Santa Rosa County School District Superintendent Karen Barber believes school guidance counselors will play an integral part in helping her to achieve her No. 1goal as her school system's top administrator.
Earlier this month, Barber told the News Journal that her foremost priority as superintendent is to continuously raise the graduation rate of Santa Rosa County's high school seniors.
To help achieve that, the Santa Rosa County School District has requested approval from the Florida Department of Education to use ESSER — Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund — to hire 25 additional school counselors.
"We are using some of our ESSER funding to provide additional guidance counselors to ensure that they have the time to spend with students, helping them to identify the courses that they need (to graduate) and providing them with information about dual enrolment and advanced placement courses and providing them with opportunities to participate in a career academy," Barber said.
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District spokesperson Tonya Leeks-Shepherd saidthe application for the funding to make the 25 new hiresdid not specify to which schools the additional counselors would be assigned.
"HR is working on student ratios to determine how they will be spread out, but they will mainly impact high schools," Leeks-Shepherd said.
While the graduation rate in Santa Rosa County exceeded statewide averages for the 2020-2021 academic year at just over 90%, Barber said there is still room for improvement.
"One of the things that we discovered through our strategic planning process and our town halls and interviews that we've had with our students and parents is that 75% of our students are engaged beyond their classes," Barber said. "They have extracurriculars. They have clubs."
Butthat leaves about 25% of students who are only connected to their school via their assigned classes.
"Sowe want to make sure that we are providing those students with those opportunities to belong, to have strong relationships at the school with their peers and teachers," Barber said. "Research has shown that a connection to their schools is many times what helps studentsstay in school and to graduate."
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Gulf Breeze High School PrincipalDanny Brotherscould not agree more about the importance of guidance counselors.
Gulf Breeze High School employs four full-time certified school counselors responsible for overseeing the academic and mental health of the school's 1,937 enrolled students.
"Their days are slammed, man," Brothers said, about his school's counselors.
The counselors are tasked with helping high-achieving students maintain their grade point averages needed to get into the country's top colleges, helping under-achieving students get back on track and registering allstudentsfor classes, while alsostrivingto improve the mental health of the school's student body.
"We do a little bit of everything. We call ourselves the kidneys of the school; everything funnels through us. We are the communications," said Angie Schlosser, a certified school counselor at Gulf Breeze High School.
"We are the glue, but I think kidneys is more like what we are. We are a resource," Schlosser continued. "As teachers see behavioral issues as a pattern, as teachers see absences as a pattern, when admins see certain students, those students end up on our radar. We get to know them, get to know what's going on outside of school that we can help with. We build up some of those community resources for our students."
Counselors like Schlosser spend many hours of their working lives trying to make graduation a priority for at-risk students.
"At this particular time of year, we really focus on the kids that arestruggling, and those are the seniors who are not quite in the position to graduate," Brothers said. "We've got to take a deep dive into what their situations are. It could be academic. It could be academic, social, but primarily it's going to be attendance and academic. And it could be passing state-required assessments."
Schlosser noted she's also recently worked with many students whose academics have been negatively affected by their mental health.
"COVID has caused so much disruption in so many lives. Folks are dealing with employment opportunities, or a lack of employment opportunities, or being cut from their job," she said. "And of course, parents' stresses can linger and pass onto their students."
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The importance of her role as a go-to resource for students to talk about their feelings has intensified since the start of the pandemic.
"Just home life in general, I think COVID has changed the stigma of mental health and students are more open to — at least what we're seeing — to sharewhen they are feeling depressed and anxious," Schlosser said.
Many times counselors will also have to help a student dealing with a loss.
"It could be the loss of a sibling, a parent, a financial situation, and then they become not just guidance counselors to talk about academics, classes, and graduation but also the mental health counselors to talk about life in general inside and outside of school," Brothers said. "If there are any type of discipline issues, kids will go see them because of a lot of times the first place they want to go is go talk to their guidance counselor."
The principalnoted he is in agreement with the superintendent — more counselors will equal healthier students and higher graduation rates.
Colin Warren-Hicks can be reached at colinwarrenhicks@pnj.com or 850-435-8680.
