Program Counseling Specialist

Penn Foster High School
Position Summary

The Program Counseling Specialist provides broad academic, personal, college, and career guidance for Penn Foster High School learners, with a strong emphasis on Career Pathways, successful onboarding, learner persistence, and access to wraparound supports. The counseling specialist helps learners understand program expectations, navigate key transition points, connect learning to future goals, and access the right resources when barriers arise.

Working across Academics, Learner Engagement, the College and Career team, instructors, Learner Success Advocates (LSAs), families, and external partners, the counseling specialist develops scalable guidance models, resources, and engagement activities for a large, national learner population. The role supports all learners through systems and programming while providing specialized consultation and targeted guidance for pathway learners and learners with more complex needs.

This position serves as a cross-functional expert in learner onboarding, academic and pathway navigation, college and career planning, family engagement, wraparound services, mental health resource referral, and scalable MTSS supports.
Essential Responsibilities

Learner Onboarding, Navigation & Transition Support

- Design and deliver scalable onboarding resources, orientations, communications, and milestone supports that help learners understand program expectations, available services, pacing, and how to seek help.

- Identify common onboarding and transition barriers and partner with internal teams to improve the early learner experience, especially for under-19 and Career Pathway learners.

- Create transition supports for learners entering pathways, changing programs, returning after inactivity, approaching graduation, or preparing for postsecondary next steps.

- Coordinate milestone communications, learner guidance resources, and support workflows across Academics, Learner Engagement, instructors, LSAs, and the College and Career team.

Career Pathways, College & Career Planning

- Lead the development and implementation of scalable guidance strategies that connect learners’ high school experiences, Career Pathway participation, credentials, and interests to defined post-graduate outcomes.

- Create college-navigation resources covering program selection, admissions, application timelines, financial aid awareness, enrollment steps, transfer considerations, and college readiness.

- Create career-readiness resources covering occupational exploration, industry credentials, employability skills, resumes, interviewing, job search preparation, workplace expectations, and connections to training or employment opportunities.

- Develop communications, workshops, and decision-support tools that clarify pathway requirements, related college programs, career outcomes, and next-step opportunities.

- Partner with the High School Academic Director, College and Career Director, and pathway teams to improve learner engagement, pathway persistence, credential attainment, completion, and transition to post-graduate opportunities.

Learner Support Systems, MTSS & Scalable Tier 3 Support

- Help design scalable Tier 3 support models, including referral criteria, intervention playbooks, decision trees, escalation pathways, communication protocols, and resource libraries that enable LSAs, instructors, and academic leaders to respond consistently to complex learner needs.

- Develop adaptable learner success and transition-planning tools that address academic progress, pathway completion, graduation readiness, college and career decision-making, and postsecondary transitions.

- Partner with LSAs, instructors, the High School Academic Director, and the College and Career Director to coordinate, evaluate, and continuously improve intervention and escalation models.

- Leverage learner data and AI-enabled support tools for exploration, triage, resource navigation, personalized next-st