Karen Perros, the Naviance coordinator for the three middle schools—Liberty, Edison, and Roosevelt—began the presentation. She introduced her colleagues, including Rachel Rosen, the high school coordinator, and Leslie Chang, an assistant principal. Perros outlined the goals of the Naviance program for middle school students, including ensuring they remember their usernames and passwords and register with counselors during advisory activities. This early introduction to the platform aims to make the transition to high school smoother, where the use of Naviance becomes more frequent.

Perros elaborated on the key components of Naviance at the middle school level, such as the self-discovery, career, and college tabs. The self-discovery tab offers career assessment tools that students can retake as they progress, helping them align their strengths and interests with potential careers. She noted that even students who know what they want to do can benefit from the additional resources provided. The career tab allows students to explore various occupations and related fields, while the college tab aids students in conducting advanced college searches before they even accumulate a GPA.

A significant part of the discussion was the “challenge of the month” initiative, which encourages both parents and students to engage in research about different careers through Naviance. Perros provided a walkthrough on how to access Naviance. She also addressed a question regarding the registration code required to create an account, explaining that school counselors can provide this code.

Rachel Rosen then took over to discuss Naviance at the high school level. She highlighted that students continue to use Naviance through their senior year, particularly in 11th and 12th grades when they begin planning for college. For instance, a junior’s screen includes a junior conference checklist and links to recent presentations.

The high school features of Naviance include a “One-Stop shop” for accessing essential information such as GPA calculators, college acceptance data, sample high school transcripts, and links for PSAT and SAT registration. The platform helps students easily find the information they frequently seek and facilitates access to additional school-specific resources like “road trip nation” and Khan Academy, along with financial aid applications.

A key aspect discussed was the colleges tab, which contains sections for college research, such as the super match college search and the advanced college search. The advantage of using Naviance lies in its ability to save favorites directly from search results, creating a working list of colleges based on criteria like location or major. Students can also view additional information about each college and utilize features like scattergrams to visualize admission data based on real statistics from West Orange High School students. These scattergrams illustrate the acceptance patterns of students, showing the range of GPAs and SAT scores of those accepted or rejected from various colleges.

The importance of consolidating resources such as test scores, scholarship information, and college visits within Naviance was reiterated. The scholarships section allows students to search for and save scholarship opportunities, with an emphasis on starting research early. An activities resume feature under the “about me” tab was also highlighted as crucial for college applications and scholarships, documenting extracurricular activities throughout high school.

The discussion included questions about how students learn about college visits and the differences between parent and student accounts. It was mentioned that parents can see the outcomes of their child’s activities in Naviance, but it is generally recommended for parents to access their child’s account directly for a comprehensive view of their progress. Technical issues with logging into Naviance and the necessity of setting up accounts for parents were also addressed.

The speaker provided guidance on what freshmen should focus on, recommending that they start familiarizing themselves with Naviance features, updating their resumes, and completing available surveys. Emphasis was placed on the importance of early college research, acknowledging the process can be time-consuming.