different programs and different resources to see how we can help the students to be successful and overall, emotionally and behaviorally,” said Vanessa Lariosa.

“There’s just helping us to provide different resources for our students and organizing everything, because a lot of times counselor’s don’t have a set system of how to help students. We’re always re-active, as a counselor we want to be proactive.”

But the RAMP certification not only helps counselors and students but teachers too.

“It affects me because what happens is, when I work in coordination with counselors, I can actually physically help the students get better grades for the class or I work with the community and I know plenty of people in the workforce that can help students actually get jobs.” said Richard Harrigan, CTE teacher.

The good news with RAMP did not end with NHIS. Nanakuli Elementary also was notified that they became RAMP certified. So NHIS and Nanakuli Elementary joins previously RAMP certified school, Nanaikapono Elementary, to make all the complex schools RAMP certified. This means all three schools can share resources and ideas to support all the students in the valley.