As said by College and Career Transition Coordinator Sarah Spradling, Junior Parent Night was about updating the parents on all of the course selection process that’s starting for the juniors and making sure that they know what is coming in terms of that process and also what juniors need to be looking for in terms of planning for college and what’s beyond high school.

“Personally, when I was in high school I relied on my parents for a lot, and they are the number one resource for students,” Spradling said. “I think it is important that parents know how to guide their students with the most accurate information and the best information, but they also know their student the best and so I think that they know how to steer them to make good decisions that are good for them.”

Spradling believes that the most important information in the presentation was the testing timeline.

“It causes a lot of anxiety, so I think planning that out and the message of having that planned out especially because a lot of our students are so over-involved and a lot of times they can’t test on Saturdays when test dates are,” Spradling said. “I think it’s important to calendar it out and setting themselves up to have everything done and ready entering senior year.”

Spradling said that parents play a big part in the college application process and they are who the students go to naturally for guidance, but they can use the school as well.

“Take advantage of the counselors and me as free resources and take advantage of the opportunities in the summer to prepare for college applications,” Spradling said. “All the seniors who are in that process now swear by college jumpstart, coming in for senior workdays and students just need to take advantage of it instead of relying on expensive resources outside of school.”

Mentioning such things in the presentation was the goal, as many parents felt like they didn’t have the information they needed.

“I didn’t know about the college jumpstart and it was really good to know about the endorsements,” parent Ruthie Bury said. “That you can automatically or try to get into one of those. Just how much college nannies and tutors is here too, I didn’t realize they were here so often.”

In fact, there were a few parents including Bury felt uninvolved.

“Right now I feel like I need to become more involved,” Bury said. “Right now it’s been on Bennett [son], which has been great, but I think I think I can help him if I get more involved. Especially with the Naviance stuff, it’s awesome and I haven’t gotten on that stuff at all.”

However, some parents find that they wish it was less on them.

“It should be more student,” parent Sandy Falgout said. “I mean this is his deal, he needs to be on it, but I feel like I need to know about it, so that I can encourage and support him. We’re there to help him, but really this is his deal and I know when I went through college my parents didn’t know anything about college applications and I did it all by myself, so I feel like he needs to do this because that’s all part of the process.”

Falgout said that after the presentation she felt better to be back on track.

“I believe the last one I attended was a lot of the same info, but we really weren’t in that process and I think that when you are more in the process of actually doing it, this is really clicking and making a lot of sense,” Falgout said. “I feel like these information nights are so important for me especially to know because this is my first one in college.”

Despite the parents finding some information necessary such as subjects that doesn’t apply to their child, they agreed that it was full of important information.

The presentation will be on the VHS website under guidance and counseling.