Today marked the first Senior Wednesday of the year at Poughkeepsie High School.
Senior Wednesdays are weekly sessions conducted by Kelly Semexant, the district’s college and workforce readiness counselor, in which seniors come to the library and receive help on post-graduate planning, including college applications, scholarship applications, FAFSA paperwork, and career exploration, among others.
Often on Senior Wednesdays Semexant will invite representatives from colleges, the trades or other post-graduate possibilities to answer questions from the students and provide college and career exposure.
Seniors can visit the library during any free period throughout the day on Wednesdays and teachers are invited to bring whole classes for help in a specific area relating to post-graduate planning. Dozens of students were in the library for the first session.
New this year, Semexant is structuring the room with areas dedicated to specific goals, such as attending college, a trade school, the military or the workforce, and the Career Action Center is assisting with those in need of job exploration.
The Wednesday sessions are in addition to the FAFSA nights Semexant holds throughout the year in which families can come to the school to receive help with their forms from experts at Dutchess Community College.
Semexant said her job is making sure students have a plan beyond finding a part-time job after high school. Senior Wednesdays, she said, is where a lot of that work happens.
“Seniors have so much on their plate. They don’t just have school work. A lot of them have part-time jobs, maybe more than one. They have younger siblings or family matters they have to go to. They’re not just working on college applications or whatever else it is,” Semexant said. “This kind of gives them the space to work on what they need to. It’s dedicated time.”