High School Counselor of the Year |
Amanda DeWulf
Maquoketa High School Amanda DeWulf has been a counselor for ten years, spending the last three years at Maquoketa High School. Amanda is a past President of the Iowa School Counselor Association. While on the board, Amanda assisted in changing the language from “guidance counselor” to school counselor in the Iowa Code and hiring lobbyists to promote ISCA’s legislative agendas, as well as supporting the development of the counselor evaluation supplement for administrators. Amanda has shown great advocacy at Maquoketa by redefining what school counseling looks like in her district, establishing leadership roles, and building relationships with stakeholders. Over the past three years, Amanda has focused on creating a developmental, comprehensive, data driven program that meets the diverse needs of her students. She has assisted in creating an articulated K-12 counseling program for Maquoketa Community School District that uses common language and identified mindset and behavior standards with a scope and sequence that ensures there are no gaps in student needs. Amanda continues to follow the ASCA National Model and hopes to apply for RAMP certification in the coming years. Through the use of data, one of the areas Amanda focused on was the graduation and retention rate by implementing an intentional guidance group called STEP (Student Empowerment). This program focuses on providing support to students who are at risk of not graduating. Through the implementation of this program, Maquoketa’s graduation rate has improved, total failures have decreased, and the number of students being retained at grade levels as decreased. |
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