Wyndell’s Post 1: Viewing Guidance Counselors in a Different Light

My personal impressions of what the roles and responsibilities of guidance counselors have been formed by the example that I have observed in our schools guidance counselor. They remained pretty much unchanged until I read the lists of appropriate and inappropriate uses of counselors on the DOE website. Our guidance counselor is known for being helpful, resourceful, compassionate and caring toward the many students, parents and staff members of our school system. She tries to be all things to all people. She encourages students to try to become someone extraordinary and provide them with a vision of how to achieve their goals. She works diligently to assist everyone who enters her office. Her response to every request is, “I don’t know how I’ll do it, but I’ll try”. She usually succeeds in coming up with an acceptable response. Her responsibilities that I have witnessed are numerous. She works diligently to guide students into making many important life decisions such as choosing a career, class scheduling and college selection. She acts as a psychiatrist for students listening and providing guidance in various personal issues ranging from conflicts with parents, other students and teachers to dating, pregnancy, and loss of a love one. She works with other staff members to keep track of student progress, develop student IEPs, and set up class schedules. She works with the local Technical College to provide dual enrollment classes for our students. She oversees the GAMES program with a local State College. She works with college and military recruiters. She helps students fill out various forms for scholarships, grants, college registration and military draft enrollment. Many times she appears to be a miracle worker. She constantly juggles many tasks at one time while fighting to put out the one with the hottest fire. These are the traits that I have always associated with a guidance counselor.

There are a few technical responsibilities that this assignment has brought out that I did not associate with a guidance counselor. First, I did not realize that according to the State Board of Education Rule 160-4-8-.05 that it was the school counselor’s responsibility to develop a written school-based guidance and counseling program. I previously thought that this would have been spelled out by the state. Also, I did not realize the extent of the counselor’s job was to collect and analyze data pertaining to student achievement. I thought that this information might would have been gathered by the counselor and be sent into the state only to be returned to the school as part of an academic scorecard. Last, I did not realize that a counselor had to spend 5 out of every 6 program hours counseling or advising students or parents. This time requirement surely does not allow for our counselor to do a lot of the extra tasks she does on a daily basis. This assignment has increased the amount of respect that I have for our counselor.