Celebrating Outstanding Counselors and Title I Teachers

May 14th, 2020 /
Shauna Sprunger /
News, PCSD School Board, Public Relations, Recognitions and Awards

Each year we celebrate an outstanding Counselor and Counselor Support Staff from around the district and honor them at Board Meeting. We also honor Title I teachers who have excelled. This year we took it virtual. Here are this year’s outstanding counselor, counselor support and Title I teachers:

Outstanding Counselor Phillip Sudweeks

Phillip Sudweeks is a terrific school counselor and he loves his work with students. Phil truly makes a difference! He focuses on building relationships with the students and he believes that’s where school counseling starts. Phil is the calm in the storm that often happens at Independence. Students often seek him out for reassurance and redirection. At Independence, we find that redirection happens on a very frequent basis. He strongly believes that relationships are everything and that is what matters most. He really exemplifies that belief, and has an amazing ability to see the best in people and treat them in a non-judgemental way. Whenever a student makes a choice that isn’t the best, he simply doesn’t dwell on it and finds another alternative. The students really like him and feel his genuinely caring attitude. Phil is valued and very critical to the work and mission of Independence High as he goes out of his way to serve students and make sure they get the support and resources they need to graduate from high school and make successful college and career plans.

Outstanding Counselor Support Laura Castillo

The school year at Provo High has gone substantially better this year due to the addition of Laura Castillo as an Utah College Advisement Corps. She repeatedly has wonderful ideas that compliment the counseling events needed for students. Laura worked hard to create fun events for our seniors and get them excited about their next steps in preparing for college. She’s had excellent communication with them through fun posters, announcements, and social media. She developed strong relationships with students quickly due to her care and efforts. She is very relatable with young people as students have learned that they can seek her advice. The counseling center also noted that events were better attended because of these relationships. Laura was impressively persistent in meeting one-on-one with nearly all of our seniors. Laura continues to be dedicated, even though we are homebound due to COVID-19. The Provo High team thinks very highly of Laura and her hard work and contribution to students this year!

Title I Teachers

The state of Utah provides the ability to acknowledge the efforts of teachers in 4-12th grades who teach in highly impacted schools and have a mean student growth of at least 70% in at least one subject area. Here are those teachers: