What Is A School Counselor?
(excerpt from EdVision, Spring 2007)
Alyssa Feely is seen as vital to the success of the students at Dana Middle School in Hawthorne. As a school counselor, Feely has a global mandate. Her comprehensive counseling and guidance program, which she runs with the assistance of school counseling field work candidates from LMU, includes peer tutoring, peer mediation, individual and group counseling, character education, and preparation for high school and college. She started a bullying and harassment program that encourages students to report early signs of problems, and teaches conflict resolution. Only the peer tutoring program existed prior to her arrival in 2004. “We’re very proactive here,” she says. “I’m encouraged to be creative in starting programs that will keep students on the right track, as opposed to simply being reactive.”
Feely is among the many alumni of the School Counseling program who graduate with both a master’s degree and a Pupil Personnel Services credential. Applying the skills they acquire from this top LMU School of Education program, these counselors make a dramatic impact on their schools’ academic and social milieu by working with students, teachers, parents and administrators to foster environments that are optimal for academic and personal growth.
LMU’s School Counseling program attracts students who are dedicated to making a difference in the lives of school-age children. Feely’s decision to go into school counseling was personal. “My high school counselor made me feel as though I wasn’t worthwhile and wouldn’t get into college, even though I ranked in the top 1% of my class,” she recalls. “I didn’t want other students to feel, as I did, that they didn’t have a place to go for support.”
The role of the school counselor has historically been underappreciated, particularly at times of budget crises. But that appears to be changing in California. Last July a bipartisan budget agreement was reached to allocate $200 million to provide more school counselors for the state’s middle and high schools. The unprecedented action – enabling the hiring of 3,000 credentialed school counselors statewide – was undertaken with the goal of addressing the state’s alarmingly high dropout rate, which in some districts approaches 50%, as well as the large number of students unable to pass the state High School Proficiency Examination. California has had one of the highest student-to-counselor ratios in the country; with the new influx, that ratio will move closer to the national average.
“With such a high ratio, there is only so much that counselors can do,” says Dr. Paul DeSena, professor and director of the School Counseling Program. “Now it will be much more manageable, and counselors will have a chance to really show that they can make a difference.”
The renewed emphasis on school counselors to address the dropout rate is a recognition that students are at greater risk for academic failure when they feel a lack of connection at school, says Dr. Karen Komosa Hawkins, assistant professor in the program. “School counselors play an important role in identifying and conducting outreach with students who aren’t involved in extracurricular activities and don’t feel connected with their classmates or teachers,” she says. “In many cases, these are students whose backpacks are filled with more than their lunch and books. They’re carrying baggage from the outside, whether it’s coming from an abusive home, dealing with their parents’ divorce, facing pressure to join a gang, or any of a number of other issues.”
Typically, Hawkins notes, children in low-income urban areas who are experiencing these types of difficulties lack access to mental health services in the community, making the school the first line of defense. “Teachers, with classes of 30-40 students, are not always equipped to handle each student’s personal issues,” she says. “That’s where the school counselor comes in.”
Faculty and students in LMU’s School Counseling Program see addressing the dropout rate – which is disproportionately high in underprivileged minority communities – as an important way to address social justice in schools. “Counselors identify the barriers to learning and find ways to remove them,” says Fr. Tom Batsis, professor and fieldwork director for the program.
Whether it’s through group counseling, individual counseling, developing school-wide positive behavioral support systems, addressing parents, or leading professional development activities for teachers and administrators, good school counselors are proactive in finding ways to make sure those barriers are removed. “Every school is different, and every child is different,” says DeSena. “There is no computer program that will tell you what to do. Counselors have to be creative in identifying and addressing issues of concern.”
LMU School Counseling Program students learn about the importance of being proactive and creative during their 600 hours of fieldwork. “One of the ways we teach our counselors to be advocates for students is by allowing them to be advocates for themselves by finding their own school and working with that school to create an internship position based on the needs at that institution,” explains Fr. Batsis.
For many students, making a difference at a school begins not with their first job after graduation, but during these internships. Several years ago, three counseling students organized a mentorship program for the Lennox School District that continues to make a powerful impact. Sharing Our Lives (SOL) Mentoring helps to prepare fifth-graders at Felton Elementary for the often-difficult transition to middle school. LMU counseling interns visit the school for weekly one-hour sessions that include activities designed to improve the fifth-graders’ social skills, as well as one-on-one mentoring. At the end of the 10-week program, the interns take the children to the LMU campus for dinner and to attend a sporting event.
“SOL Mentoring gives these kids relationships with adults who talk to them about college, careers, and their dreams for what they want to do when they get older,” says Paul Jimenez, who started the program along with fellow LMU School of Education students Mandy Breuer and Melissa Brown. Jimenez, who graduated last year and is now a counselor and dean of students at Environmental Charter High School in Lawndale, notes that Lennox is a low-income district consisting mostly of recent immigrants with no college education. The program is equally beneficial to the LMU counseling interns, Jimenez adds, by giving them close contacts with the types of students they intend to work with after graduation. Jimenez, Breuer and Brown continue to run the program, which obtained nonprofit status last year.
From 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. each weekday, a constant stream of students can be seen going in and out of Shanell Leggins’ office at Westchester High, where she is one of five counselors. “When I was in high school, I never went to speak with my counselor,” Leggins recalls. “It makes me feel good to know that these students feel comfortable coming in and talking to me, even if it’s just to say hello or tell me what they did over the weekend. By having that kind of open-door policy, we can make sure they’re staying on the right track.” Leggins is a guidance counselor for half of the students in grades 10-12 – a caseload of nearly 700. Of the five counselors on the staff at Westchester High, four are LMU School of Education alumni.
Like Leggins, Feely believes her impact as a school counselor can be measured in part by the constant influx of students approaching her for advice, or just to say hello. “Counseling tends to be a very subjective field,” she says. “I can’t always prove that I helped a child, but I can see it in the child’s face.”
A good counselor, Feely says, understands the importance of being approachable on both academic and personal matters: “We can provide an environment that makes the world seem much smaller, and where students feel safe.”