Anthony Smith Berkeley - Roles and Responsibilities of Academic Advisors

As an academic counselor, Anthony Smith of Berkeley has been helping his students recognize and achieve their educational goals for more than a decade. The role of the academic advisor is important, as they help potential college students examine school programs, recognize their academic strengths, and help them navigate through the application and financial aid process. 

The first priority of an academic counselor is to ensure that each student performs their best academically and to help students navigate the college admission requirements and help them prepare for graduation. In order to prepare their students for life after graduation, they may organize and execute career fairs, invite business leaders and Armed Forces recruiters to explain the benefits of their industries to the students and plan volunteer internships for their students.

Some of the common duties academic counselors are responsible for performing include:

• Supplying scholarship information
• Providing school-to-career guidance
• Interpreting standardized test scores
• Counseling individual students
• Working with social service agencies
• Maintaining academic records
• Developing guidance programs
• Providing appropriate student resources
• Facilitating conferences
• Orienting new students

Along with providing students with needed resources to succeed, academic counselors may also have to act as social workers, seeking to identify any problems at home that may be negatively impacting their students’ academic and social development. This can include discussing issues of substance abuse and violence in and outside of the home. 

Anthony Smith has been working with students at Berkeley High School for more than a decade, managing a case load of more than four hundred students a year.

Anthony Smith Berkeley - Top Tips for Parent-Teacher Conferences

Anthony Smith, an academic counselor at Berkeley High School has been helping teachers prepare for parent conferences for more than a decade. When it comes to teachers making these conferences meaningful for all parties involved, here are some tips to help teachers prepare.

1. Parents are your friends and want to partner with you to help their children succeed academically. These conferences might be an opportunity for you to reflect on your beliefs about parents. However, you want to remember to put those beliefs aside when you engage with them and welcome them as your ally.
2. Make sure you know what your objective is for the time you have with the parents. Be clear on what you want to communicate and what you want the outcome of the meeting to be. Make sure you prepare your materials ahead of time so you can make the most of your time.
3. If you are having a specific issue with a child, you need to be able to offer specific actionable solutions to the parents. You have to be specific when you are asking for change. 
4. Show that you care about them and their child’s success. Be specific in the positive data that you share with the parents and make sure that you truly feel this positivity.

These conferences are a way for you to communicate with your student’s parents and learn a little more about them. Take the time to prepare and get the most out of every meeting. Antony Smith Berkeley has been working with parents and teachers as an academic counselor for more than a decade.

Anthony Smith Berkeley - Tips for Being a Successful Youth Athletic Coach

Anthony Smith was an academic counselor at Berkeley High School in California for more than a decade. During his time at the school, he also spent time as a youth athletic coach for PAL & Parks and Recreation. Coaching youth sports isn't an easy endeavor and takes a lot of patience to be successful. Here are six tips for finding success as a youth sports coach. 

1.When working with kids, you have to use positive reinforcement. Kids don’t respond well to negative criticism. It makes them less confident and more hesitant in their decisions on the field. When you use positive reinforcement the kids are more receptive and open-minded to feedback.

2.The key to youth athletics is the fundamentals. It is important to keep things simple when working with young players. Every sport has core skills that are needed for success and ensuring the players understand these skills is important not only for success but for the players’ overall development. 

3.You need to customize your instruction to each individual child’s skill level. Once they have mastered the foundation of the sport, you can move onto more technical skills that will help them master their specific position. To keep the kids engaged both mentally and physically, they need to receive custom instruction.

4.As a coach for youth sports, you also have to be mindful of the parents. It is vital that you communicate your expectations to the parents of your players. From day one, you need to clearly communicate your intentions for the season and your expectations for the culture of the team to the parents. However, you don’t want to alienate the parents either, so it is important that you are approachable and that you keep an open mind. 

5.You need to help your players have the right attitude and learn to react to challenges with the desire to work harder in order to overcome those challenges. As a coach, you have the opportunity to help frame how your players will think about failure and how they will deal with it throughout the rest of their lives. 

6.If you happen to be coaching your child’s team, you have to be mindful of your relationship with them. You have to identify the strategies that work for you. This can be working one-on-one with your child, or having another coach be their primary instructor. You have to be able to identify the right approach for your child that will help them progress as a player, gain confidence, and have fun. 

Coaching youth sports is a rewarding, but often times thankless job. With the right attitude and understanding of how to work with children, you can find enjoyment in the position. Anthony Smith Berkeley, California was a youth baseball, basketball, and track coach who helped his players excel both athletically as well as academically.