Clarke Central High School counselor Dr. Ashlee Perry holds up one of her two notebooks, which she uses to keep track of her schedule and her assigned students in the building. Perry feels that the amount of students each counselor is assigned is overwhelming, and looks forward to the hiring of a fifth counselor to alleviate this problem. “I have to have two notebooks — one where I keep what I need to get done in terms of what I need to get done in terms of emails, calls, to-do lists, and then I have nothing but a notebook of records of students that I have seen and I need to see,” Perry said. “This week alone, I’ve gotten about 30 requests from students to see me, on top of what has to get done.” Photo by Ana Aldridge
A fifth addition to the Clarke Central High School Counseling Team will be hired this semester, to help counselors meet the needs of an increasing student body population.
During the 2018-19 school year, an open Clarke Central High School counseling position was posted to the Clarke County School District Career Opportunities page. Since the posting, the CCHS counseling team has been in the process of selecting a fifth counselor.
“We’re getting a new counselor and that position has come to us compliments of (Principal Dr. Swade Huff) so we’re very appreciative of it and it’s just going to be another person that will help us to reduce our ratios (of students to counselors),” CCHS counselor Dr. Ashlee Perry said.
According to Perry, hiring a fifth counselor is necessary to meet the needs of an increasing number of students.
“Our work is driven by our national model, the American School Counselor Association, and they recommend that counselors have a ratio of 250 students per counselor, and right now, each of us has double that, if not more,” Perry said. “This year, we have about 450 more students than Cedar (Shoals High School), so we’ve just been advocating for another counselor.”
For Perry, maintaining a relationship with every student assigned to her has been challenging this year.
“Pretty much what happens is I have to prioritize, and oftentimes, students might not get what they need from me, because I have deadlines I have to meet, be it Classic City referrals, letters of recommendation, mid-year reports…” Perry said. “With the number of students on my caseload right now, I can’t effectively meet the needs of students, and probably the biggest consequence of that is that students are waiting at least a week, if not two, just to see me for an appointment.”
Sophomore Sablue Wah has noticed a disconnect between students and their counselors.
“I haven’t really seen (my counselor) except when I had to get her to sign my Career Academy form, but that’s it,” Wah said. “Some students, they’re bound to see their counselor more, but some of them, they never actually have a real conversation with them.”
According to Perry, members of the counseling team have already interviewed candidates for the position and made their recommendation for the position to Huff.
“The (final decision) really is determined by your administrator, but thankfully, Dr. Huff allowed us to have a very inclusive process and he allowed us to own a lot of it,” Perry said. “And so, we just deliberated on each candidate as to what we felt like would be their strength, as well as potentially the challenges, the pros and the cons, and then we just made recommendations in terms of we think this person would be a good fit.”
Once approved by Huff, the newly-appointed counselor will begin work, focusing on supporting freshmen for the remainder of the school year. Students will still be appointed to one of four current counselors, but underclassmen are likely to be working with the new hire when their appointed counselor is busy.
“We didn’t wanna break up our alphabet, just because at the point we are in the year, we didn’t think that that was a good practice for students on our caseload, so this person would essentially be providing the social-emotional learning support for ninth graders,” Perry said. “The four counselors that are presently here, we’ll have more of a focus on tenth through twelfth.”
Wah feels that the hiring of a new counselor will benefit the student body.
“I think (it will) help, and it will be really good for kids who feel like they really need someone to talk to,” Wah said. “I know everybody has their own stressful life, so since they’re bringing in a new counselor, I like it that the school is actually thinking about the students.”
Perry is looking forward to the extra help a new counselor will provide the counseling team.
“The reality is, if we don’t have the ratios to match what we need to be doing, then students are not getting served, and I think the high school years are critical, so I’m very grateful that we’re gonna get some additional support,” Perry said.
