Schools observe week honoring counselors
By Marcus Clem
A week of events has served to recognize the specialists who perform lifesaving work in school buildings with a sense of compassion and responsiveness that is sometimes in dire need.
National School Counseling Week honors the work school counselors do to respond to students in distress that can be attributed to incidents of bullying, emotional trauma at home, developmental challenges and more severe concerns, like suicidal ideation. Counselors must have the emotional intelligence and communicative ability to serve as someone students can trust with any problem on an unplanned basis. It takes a special person to do this.
“There are lots of challenging needs every day, and that’s how it is in any job in education,” said Samantha Davis, a counselor at Lafayette High School. “But that’s kind of why I relish my role, and I enjoy it every day, because I’m never quite sure what each day will bring me. Every student has different needs at different times.”
Counselors are typically teachers who decide to return to school for a master’s degree in school counseling, but can also be career psychologists. The common element must be a boundless love for children and a desire to be their guide, in what is mostly a thankless task. A moment taken to honor their work has a capacity to help.
“You know, we deal with a lot of the heavy situations that our students deal with, so recognition really makes us feel valued, which can kind of gives us the ‘oomf’ to go further,” said Elissa Garr, counselor at Parkway Elementary.
As much as it is about spreading the love for these student welfare specialists, Garr said, National School Counseling Week is about promoting awareness about what the role is and why it is necessary. A lot of people don’t see and understand what they do, she said, because their work must be handled behind closed doors. Protection of student and family privacy is paramount.
“So, you kind of have an idea of what we do, folks see us working sometimes in the classroom, they see us talking to kids in the hallways all the time, and building relationships with kids and staff,” Garr said. “But, really, unless you’ve been in the role, it’s hard to know exactly what we do. Part of this week is about advocating for our role.”
National School Counseling Week is always observed in the first full week of February, according to the American School Counselor Association, an advocacy group based just outside the nation’s capitol in Alexandria, Virginia. More about counselors and how to support them can be found on the organization’s website, https://www.schoolcounselor.org/.
