Study to examine high school counselor workload

Budget cuts in public schools not only impact teachers. The most recent group of educational professionals to feel their job descriptions expanding because no one else is available to perform certain tasks are high school guidance counselors.

During the 1950s and 1960s, secondary school counselors in many communities basically dealt with disciplinary problems or did little more than listen to the personal woes of adolescents. The job was often relegated as an add-on position for teachers trained in other disciplines – a woodshop instructor might be a counselor because he had the lightest class load during a given semester.

In the 1970s, guidance counselors evolved into resident social activists and as far as college preparatory assistance to young students was concerned, many either resorted to being sales mouthpieces for their own alma maters or directed young folks toward fields that interested them more than the students they were commissioned to help face life after high school.

By the 1980s, greater attention was given to the development of school counselors as real professionals with specific standards and requirements put into place for persons filling those positions on both the elementary and secondary levels. Counselors were being relied on as academic specialists in testing and directing students through their educational careers.

The final decade of the past century saw the guidance counselors role expand to one of helping teachers and administrators as well as students. They often were called upon to implement a school’s meeting state and federal standards for specific programs, facilitating study groups and making sure the school was providing opportunities for students with physical, behavioral and developmental disabilities.

In 2011, the work of high school guidance counselors may be changing again. Some wonder, however, if this time that change might be a step backwards.

In Louisiana, high school counselors are required to earn a 48-hour masters degree. That is nine hours more than the basic educational requirement to be a high school principal. Yet, some education specialists contend that the role of the counselor is being trivialized by sticking persons that deal directly with an average of 300 students a semester with tasks that far from fit the credentials they hold.

According to the Associated Press, recent studies indicate that many guidance counselors have been handed the added tasks of activities outside of academic achievement, such as planning proms and organizing club activities.

While some school districts might be accustomed to counselors and teachers both putting in the added hours and effort for extracurricular events, others are concerned that the development of a young generation is being short changed because of cutbacks in using the taxpayer dime.

In response, the state Department of Education is undertaking a study that will examine how guidance counselors are being used in the school setting and how they might be distracted from their core responsibilities. It is an effort that could explain the stress rates of educators as well as students and help expose one reason why the bayou state ranks 47th in the nation with a graduation rate of slightly more than 67 percent.

“A typical high school counselor’s duty is to do academic advising to let students know whether they are following a college path or a career path,” said South Terrebonne High School guidance counselor Christina Falgout.

“We constantly review transcripts with [students] to keep them informed as to what their academic requirements are. We keep [students] up to date as far as college entrance requirements because they are constantly changing. We also do a lot with dual enrollment and make sure they know the opportunities that are available to them. We do some individual counseling and softly put out fires when they arise,” Falgout said.

As a 25-year veteran in education, Falgout has been a counselor in the Terrebonne Parish School District for 11 years. Three of those years in her current position.

Falgout said that although she knows of schools where counselors are expected to step far outside their job descriptions, in her case it has only been the additional requirement to work as a lunchroom monitor that has involved her and two other counselors at her current school. “When I was at [Terrebonne High School] I found myself doing more than I do here,” she said.

The LDE Blue Ribbon Commission for Educational Excellence is a 33-member panel which, according to an Associated Press report, will investigate how to revamp the role of public school counselors. No timeline or details on how the study will be conducted have been released.

Terrebonne High School English teacher Julie Bernard (left) and guidance counselor Tammy Williams discuss the frustrations each feel with their jobs because of increased state demands. MIKE NIXON