<p>As someone who works in a private school college counseling office, I see a distinct ethical dilemna here. It is not the same as tutoring at all. A teacher who tutors on the side does not have students in direct competition with each other. Helping a paying student after school does not adversely affect a student at school. However, picture a scenario where you work as a college counselor at school during the day - and part of your job is to call the admissions reps and advocate for your students. But, outside of school you are also working with students paying for you to assist them in their college process and to advocate for them - who will you push for the hardest?</p>
<p>Good college counselors develop relationships with the admissions reps at colleges - particularly at the smaller schools. They can contact the admissions rep if the student wins an award, or has great mid-semester grades. They can convey that a particular college is the student’s first choice. Many people go back and forth in their career between the high school side and the college side of the equation. A high school college counselor may find herself in the position of calling a former colleague to push for a particular student. Will she push for the one from school or the paying client? It is at best a slippery slope and one to be avoided.</p>
<p>About that issue of tutoring kids you teach: I did that. I tutored a student I taught, but I did this because she was much too quiet during our school day, I knew she needed individual help but she never asked questions, and of course I never charged her parents. (The prior year’s teacher had also recommended it, but the parents didn’t want to bother.) She was one of those kids who needs lots of one-on-one time to understand basic concepts.</p>
<p>By year’s end, I had tutored this girl nearly every week and never charged her parents; they gave me a $6.00 box of chocolate as “thanks”. So what’s with those parents? They told my boss that “I must have felt guilty that I spent too much time with other students”. This came out when they found out the girl’s next year’s teacher was going to charge them.</p>
<p>After that, I decided private school wasn’t for me.</p>
<p>I think that this is an ethical problem, except if the GC were taking outside clients who are from a different geographical area and thus whose applications would not be read by the same regional adcoms as her in-school students.</p>
<p>Where I see a potential problem is that the GC is the one who fills out those pesky forms rating the student’s personal characteristics and rigor of curriculum. She could underrate the private school kids so as to lessen their desirability and give an advantage to her private customers. She may not even do this deliberately because she is seeking personal gain, but merely because as a private counselor she might sit down for hours with a student client and get to know him or her much better than she would her private school students with whom she has limited time. And couldn’t an adcom assume that if the same person is evaluating two students that she is doing so with more or less the same yardstick, meaning doing so within a similar opportunity to gain knowledge of the student?</p>
<p>The reason I don’t see a conflict is that I understood that independent college counselors have no “pull” (in their position) for their clients – and that colleges don’t want to hear from them, whereas school-site college counselors have relationships with colleges as reps of their respective high schools (as opposed to their standing as individuals).</p>
<p>So at least in that respect I don’t see the two positions as conflicted. I suppose that a GC could be lukewarm in her or his efforts (yes, I know many are), but where I’m from an impressive college acceptance list at a high school reflects well on the counselor, and vice-versa. (At the more competitive ones, you can lose your job if it can be demonstrated that you were half-hearted in your efforts, gave bad advice, were badly informed, etc., and if the college acceptance list is also underwhelming given the level of the high school.)</p>
<p>Here, a public school teacher is not allowed to tutor/teach kids at his/her school for private gain. I liked my son’s guitar teacher at his high school, would have liked for my son to have private lessons with this teacher, but could not hire this teacher as my son’s private guitar teacher even after the class ended.</p>
<p>I see an issue with this. College counselors could use the school’s students to gain information about essay topics, etc., and then guide their clients accordingly to position those clients better. (Some college counselors do a lot of guiding and a lot of essay editing.) </p>
<p>In our school district, teachers aren’t allowed to tutor students from their own school for pay. The do work extensively with their own students (for free) before and after school, during their free periods and at lunch. They are permitted to tutor students from other schools within the district for pay. This includes some elementary school teachers who tutor their former students who are now in middle school. One advantage of this policy is that when parents are looking for a tutor, they generally can find someone with a great deal of experience with the specific curriculum that their child is covering who also has decent professional and personal references.</p>
<p>This is unethical. We specifically prohibit this in the independent school I work at. we have 2 college guidance counselers who work with between 35-40 students each - and believe me, they are quite busy. If they are doing their job right, and they are, they wouldn’t have time for a side business advising others even if we permitted it.</p>
<p>Rockvillemom makes some very astute points in her post</p>
<p>And your statement here is based on what? pure wild speculation? I can assure you our college counslers are paid quite well. Why do you assume an private school pays them very little?</p>
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<p>Huh? Your comment makes no sense. Why do you have a problem if the counseler works for a public school but no problem if they work for a private one. Thats a double standard and makes absolutely no sense. And your whole "twisted logic abouit this being positive advertising for the private school is just plain wrong. </p>
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<p>NSM - I concur. We stopped this practice several years ago because of the same concern. Teachers should not be permitted to tutor their own students for a fee. If a student needs extra help, their teahcer should be providing it for free… That is what they are paid to do</p>
<p>So let me see if I have this right - you provided extra help to a student in your class who needs it (part of your job) and you are upset that the parents “only” gave you a box of choclates as thanks for doing your job. They didn’t need to provide anything. A good teacher makes him/herself available to their students for extra help before and after school.</p>
<p>At least you were right on one count - private school was not right for you</p>
<p>A school counselor with a private job to help students with admissions.</p>
<p>This doesn’t pass the “smell test” since the counselor would have a vested interest in helping her paying students over her free students to ensure future business. Even if the counselor tried to avoid such preferential treatment, it would be hard to avoid the appearance of it.</p>
<p>However, this could get sticky because what if the counselor’s spouse had the private business? It could be argued that the counselor might still not help the free students as much so as to boost the chances for her spouse’s paying clients.</p>
<p>I think what would frost me about the parents of the pupil that Limabeans tutored is how ungrateful they were. Their response to her efforts: "They told my boss that “‘I must have felt guilty that I spent too much time with other students’”. Huh??</p>
<p>I can understand the common theme of concern over comparative efforts, but I guess I’m just too innocent. I see any job opportunity (I’m not in that particular position, don’t worry!) as a means of self-betterment, not as a throw-away “Oh, well, this means nothing, the other job pays better.” I don’t see why it has to be either/or. Each are compatible training opportunities. She should want to get extremely good at full-time position so that she can shine where she’s being paid to on a by-student basis. (Call me naive.)
<em>shrug</em></p>
<p>It could be inferred that this “private business” is college counseling related but it does seem odd that the O.P. didn’t come out and just say that. </p>
<p>If the school counselor IS doing counseling on the side, I would agree that it is unethical.</p>
<p>The counselor at the school does private consulting which is much more lucrative than what the private school pays her. I am fine with this situation.</p>
<p>For us, the private school is very small. Our counselor is only in charge of 20-25 kids at school. She has a tremendous track record for:
Matching the kids with schools – esp. small LACs that many of the kids would not have looked into without her presenting the school to the student.
Getting a lot of merit money for the kids.
Getting kids off waitlists</p>
<p>My opinion my be different if she had more kids she was dealing with, but from what I see she spends plenty of time on each student.</p>
<p>The private school kids are NOT permitted to be her side business clients. Basically, as another poster stated, in our school’s situation the counselor was basically hired at a “group rate” for the private school kids.</p>
<p>Longhaul, quite a few parents feel the way you do. OTOH, I can understand the parents who are wondering, if with their kids are on wait lists, whether the CC, will be going to bat for their kids or the paying ones.
Ctyankee, sorry, I thought it was clear. It is counseling on the side.
I think the reason why the school does not have a problem with the CC, is because the college matriculation list, has not changed much over the years.
It is to the CC best interest, to send the HS kids, to good schools. Her job security depends on it, and people hired her I suspect because she works at the school.</p>
<p>(= What I said earlier.) That’s precisely why I don’t think there necessarily has to be a conflict, unless the school-site students are her duplicate clients on the side. That’s bad, i.m.o.</p>
<p>I guess I am very laid back. Also, Son’s school is small & everyone knows everyone’s personal business. In our school all the parents understand the Couselor needs the school for health insurance, etc. as much as the school needs her. Also, the “side” business was already in effect at the time of her hire to the school. In our situation her “personal” side business website makes no mention of my children’s school.</p>
<p>I can see the concern if the couselor has many kids applying to the same colleges. I believe a truly worthwhile counselor can help match students with several of the 3,000 colleges available and conflicts shouldn’t arise. </p>
<p>Our schools 2009 grad class of 23 applied to over 100 colleges. The kids just rarely seem to overlap in their choices which makes the worry of the counselor’s allegience to clients less important.</p>