- Southridge Tech Middle School (ms)
- Southridge Counseling
Phone:
Email:
Degrees and Certifications:
Mrs. Mancilla
Leslie D. Mancilla, M.S., P.P.S.
Students with the Last Name A-L
(909) 357-5420, ext. 34212.
Phone:
Email:
Degrees and Certifications:
Mr. Piddington
Eric C. Piddington, M.S., P.P.S.
Students with the Last Name M-Z
(909) 357-5420, ext. 34211
piddec@fusd.net
The Southridge Middle School counseling program adheres to the American School Counselor Association standards of practice. We work collaboratively with staff, parents, students and community members to ensure student success. We promote student achievement through academic, career, and social-emotional development.
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Naviance: Students and Families
Naviance is an American college and career readiness software that the counselors use to track and analyze data about college and career plans, and to provide up-to-date information specific to STMS. All STMS students will participate in a grade level assessment and will explore curated college and career pathways based of the their individual assessment results.
STMS is pleased to introduce Naviance Family Connection, a comprehensive website that both students & families can use to help make decisions about colleges and careers. To access Family Connection, go to . Students will be registered in 6th grade when they are introduced to the Naviance Curriculum. Usernames are the students ID number and passwords are the students ID number. Please feel free to reference the “Naviance Students & Families PowerPoint.
Enjoy planning!
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High School Graduation and A-G Requirements
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Safe Social Media Practices
- Educate yourself about social media
Here are some popular social media sites and the facts you should know them. - Instagram
Minimum age: 13 years
Users can snap, edit, and share photos and short videos. Privacy settings allow content to be private or public. The platform allows sharing and commenting. As long as the account is private, no one can view or comment on a post. Risks include sharing inappropriate content among friends and sharing location publicly by using the location tags. - WhatsApp
Minimum age: 16 years
A widely popular messaging app, WhatsApp allows users to send text messages, audio messages, videos, and photos to one or many people with no message limits or fees. It limits access to only those people in your contact list. But people in a group chat who aren’t on your contact list can communicate with you. - Snapchat
Minimum age: 13 years
A popular photo-sharing app, Snapchat lets users share pictures and videos for a preset length of time. Content will self-destruct when that time runs out. But keep in mind, people can still take screenshots and save the content. It gives a false sense of permanent deletion. The Discover feature may allow kids to have access to inappropriate content. - Twitter
Minimum age: 13 years
A microblogging site that has the option to keep ‘tweets’ private or public. It can help teens keep up with their friends and favorite celebrities. Even though Twitter has the option to delete a tweet, the posted content could have been copied or stored. - Facebook
Minimum age: 13 years
This widely used social media app lets users share pictures, videos, and comments. It also has an instant messaging feature. Facebook helps teens catch up with friends, family and events. - Establish an age limit for your child to start using social media
While you’re familiarizing yourself with what social media sites are out there, you should take a look at what the required minimum age is for each site. Most social media sites require users to be 13 or older to create an account without their parents’ permission, according to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (). - There are many different ways that people use social media:
- Online profiles: Most social media sites require users to set up a profile, which usually includes a name, e-mail address, birthdate, interests and a photo.
- Friends: Depending on the tool, users “follow” or “request” to be friends with people they know, such as classmates or family members. They may also use it to find new friends.
- Messaging/Chats: Using instant messaging over the Internet or between smartphones to send messages (e.g. Facebook Messenger, iMessage, WhatsApp, Hangouts).
- Walls and boards: Social media sites allow people to post or send messages in many different ways. On Facebook, for example, information is posted to a “wall”. Depending on a user’s privacy settings, some messages are visible to the public, while others can only be seen by friends or followers.
- Photo and video sharing: Many social networking sites or apps allow users to upload photos and videos, or to share live videos. These can also be public or private depending on privacy settings.
- Vlogs: Short for “video blogs”, vlogs are posted regularly to a video sharing platform (like YouTube) by individuals called “vloggers”. Vloggers can develop very big followings online.
- Joining groups: Many apps allow users to create groups. People “join”, “like” or “follow” groups to access information and have conversations with other members.
- Playing games: Children and teens visit online sites to play games, alone or with their friends. Some apps include free online gambling, and many feature explicit product promotion or advertising.
- Online dating: Many apps or websites help strangers find romantic or sexual connections online.
- Teach your kid about posting on sites
Deleting a post does not mean it’s permanently gone. All their online posts, comments, likes, and shares are a part of their . Posting inappropriate content could impact their online reputation. It may not seem like a big deal now, but it could potentially hurt them when they get older and enter college or the job market.
- Let your kids know the importance of privacy
Many social media sites request names, dates of birth, school names, and hometown. Teach your children how much personal information is too much information online. And remember that these types of personally identifying information, if exposed in a data breach, could make them vulnerable to identity theft.
- Consider using a trusted security suite with parental controls on your child’s device
Enable all safety features that prevent your children from accidentally being exposed to inappropriate content online.
- Make sure you can change the settings on their devices to ask your permission before installing an app
- Learn their dialect
Kids have a language of their own when it comes to communicating online. Make sure you know .
- Minimize your child’s exposure online
- Know your network. Advise your child never to approve friend requests or add people that they don’t know in real life. Be sure they know never to meet anyone in person that they have only met online.
- Beware of imposters. Catfishing is a form of cyberstalking where the user sets up a fake profile and poses as someone else — often as another child — to try to engage contact with your child. Educate yourself about catfishing and cyberstalking, and then teach your child the red flags to look out for. Some of these include a limited number of photographs that look staged, asking for intimate photos or money, moving away from social media sites that are capable of catching catfishing.
- Avoid questionnaires. “Free” giveaways and contests, or online quizzes, can be tempting. They can also be phishing scams that will try to trick your children into giving away personal information or to allow hackers to try to inject malware onto their computers. Educate yourself about phishing scams. If your child really wants to enter a contest, review it first and make sure it’s legitimate.
- Guard your location. Here’s a popular practice: personalizing social media status updates with a live location taken from a mobile device’s GPS. Kids may have fun tagging posts or photos with a location, but parents may not want their child’s precise whereabouts broadcast to the world. Here’s what you can do. Go into the settings menu on your child’s device and disable location services. This can be done just for specific apps while still allowing maps and other useful tools to access location data.
- Watch out for apps within sites. Your kid may want to use games and other third-party apps within social networking sites. But such apps can share or post information by default without you knowing about it. Good ones will state clearly that they’ll never post on your behalf. For lesser-known apps, consider whether you want your child to allow the apps to access social media accounts at all.
- Use monitoring applications
- Ourpact
- Footprint Friday
- Spyzie
- My Family Tracker
- Secure Teen
- mSPY
- uknowkids
- The Spy Bubble
- Norton Family
- Educate yourself about social media
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Mental Health Resources and Suicide Prevention
Learn the signs, the facts, and how you can help prevent suicide.
Each one of us can play a vital role in ensuring that all young people are provided with safe, accepting and supportive environments at home, at school and in their communities. As a parent you can be a lifeguard for your children by understanding the warning signs and risk factors of suicide and letting the youth in your life know that support is always available if they need it.
Know the Risk Factors
- Mental disorders, particularly mood disorders, schizophrenia, anxiety disorders, and certain personality disorders
Alcohol and other substance use disorders
Hopelessness
Impulsive and/or aggressive tendencies
History of trauma or abuse
Major physical illnesses
Previous suicide attempt(s)
Family history of suicide
Job or financial loss
Loss of relationship(s)
Easy access to lethal mean
Local clusters of suicide
Lack of social support and sense of isolation
Stigma associated with asking for help
Lack of healthcare, especially mental health and substance abuse treatment
Cultural and religious beliefs, such as the belief that suicide is a noble resolution of a personal dilemma
Exposure to others who have died by suicide (in real life or via the media and Internet)
Know the Warning Signs
Talking about wanting to die or to kill themselves
Looking for a way to kill themselves, like searching online or buying a gun
Talking about feeling hopeless or having no reason to live
Talking about feeling trapped or in unbearable pain
Talking about being a burden to others
Increasing the use of alcohol or drugs
Acting anxious or agitated; behaving recklessly
Sleeping too little or too much
Withdrawing or isolating themselves
Showing rage or talking about seeking revenge
Extreme mood swingsNational Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-8255
LGBTQ Youth In Crisis 1-866-488-7386
A-Z Topics for emotional and mental health awareness:
Community Resources (housing, food, general assistance):
- Mental disorders, particularly mood disorders, schizophrenia, anxiety disorders, and certain personality disorders