From beginning to end, the counselors working in schools are essentially the backbone of each student’s high school career and Palatine is no different.
Our school counselors work tooth and nail to provide the necessary assistance to students who need it: from the menial to the major and from the schedules to the personal services. The workload of a school counselor is no easy feat, but one that our counselors take great pride in.
“I love my job,” A school counselor in the gray pod, Kathleen Sobol said. “I love working with the most at-risk students and I also like working with the ones that are doing awesome and are well adjusted. I love the entire student spectrum and every separate but unique background, each conversation is so different and it always keeps my job interesting.”
The students that come down to their pods each day are varied, most make an appointment on the counselor app on their iPad, but others come straight down with serious conditions and need help immediately. Nevertheless, the number of students ensures that the main counselor areas get a steady amount of movement.
“The amount of students that come here each day is remarkable,” said Mary Luna, a school secretary and self-proclaimed “chaos coordinator” for the gray pod. “Only counting when I’m at the desk, I typically speak in person with about 50-75 different students each day.”
Many students hold a misconception about the role of a counselor and specifically what part they play in forming and organizing the class schedules of Palatine students. Unfortunately, this has led to sentiments of contempt for the counselors that are unwarranted.
“It’s not us that determines periods,” said Sobol. “I’m not like ‘I think this kid should have third-period lunch’ because I think they should. When the schedules first get put out, it is actually a computer system that sorts out all the students’ requests and then we just go back and patch up the conflicts if there are any.”
The school counselors of Palatine are constantly working hard and diligently on behalf of the students who come see them often and those who don’t.
“Even though I don’t speak to my counselor too often, I’m glad that I can reach out to them whenever an issue comes up,” said Vanessa Pavlov, a senior at Palatine High School. “They’re like an at-school parent, in both an educational and personal aspect. I’m proud to say that our school has such reliable counselors.”
