<p>One of the college counselors at my Kids' HS, has a private business. Some parents feel that it's unethical.
The parents main concern is that the counselor may not advocate as hard as she could for our kids, since she may have other kids, (whose parents paid hefty fees) who are looking at the same colleges.
FWIT, the counselor is in charge of about 50 kids. Many parents are quite happy with her.
Also, the college matriculation list, has not changed much in the last decade.</p>
<p>the counselor has 50 kids?
Is this a full time position?
Is this a private or public school?
In my town we don’t have counselors- who limit themselves to college advising in the high schools- a school of 1600, might have three or four counselors, but they are needed for anything that a teen in an inner city school might require.</p>
<p>If the position isn’t full time, I think it would be tough to argue they should limit themselves.
I don’t feel a counselor " advocates" for students over others except in special circumstances, but I don’t see a conflict between advising students of what colleges are in their ballpark ( does your school use Naviance?), and collecting pay for it, as long as the time does not cut into their position at the school.
However, those who are more informed re: contracts & unions etc. may give a different opinion.</p>
<p>My ethical meter does not like this.</p>
<p>Emeraldkity4, Yes it’s a full time position and a private school.The school does not use Naviance.
what I mean by advocate is if a college call about a student the counselor can talk favorably about the student or if the student is on a wait list.</p>
<p>We used a private counselor for a consultation when Older D was a senior. She was retired from the private school my children now attend. Not sure I’d like this but I also think it depends on what kind of services the GC actually provides. As your GC, she is writing recommendations etc. For others, she is guiding them on who to ask for recommendations etc. In fact, if there are contacts to be made, wouldn’t colleges contact the school and not this private contractor for more information? Seems like they overlap, but in reality they are very different roles.</p>
<p>Many teachers at our school also get paid to do tutoring in the summer. Is that a conflict of interest? Bottom line, I guess as long as their contract doesn’t disallow it, I guess it’s legal to use your talents in whatever way you see fit. And if, someone is willing to pay for it, even better.</p>
<p>My only ethical dilemma would be if she were using school resources for it. (i.e. computers, etc.)</p>
<p>I think in my city, it would be unusual for a private school counselor who is full time to also have a side consulting business. I can’t think of any off hand who do although some have gotten into similar fields after retiring.</p>
<p>Was this business started after they began working at the school? In that case, I think ( or would hope) that something is in their contract that specifies what they can do- I am guessing that per hour, they probably earn more with the consulting position & at a time when they see they can do that full time they will leave the school.
So I would be asking the administration- about protecting the needs of the students.</p>
<p>Mamadrama, that is similar, but it wouldn’t take away from their attention during the school year- although some teachers have turned tutoring into a full time business ( or opened private schools).
Because of the time frame- the demands from both the private clients and the private school students are going to peak at the same time & as we all have found out, you can please all the people only some of the time.</p>
<p>NJeres, what exactly is your ethical meter telling you? 
Modadunn, I do agree with you that the colleges will contact the HS not the private counselor, but the parents feel that the counselor may have some influence on the kids’ Apps because she knows many college Reps.
Emeraldkity4, I think the school knows about her business, and I am not sure when it started.</p>
<p>I agree with MamaDrama, #6 post. If the GC’s contract allows this, then her school has already considered conflict-of-interest issues and okay’d it. So long as she is not using her services (i.e. like Naviance) that are paid for by her employer, then she should be able to privately consult others. Most likely, she isn’t paid very much as a GC, so she needs to or wants to supplement her income. Since this is a private school, be reluctant to balk when they tell you about tuition increases, they probably pay her very little…</p>
<p>This is like a teacher who privately tutors. Would she only be allowed to tutor students at her own school, or can she tutor others?</p>
<p>I get what you’re saying Pullinghair. I do. And I know our school would probably not allow this conflict of attention (if not outright interest). I will say one thing though… our school has found that if 10 students are qualified for acceptance, they are usually all accepted and the thinking that a school will only take one candidate out of three (or whatever) hasn’t proven true. This said, I might casually inquire what the arrangement is with this counselor and her contract with the school. Truth is, perhaps her services are limited to helping kids develop their lists, or otherwise slightly limited in services. But even still, I am not sure how much direct contact guidance counselors have with admissions, even if they do “know” them, let alone the private counselors. I think when things were sent to update son’s files at admission offices, they were faxed etc. More so than anything else was not our counselor (although we LOVED her - she did an excellent job of taking the parents completely out of the equation), but the reputation of the school son attended that the colleges were familiar with. So while I might not have an ethical issue once I knew the perimeters of her services… I might be a little concerned about the split time when I am paying hefty tuition. For me, it would be about priorities.</p>
<p>And if I were paying for the service, I’d wonder if he or she was spending too much time at his or her “real” job. I think I would opt to hire someone who had retired from the business.</p>
<p>Ellemenope, some of the parents feel that people hired the GC because she works at the school.
I do agree with you Modadunn, there is no quota, on how many kids are admitted from a certain school.</p>
<p>The fact that it’s a private school complicates the ethical question a bit. If it were a public school then taking students on a consulting basis simply looks bad. Not only is there the “pay me and I’ll do a better job for you” aspect. But there’s also the “soliciting consulting clients from my day-job colleagues.” </p>
<p>I’m less concerned (ethically) since the day-job is with a private school. In some twisted fashion, the consulting gig might be looked at as positive advertising for the private school. “Let be bring to you public school students the kind of superior consulting you’d get if you attended my private school.”</p>
<p>I do think it is unethical. That said, who cares what my opinion is. I think it is the school administrators’ opinions that count.</p>
<p>For whatever it’s worth, I also think it is unethical to tutor students that you are hired to teach in a school. I think that tutoring children that are not your pupils during the school day is okay.</p>
<p>I agree on the tutor. I would not pay a teacher that is already being paid to teach my child. However, I have hired retired teachers and with D16 taking chemistry it isn’t horrible that my sister used to be a top teacher of Bio and Chemistry.</p>
<p>modadunn, you have 16 daughters? Sorry, I could not resist! :D</p>
<p>What we don’t know is what this individual’s deal is with the private school. What woul you think if she had a college advising <em>business</em> and the private school hired her to serve as college counselor for their students at a ‘group rate’?</p>
<p>I think it’s a conflict of interest and unethical. After paying many many years of private school tuition, I expected the college counselor to devote him or herself to my childs graduating class. We had that problem at my daughter’s prior private school. I don’t know how he was able to get away with it. Luckily we moved in middle school so we never needed his divided attention or the “pull” he claimed to have.</p>
<p>As far as teachers tutoring, our private school allows teachers to tutor students (for pay) AS LONG AS: they don’t currently teach the child or any of their siblings and it takes place outside of regular school hours. Teachers are notoriously underpaid and the school is happy for them to pick up extra money (in our town anywhere from $70-$150/hour).</p>
<p>I don’t see an ethical problem with it as long as she doing it totally outside of school hours and her “out of school” customers are different from the kids she’s supposed to be advising at school. I view it as similar to a teacher tutoring outside of school hours (and I also don’t think it is proper for a teacher to tutor her own students). I wouldn’t have an ethical problem with her bagging groceries outside of school hours, so why shouldn’t she be able to work at something she’s good at and knows well? I guess I just don’t see the in school kids and the out of school kids as competitors, which is where I think you might run into an ethical issue.</p>