Every year, the APS Board of Education honors a counselor from the high school, middle school, and elementary school levels. This year, Dionne Williams, a ninth-grade counselor at NAHS, was honored with the Counselor of the Year award at the high school level. Williams has been a counselor at North Atlanta for 12 years and previously served as a counselor at six other schools, making the award hard-earned and well-deserved.
To be awarded this honor, the journey starts with a nomination. This process requires a school’s administration to recognize the talent within their halls. The administrators must evaluate all of the counselors at their particular school and select one, if any, to nominate. While Williams had prior knowledge of the award, she never expected to be nominated for it herself. Each year, she watched as her esteemed colleagues were granted the award and congratulated them appropriately, without imagining that she herself would be nominated. However, this year, her administrators, Jill Stewart and Curtis Douglas, wanted to recognize her for all that she has done with North Atlanta’s freshmen class and decided she would be the perfect candidate for the award. Williams said, “I didn’t even know that I was getting nominated, so I was super surprised when I saw that I had won the award!”
The award was certainly well-deserved. Williams has been working tirelessly to boost retention and graduation rates at North Atlanta. She is part of a pilot program to implement a permanent freshmen counselor to stay with the 9th grade instead of moving up alongside each class. She believes that the path towards graduation starts in 9th grade and has been working to create new programs to make sure that freshmen stay on top of the high school coursework. This program is in its pilot stages for the next 3 years, during which time they will reassess to see if graduation rates have improved. For now, it seems like the program is working exceptionally well in its early days. Williams explained, “I look forward to seeing how the program and the freshmen class will grow over the next three years and look forward to any of my future roles at North Atlanta.”
Williams is a great example of North Atlanta’s spirit of working to make lasting change. It is great for her students to see and celebrate her achievements with her. As NAHS continues to grow, students and faculty can be assured that Williams will work to keep everyone on pace and grow a supportive environment at the school.
