“If
you wish to succeed in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience
your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.”
Joseph
Addison
By
Tommie Saylor
Kennedy
High School Principal
At
Kennedy High School, there is a group of people within our professional staff –
professionals that are not “on the front lines.” They don’t stand before
students each day delivering curriculum, nor are they educational leaders
providing governance and logistical support.
These
professionals work in the shadows, solving problems and cleaning up messes that
the rest of us would rather not know about. On the surface, their titles
are fairly simple, leading most to believe that their duties are routine.
But in reality their duties take them to places that most would rather not go,
to places that the rest of us just simply do not have the skills to master.
These
“shadow warriors” are known as counselors.
Today’s
school counselors are no longer the artless curriculum guidance drones, plugging
students into random classes, directed by a curriculum guide often decades old.
No, today’s counselors work with students who may come from homes where both
parents work, from working single-parent homes, and from homes oppressed by
poverty.
The
job has evolved into a position where the student can find compassion and understanding
wrapped in a sense of humanity. This is not to mean that our counselors
are easy on our students. What this means is that our counselors artfully
practice tough love; forcing students to see the error of their ways, yet at
the same time, revealing to their students the beauty they possess inside.
Our
counselors are “dream weavers.” They bring in a young freshman and develop
their schedule, probing for strengths, likes, trying to find their interests. What
do they want to do when they grow up?
This
year we have a senior who earned an appointment to the West Point Military
Academy, an appointment that would have never happened if not for her counselor’s
insistence on her giving our JROTC program a try when she was a freshman.
Our
counselors motivate, cajole, coax, sweet-talk and even threaten our students
into passing classes, earning credits, graduating, applying to trade schools,
colleges and universities. In the last two years 100 percent of our seniors
applied to at least one college or university, a program inspired, directed and
conducted by our counselors who understand the importance of our students
gaining some type of training following high school.
In
fact, many of our students who will be going off to trade schools, colleges
and/or universities this fall will be the first in their families to do so, and
would never have done so if not for the relentless work of our counselors.
In essence, our counselors are not just changing the lives of one student at a
time; they are changing the lives of generations of Americans, one student at a
time.
Our
counselors are student advocates. It takes a lot of guts to walk into
your boss’s office and tell him you believe he is making a mistake. Yet
our counselors do that on a regular basis, advocating for their students.
Getting
to know their students as well as they do, they know who is staying up late,
taking care of their younger siblings; who is working late to help support
their families; those who live in abusive homes; and those who are suffering
from neglect. They help fix the broken hearted.
Our
counselors work as mediators between teachers and students, administrators and
students, and sometimes between students and parents.
Though
we all talk about doing what is best for students, our counselors live and
breathe this motto daily; their lives intertwined with the wellbeing of those
with whom they serve.
If
the administration is the brains of Kennedy High School and the teaching staff
the backbone, counselors are the heart, filled with love, passion for students,
and hope.
How
and where will you lead them. Making Kennedy the school of choice. Excellence
by design.
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