Students can now schedule counseling appointments on a computer, which has replaced the paper slips outside the counseling offices.

The old system of filling out slips required the counseling secretary, Britnie Delgado, to manually enter the appointments from the slips to the computer for the counselors to access. The new computer system skips over this intermediate step and continues the process whether or not the counseling secretary is in office.

The computer’s home page lists all the necessary information: the names of the counselors, the days they work and the range of last names they help.

Students can schedule an appointment by clicking on their counselor, then providing their name, date, ID number, the reason for the appointment and the best time to make the appointment.  

According to Principal Gregory Shelby, Delgado and Vice Principal of Counseling, Curriculum and Instruction Tony Lam thought of using a computer to make it easier for students to set up appointments and speed up the process.

“The idea is to eliminate the wasteful hundreds of pieces of paper that students have to fill out in order to see their counselor,” Lam said. “It also helps to eliminate lost or misplaced requests as all requests are stored online.”

The one possible issue with the computer is that it may not work as well during a period when lots of students need appointments, as with the start of the school year, according to Lam.

“We might have to resort to signing in on a clipboard during those times and revert back to the computer system when foot traffic is reduced,” Lam said.

But in the couple weeks this computer has been in use, there have been no issues, Shelby said.