Tuesday, January 26, 2010

A Day in the Life of a High School Guidance Counselor

Author:
Several Guidance counselors spoke to the School Board at our January 19th public hearing about the importance of their work in the schools. I can vouch for their importance from personal experience, and I was happy to listen to their perspective. One in particular held my attention with a description of her work on that day:
I started my day meeting with parents and teachers at the parent’s request to discuss the student’s progress and what could be done to help the student succeed. Then a student came in to see me to thank me for all the time I had spent with her choosing colleges to apply to and to let me know that she had been accepted to her first choice school. This was all before the bell rang to start the day.

During the school day, I
  • co-led two group counseling sessions,
  • met with administrators and several teachers to discuss questions students and parents had brought to my attention,
  • met with security to discuss a gang related issue a student told me about,
  • talked to three colleges about college applications for my students and arranged for fee waivers for one student who did not have the money to pay for the application,
  • met with students to discuss personal problems including one student whose mother had been deported, one who was having boyfriend problems, one who had a recent death in the family and was too distraught to handle things
  • met with several students to finish college applications, and others to do scheduling for next year,
  • wrote two college recommendation letters,
  • sent out 17 transcripts to colleges,
  • answered 9 phone calls about students, and 43 emails.

And this was an easy day.

This is National School Counseling week. On behalf of the Board and many grateful parents and students, many thanks to our school counselors for all that you do.

2 comments:

  1. Sounds to me like these counselors do a lot of work that parents should be doing, and parents need to do more. I can understand having a resource center for fee waiver applications, college information, etc, but do we really need to pay a person to do this? shouldn't this be the student's and parent's job?

    This is a luxury.

    All we need the guidance counselors to do is to make sure teacher and other recommendations and required forms for college applications are filled out by the High School, and then get sent from the high school to the colleges-- not all this extra stuff.


    Parents, students do not need all this hand holding and personal attention...that is your job.

    I don't like paying thousands of dollars more in taxes each year, despite slipping assessments, to pay for these luxuries--if parents can handle some of the responsibility, then there are private outfits that help with picking out colleges, and then there is always private school. The parents should be doing this or paying for this, not ME.
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  2. Counselors are not there to take the place of the parents. Rather, they provide the support and knowledge to help the students reach their potential and to supplement and help parents gain the additional knowledge they need to support their children. The job is much more than hand holding and mailing recommendations. Counselors are professionally trained and licensed to provide academic, personal, and developmental support to EVERY student in the school system. For the parents like you who are capable, knowledgeable about all aspects of child development, graduation requirements and college searches, willing, financially able to purchase services from outside services, and have the time to provide every thing their child needs, then counselors can mail your child's recommendations. For the rest, counselors provide those needed services so that every child has the chance to reach their potential, and work with students and parents who need help navigating the stressful and competitive society we live in.
    Our children are not a luxury and the community's responsibility to those children is not a luxury. the future of our country and our world rests on our children and it is our responsibility to help them in every way possible to be the best prepared to make that world a better place.
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