Guidance Counselors

denise515
Tue, 26 Oct 2010 15:00:44 +0000

sybbie, in an ideal world they would provide guidance. But budgets are being cut everywhere and teachers are losing jobs. Thus GCs are rarely dedicated to guiding seniors into their lives outside of HS.

In our school the same GCs were responsible for alphabet of incoming freshman scheduling and adivising, the scheduling of the rest of the student body, AND advice and counsel of graduating students. That in addition to discipline problems. There was a social worker on staff to handle personal problems.

Clearly, a person taxed like that cannot give 100% attention and personalized advice to every student who walks through their door. And they are not expected to at our school. The school provides college clinics and all sorts of seminars and meetings designed to help PARENTS do the work themselves. The GCs are there to oversee the paperwork trail and make sure that deadlines are met as well as offer advice on where to find answers to questions on the school website or elsewhere. They also provide letters of recommendation or help obtain them from other faculty.

With that said, I felt our GC involvement was very good. If a parent did not have information or their child deeply involved in the college search process by senior year it was because they CHOSE not to participate and not because there was not assistance in the process.