Panel Looks to Revamp Counselor Position (LA)

February 14, 2011

State educators are weighing major changes for public school counselors, in part, to improve Louisiana’s dismal high-school graduation rate.

On e of the goals, officials said, is to end the practice of assigning counselors odd tasks, such as prom planning and organizing the 4-H Club.

“You are taking the most educated person in the building and having them do menial or clerical tasks,” said Jennifer Curry, an assistant professor of counselor education at LSU.

“There are so few bodies working in a school, that every time a principal is handed something new they hand it to the counselor,” said Curry, who is on a task force drawing up planned changes, which are  due by May 3.

The problem, officials said, is that high-school students often get short-changed when it comes to assistance on classes, college and career plans.

“We just feel that not enough focus has been put on the role and the protection of the counselor’s role,” said Glenny Lee Buquet, who is co-chair of the panel studying the issue.

“So often they are used wherever needed, rather than as truly needed,” said Buquet, who lives in Houma.

The state’s public high-school graduation rate is 67.4 percent, 47th in the nation, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

Louisiana has about 2,300 public school counselors, according to figures provided by the state Department of Education.

Counselors have to earn a 48-hour master’s degree.

Principals, who are often cited as the key to any school’s success, have to complete a 39-hour master’s degree, officials said.

Day-to-day duties for counselors vary, especially depending on whether they work in high school, middle or elementary schools.
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Ideally counselors are supposed to assist students academically and socially. In high school they can be a student’s key ally for course selections, making sure they are on track to graduate and exploring college and career options.

DeLisa Washington, a counselor at Ernest Gallet Elementary School in Lafayette Parish, said she is lucky to have the freedom to work with students, including a teary-eyed youngster recently upset about being called a “fat banana” in a telephone text.

But Washington said visits with colleagues elsewhere remind her that counselors are often overrun by unrelated duties.

“More than there should be,” she said of such cases.

Curry said counselors play a vital role, even for children at an early age.

She said experts have come to realize that, aside from making schools more rigorous, students have to see the link between school and work from an early age.

“The person to do that is the school counselor,” Curry said.

How to revamp the role of public school counselors is under review by the Blue Ribbon Commission for Educational Excellence.

The 33-member panel includes officials of Louisiana’s top school board, the panel that oversees colleges and universities, lawmakers, teachers, principals and the president of the state association of counselors.

The task force plans to make its recommendations to the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and the state Board of Regents, which can order changes.

Aside from the role of counselors, the panel is also studying how counse lors are trained, certified and evaluated.