<p>I've trashed our school's GC's on this forum and others have as well. I keep wondering what one actually majors in to become a high school guidance counselor. If they are all majoring in "counseling" (psych stuff?), that certainly doesn't prepare them for what the GCs actually do. Are there programs that actually prepare these folks for helping kids get into college, decide what courses to tak in high school, etc?</p>
<p>I am sure it varies from state to state but in CA it is a post Bachelors credential program. Your BA can be in anything. I've known GCs who were home ec. majors, English majors, theatre majors and history majors.</p>
<p>edit to add: You also have to have a valid CA teaching credential. When I looked into it it would have taken me two or more years to finish. It's not like you pay your money and get your credential.</p>
<p>Here's what I found in a posting for counselor in our district:</p>
<p>This position requires a Masters Degree in Education with Texas School Counselor Certification or eligibility for Texas School Counseling Certification, including 24 Graduate Hours with at least 12 Graduate Hours in Guidance and Counseling. Incumbent should have a valid Texas Teaching Certificate at the level of assignment with a minimum of 2 years of teaching experience in accredited K-12 school
This position requires knowledgeable about State law and Board policies related to school guidance and counseling. Incumbent must also be knowledgeable of the TEA Comprehensive Development Guidance Plan, behavior support systems, including school wide, classroom and individual student intervention strategies, character education programs and bullying/harassment.</p>
<p>Little wonder why the best GCs work in private schools.</p>
<p>I feel sorry for GCs. At least at our school, they have a lot on their plates -- college counseling, AP exams, TAKS tests, scheduling, crisis counseling -- and lots of paper to push. Hardly anyone seems satisfied, but they're asked to do a LOT!</p>
<p>You major in education to become a teacher. Most programs require you to teach for a couple years and go to graduate school for your counseling certification. I know of no undergrad programs.</p>
<p>Here is some info about the Warner School program at the University of Rochester, I am sure most grad programs for school counseling are similar...</p>
<p>The</a> Warner School</p>
<p>In all fairness, it is very true that much is asked from GC. However, at it is common in the public school arena, the outcome is negative for the students as their guidance is provided by jacks-of-all-trades-and-masters-of-none.</p>
<p>With all the financial waste in public schools where there is rarely a problem to increase the salaries for the administrators, one would think that they could segregate the duties between psychological and disciplinary issues on the one hand and strictly academic issues on the other hand. Schools typically have more than one GC but divide the students in groups. Why would they not divide it by function and hire competent children psychologists and competent academic counselors remains an open question. </p>
<p>The pipeline provided by the typical schools of education hardly seems to be the best one. Just as it is for the teaching professionals. It's good to remember that the overwhelming majority of schools of education are absolutely terrible and start with the least qualified students and go downhill from there. In a world that should reward technical competence, we ought to stop pretending that our needs can be addressed through underperforming and poorly prepared generalists.</p>
<p>xiggi, that is exactly what I was thinking. Our high school has one counselor for about every 480 kids. Their duties are divided up strictly alphabetically-one is a jack of all trades for students with last names beginning with A-De, etc. It would make a lot more sense if one could specialize in the behavioral issues, one in college applicaiton issues, one in course selection, etc.</p>
<p>ejr In what states does one major in "education" to become a teacher at the secondary level??? I have been in education for 20 years and I know of no high school teacher who majored in education.</p>
<p>Even at the elementary level many teachers major in "Liberal Studies". It has been establish by No Child Left Behind...a federal mandate...that every secondary school teacher must have either majored in, taken significant and varied coursework in, or past a rigorous and broad based national test in the subject which they teach. Schools are sanctioned if their teachers do not meet this requirement. Since no one that I know of teaches a class on "Education" at the high school level I don't understand how states allow a person with a degree in "education" to teach at the secondary level.</p>
<p>Peter</a> Wood on Schools of Education on National Review Online</p>
<p>
[quote]
It is not unusual for conservatives to complain about schools of education. Well, not to toot my own horn, but I have actually done something on this score: I closed one. </p>
<p>It wasn’t a big ed school, but it was an SOE. Last year, as provost-elect of The King’s College in NYC, I announced that the college would discontinue its undergraduate bachelor’s degree program in childhood education. I met with the freshmen who had expressed interest in the major and explained that to offer an undergraduate education degree in New York meant having to comply with state regulations. These regulations mandated that we offer dozens of **intellectually vapid courses **far below the College’s standards for the rest of the curriculum. </p>
<p>Moreover, I pointed out that while New York (and many other states) sets all manner of requirements for undergraduate education degree programs, New York (and many other states) has also rendered these programs redundant by requiring every teacher to earn a masters degree in education to be eligible for “professional certification.” </p>
<p>A student who graduates with an undergraduate degree in education may receive “initial certification,” which confers permission by the state to teach in public schools for no more than five years, during which time he must earn a masters degree or leave the field.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Our public HS has 2 offices - one is Guidance Counseling (they are responsible for school schedule, and whatever other issues students may have), and the other is College and Career Counseling - they deal with APs and everything college applications-related. It works very well.</p>
<p>That would be so nice!</p>
<p>I think that the main reason that GCs get trashed is that parents and students really are uniformed as to the role of the GC. Most parents here on CC think that the GC does nothing (or is supposed to do nothing) but the college counseling and college related services. In probably a small handful of schools are there dedicated GC's as most GC do cover soup to nuts. </p>
<p>This has been an overview of my week...
This includes being mandated reporters for child protective services, running groups, related service counselors for special education students (these students are required to see you so much time during the week, so no matter what is going on you must see them at their appointe time), case conferencing with teachers, administrators, social workers, city agencies, mental health officials about the child. </p>
<p>It is about tracking attendance, coming up with intervention plans, redirections (whether it is a GED program, alternative high school, work program). </p>
<p>In NYC public schools, if you do not have grade advisors (we don't) you register students for regents exams, program students (do program changes) for the current and next term. you send promotion and graduation in doubt letters (and have to hear the fall out and tale of woe after they are received), select you incoming class of 9th graders and plan orientaion for those student, drop everything when one of your students is in the deans office (for many of the kids on the case load, you are the closest thing they have to a caring parent) or you are called to the nurses office because one of your students has just slit her wrist in between classes and is getting ready to be taken to the psych ward. </p>
<p>You come into the classroom and pull out the student to let him know that his mother just had a hear attack and died this morning, then you come back and let the class know what happened. In NYC public schools you deal with Bloods, Crips, DDPs and all other gang infractions and keep the peice when cll phones are stolen, people are shot. You are the person who has to sign off and conference on transfers in and out of the school (transportation, medical, safety). You are the go to person when your student is called to the dean office or is about to be arrested. </p>
<p>Are we trained to to college counseling? No, we are trained as mental health professionals, as the Masters Degree is in applied psychology - School Counseling a 60 credit masters (where the masters for teachers is 32 credits) and one year internship for initial certification, and additional 30 credits(if you ever want to see a bump in salary) and 3 years work experience with in 5 years for permanent certification. Most GC in NYC are trained as K-12 Guidance Counselors so our recommended internshps are 1 term in elementary ed/middle school setting and 1 term in high school setting (I knew I wanted to high school so my entire internship experience was in high school) courses are in psychology. It was the 15 years in corporate life doing HR (Training, Adult Ed and Workplace learning, and running a tuition aid program is where I learned the college counseling piece. I have a Masters in this area too.)</p>
<p>Be are bound by the code of conduct for both the American Counseling Association and the American School Counseling Association.</p>
<p>Courses required</p>
<p>Required</a> Coursework: CNGU/CGS CNGU/CGB (M.A.) - Applied Psychology - NYU Steinhardt
In short, no you don't need a masters to do college counseling however, they do look for you to hold one to do the rest of your job.</p>
<p>But sybbie719, you of all people should realize that it is ridiculous and unfair to expect one person to excel at everything that is in your job description, or to have time to do even half of it. Why should the same person who tells a student that their parent just had a heart attack be the same person who tells another child about the SATIIs? Why do most/many schools in the country lump that into the same job? It seems like schools are combining quite a few different jobs and expecting one person to do them all, for 200-800 students at a time.</p>
<p>Lack of adequate specialization is a severe problem in general in United States schools. Where my wife grew up (Taiwan), elementary pupils are taught by specialists in each of the main curriculum subjects. The pupils stay in the same room all day (a typical class size was SIXTY when my wife went to school, but now it's down below fifty) and the teachers move from room to room. The large class sizes allow a similar staffing ratio to leave teachers some prep periods each day to work with teachers who teach the same subject to learn effective teaching methods.</p>
<p>Of course it is unrealistic. However, when administrations are doing budgets and they have to choose between allocating a salary for a classroom teacher and allocating for a GC, guess who gets the allocation? High school teachers teach 5 periods a day and classes are capped at 34 students (if you team teach with SPED, or teach self contained SPED, resource room, etc. the count is lower). At max you have 170 students. There is no max # of students for GCs.</p>
<p>Like Xiggi posted, at least as a teacher you can come into the system with your initial certification straight out of undergrad and you have 5 years to work toward permanent certification. There is no such thing in NYC when it comes to guidance counselors; you either come with your masters in school counseling (no matter what you did before you got it) or you are not certified (initial or otherwise) as a School Counselor .</p>
<p>
[quote]
I think that the main reason that GCs get trashed is that parents and students really are uniformed as to the role of the GC. Most parents here on CC think that the GC does nothing (or is supposed to do nothing) but the college counseling and college related services. In probably a small handful of schools are there dedicated GC's as most GC do cover soup to nuts.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Indeed, the trashing might be unfair. However, it's not more unfair than not admitting the limitations of one's office. Families and students share the reasonable expectation that the person in charge of the GC will have the time and competence to deliver. With the schedule you have to maintain, where do you find the time to keep abreast of recent developments, especially those that are not CRUCIAL to the majority of students at your school. </p>
<p>In many cases, facing the reality that the GC office won't do much at all, is a smaller price to pay than having to live with broken promises and false expectations. </p>
<p>Fwiw, I think there is a huge difference between "trashing" the GCs in general and attacking the individual persons. Just as many wonderful teachers are trapped in a system that victimizes them, there must be countless GCs who simply cannot do it all. Criticizing the system and the office often enough might lead to necessary changes. Parents and the GC should share the same vision.</p>
<p>It appears that my son's GC majored in 'Shop'. Of course, my son is in the 'mushy middle' - the 80% in the middle that get little-to-no attention.</p>
<p>Dan D</p>
<p>What most people don't understand is that School Counseling master's programs seldom require more than one course in college counseling, and sometimes not even that. Often that course is lumped together with "academic and career counseling." The focus of these programs is on psychological counseling, not college counseling. Thus, it is quite possible for a guidance counselor to get their credential without any real knowledge of college admissions. A growing number of counselors are recognizing this lack of knowledge and some specialty certificate programs have sprung up to help them get it. When I was doing the UCLA College Counseling program, I was suprised by how many guidance counselors in the program seemed amazed at some of the basic things covered in the classes --- things discussed here and other discussion forums on a regular basis. But, then again, they WERE in the program, trying to acquire the knowledge they recognized they needed.</p>
<p>Having worked as a school college counselor myself, in a public charter high school serving first generation students, I can tell you that it is a grueling, thankless job. While my primary responsibility was college counseling, that often got pushed aside for student and family emergencies, disciplinary issues, course scheduling, administrative tasks, overseeing testing, and other technically "non-college" related things. It was very difficult to provide the sort of individual attention that students applying to college need. And, I only had 200 students to work with! (In many schools, counselors have 500 or more students assigned to them).</p>
<p>So, there are many factors involved, and I think whoever said it above, said it best: parents and students can't expect a guidance counselor to do it all for them -- they need to be pro-active about gathering information on their own, even at the best of schools (including many privates - I can tell you some horror stories about "counseling" some of my private clients have experienced at some of the nation's most "elite" prep schools). Unfortunately, this is, in my opinion, what makes it so difficult for low income, first in their family to go to college students to get there. They need a lot more help and hand-holding because the support isn't available at home. At the school where I worked, having someone dedicated to college counseling, even if not full time, really made a difference.</p>