photo by Lizbeth Perez
CAPTION: Holmes counselor Desiree Solis works with students on their future plans.
Recently, Gavel staff members have heard several complaints about the lack of help from Holmes counselors on campus. Many students have complained about how long it takes to get help from their counselor or the fact that their counselors haven’t called them in to talk about college and scholarships like the Business Careers counselors have. What students don’t know is that the Holmes counselors have a bigger workload than the Business Careers counselors which prevents them from doing everything they’d like to do.
According to counseling department data, there are five Holmes counselors with a total of 2,400 Holmes students compared to the two BC counselors with a total of 600 students. One Holmes counselor has 480 students to take care of, while one BC counselor takes care of 300 students each, that is 180 less students than the Holmes counselors have.
The bulk of the Holmes counseling work load is spent on taking care of the immediate individual needs of students, often in crisis that need help or counseling. This can range from students facing dangerous situations outside of school, on campus, or at their own hands. According to the data, one Holmes counselor has to see 24 students for individual immediate needs, while one BC counselor has to see 4 students for individual immediate needs on average. This means that the Holmes counselors have to see six times more students than the BC counselors do. Many students don’t see that they are actually working hard and they are trying to keep up with the amount of students that need help fixing their schedule, applying for scholarships, or help with college applications in addition to taking care of students with individual needs, in crisis.
In past weeks, many BC seniors have been getting the top 10% scholarships from their counselors. On the other hand, Holmes seniors were delayed in receiving these from their counselors.
“It’s annoying how our counselors are barely calling us in to talk about the top 10% scholarships so much later than the BC kids,” Senior Joced Osorto said.
He continues to say that it is hard to talk to the counselors because they don’t have time for their students. People are constantly going into the office to see the counselors and they are always in a meeting or never in their office.
“I go to the counselor’s office and they always say they will call me in during class later that day but it never comes; or they tell me she is out to lunch or in a meeting,” Osorto said.
Junior Christian Vasquez has had some concerns with his schedule such as how many credits he has received and if his classes provide the credits he needs, but every time Vasquez goes to see his counselor, she is not there.
“My counselor has been out a lot. I feel as if I barely know my counselor, and I think they need to get more involved,” Vasquez said.
Although there is much frustration among the student body, it isn’t the counselors fault. According to the district data, they are understaffed and overworked. They get pulled out to do new student registration, parent consultations, and even pulled out for non-guidance activities. Together as a team they have to work together to get all the work done on campus.
“As a department, we would like to request magic wands,But the budget is not for that.So we work as a team to make every hour count to meet the need for our students,” said the Holmes counselor team said.
When we asked senior Jay Cruz how he felt about the counselors being understaffed, he expressed that he feels that the district needs to hire more counselors because the amount of students coming into Holmes isn’t going down.
“If there is a need for counselors, then they need to hire more because the amount of students that need help isn’t going to go down. Especially senior year when students need the most help. I think that somebody should present all this information to the board members,” Cruz said.