Written by Coleman Sanders, Adult Assessment Specialist| Lexington A&R.
Meet Valerie Tibbs, SCORE Counselor and Career Counselor, at Great Plains- Lawton.
Valerie Tibbs serves as the S.C.O.R.E. Counselor and Career Counselor at the Great Plains Technology Center in Lawton, Oklahoma. She graduated from Cameron University with a bachelor’s degree in December 2005 and her master’s degree in June 2007. She started working at Great Plains in June 2007. In 2016, Valerie won the OkACTE Career Guidance Award. In 2024, Valerie won the OkACTE Counseling & Career Development Professional of the Year award and will go on to represent Oklahoma at the 2025 ACTE Region IV Conference.
Val is the mother of one son, Keegan, who is 20 years old. Keegan will soon marry his high school sweetheart, and Val will welcome, Haley, as her daughter-in-law. Keegan and Haley will be expecting their first child in February, and Val is thrilled to become a Mimi! Val recently got remarried in July 2024, to Danny, her talented husband who teaches Video Production at Great Plains. She was surprised by an unexpected engagement AND wedding ceremony on their Hawaii vacation!
Valerie has worked solely with the SCORE students for the past 17 years; SCORE is a dropout recovery program at Great Plains. This school year, she has taken on an additional role as Career Counselor, where she works with CTE students to help guide them with their career goals. After all these years, she has enjoyed learning more aspects about Career Tech.
At SCORE, Valerie dedicates her time to guiding and encouraging the SCORE students to attain a high school diploma and achieve future success. She likes to think of herself as a mother-figure who operates with grace and compassion. She considers herself to be a voice for her students and strives to do what’s in their best interest. Valerie takes pride in building a rapport with her students and knowing the barriers they face. Students in the SCORE Program do not often come from ideal situations, and she uses every method she can to reach them. Her goal is to bridge the gap between drop-out recovery students and CTE because connecting them to the right program can be life-changing for them. Through her experience with the CTE side at Great Plains, she has learned that the line between drop-out recovery and CTE is much finer than she anticipated. Every student encounters challenges, and her objective is to assist all her students in surmounting these obstacles to achieve success. She strives to see the good in all of them and is genuinely optimistic about their chances for success. She is not blind to mistakes and poor choices, but she approaches the student who struggles with compassion and an unwavering belief in his or her ability to succeed.
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