Coming back to school is stressful for both staff and students. As students, we are busy trying to keep up with a sudden burst of homework. School counselors are also arguably just as busy trying to rearrange students schedules who didn’t receive the classes they requested or changed their minds.
However, this is not nearly the depth of teenage stress. Unfortunately, many students at our school are not happy and many students are struggling with their own demons whether we can see it or not. A core issue that I’ve seen, after speaking with all my friends, none of them said they would go to the counselors if they had a problem.
I’m not trying to say the counselors don´t do their job, they certainly do. The problem is that if they are open to counseling students and helping them through problems unrelated to school, a majority of students don’t realize it or perceive the counselors in that way.
Something needs to be put out to students of Lafayette to make sure they know the school counselors are here for them, not just their schedules. Because of their dual responsibility of helping plan the schedules, students see them more as schedule makers than counselors.
In my opinion, if it takes hiring separate people to write schedules, so be it. The kids in our school need someone to talk to. We have lives outside of school, we have family lives, social lives. Our struggles don’t stop where our schedules end.
Counselors are trained to talk to people and to help them through their problems. They could be doing so much more for our school if people who are struggling know they are here for them and their problems matter to them. I know they do, but when you’re going through a hard time sometimes there seems to be no solution.
Counseling needs to be more prevalent in Lafayette’s future plans. If we really want to be a school of character, we have to start from within.
It’s not easy for everyone to be the happy, productive student all schools want to have. Lafayette students need to know that as a school, we care about them and they are welcome to have someone to talk to here as they may not have anyone at home. Clarity is crucial and we must make it clear that the counseling office is a safe place for students to go to.