Posted by: In high school, we thought guidance counselors were the lucky folks who had to work hard for a few months at the beginning and end of the school year, setting course schedules and dealing with graduation. The rest of the school year? Mostly soap operas in the teachers’ lounge sprinkled with a few kids dropping classes and meetings with parents, right?
Well…wrong. There’s a lot more to being a high school guidance counselor than that. There’s pointing students towards the right career paths, keeping them motivated, helping them apply and get accepted to colleges, and the incessant letter-of-recommendation writing. And the number of students that each counselor handles is high. In fact, according to a recent New York Times article, it’s rising.
In the article, author Jacques Steinberg quotes a study by the National Association for College Admission Counseling that shows the average caseload for guidance counselors increasing by an average of 53 students. What’s worse, this increase is occurring in a time when students are under more pressure than ever.
With the numbers of students passing through schools, the competition for spots at four-year colleges is enormous. This has led to students applying to more schools in hopes of being accepted. The additional applications and competition mean more work for counselors as they try to help students identify and rank schools and write increasing numbers of recommendation letters.
With counselors struggling to keep up with their expanding workloads, it’s no surprise that they tend to focus the bulk of their attention on the percentage of students who have the most potential to go on to four-year colleges and universities. Unfortunately, that doesn’t necessarily include as many as half or more of the students in some schools.
Luckily, there are tools available to help these overburdened guidance counselors keep their young charges focused on their education and the career paths ahead of them. Programs like Monster’s Making It Count do an excellent job of showing students how their schooling today is preparing them for their jobs tomorrow and keeping them excited and active in their education.
Guidance Counselors struggling with keeping college-prep and other students focused on their education should also look to available programs designed to give students a window into the workforce. Programs that provide career exposure and show students the possibilities awaiting them following graduation are a powerful tool for motivating students to succeed.
Above all else, guidance counselors need to stay informed about the job market in their region to ensure that the career paths being chosen by their students are viable. Students studying Sanskrit may not be destined for immediate job placement in a market with all hi-tech jobs. By making real-time employment statistics available for guidance counselors, regions can reduce the amount of research counselors need to conduct and ensure that students are being prepared and educated for the jobs available to them.
The job of a guidance counselor is definitely filled with less soap opera viewing in the teachers’ lounge than meetings with students. By providing the information and programs needed, regions can ensure that their students are well prepared for their careers ahead, and that counselors can effectively and efficiently guide and motivate their students on the paths to the rest of their lives.
Fri, Dec 11, 2009
Education