Turners Falls High School in Montague, MA has been a MEFA Pathway affiliate since December 2020. Their feeder school, Great Falls Middle school in Montague, is also an affiliate. An affiliate allows educators to utilize a secure Counselor Portal and also provides counselors with the support, tools, and resources to guide students through the post-secondary planning process within MEFA Pathway. Beth Fortin, a counselor at Turners Falls High School, was very passionate about beginning the process of implementing MEFA Pathway. However, while she viewed MEFA Pathway as a necessary platform, she felt overwhelmed and unsure about what she needed to do to get the ball rolling.

From the onset, one goal in mind that Beth had was to get her high school students registered with MEFA Pathway accounts, specifically starting with most of her 9^th-11^th graders. To accomplish this, Beth held registration workshops at the school that enabled students to create MEFA Pathway accounts during a study period. Part of this great accomplishment is the fact that Beth took advantage of filling out her MEFA Pathway Utilization Success Plan. This is a critical step that we encourage MEFA Pathway affiliates to do because it enables schools and counselors to detail how they plan on using MEFA Pathway during the school year and how we can help them achieve their goals.

After discussing her Utilization Success Plan, we met with Beth  one on one periodically throughout the school year. During these meetings, we were able to check in on her progress, see if there were any outstanding concerns, do additional demos of the platform, and just be a helpful resource. In addition, Beth also took advantage of the many opportunities to learn more about MEFA Pathway, such as attending our User Group Meetings and a variety of training and webinars provided through the MEFA Institute.

Through Beth’s hard work and perseverance, 71 of 126 students at Turners Falls High School have now successfully registered for MEFA Pathway accounts! Going from zero students to 71 is an incredible feat. Way to go Beth and Turners Falls! We know Beth and Turners Falls will be able to accomplish their next goal of getting students active and engaged within the site!