School counselors say their jobs are in jeopardy under state plan

Public school counselors said Thursday their education role would be radically diminished or even eliminated under a plan by state Superintendent of Education John White to give local districts more flexibility.

Under current rules, high schools are supposed to have one counselor for every 450 students.

White’s proposal would eliminate that requirement.

A committee of the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education is set to take up the issue on Tuesday at 10 a.m.

Cathy Smith, president of the Louisiana School Counselors Association, said counselors play a vital role in assisting students and that abolishing the staffing requirement would hurt the state’s bid to improve public education.

“If a counselor is doing what they are supposed to be doing, they are making a huge difference,” said Smith, a counselor at Hathaway High School in Jennings.

Critics contend that White’s proposal would hurt students by relying on untrained officials to handle duties long done by counselors. hey said that, without the current staffing requirement, some school districts will eliminate counselors in favor of football coaches or other spending. “And I think it would be devastating,” Smith said.

High school counselors are supposed to assist students on course selections, make sure they are on schedule to graduate, and assist in college and career options.

In some districts they interpret tests, grapple with student disciplinary problems and oversee student records, among other duties.

Frank Phinney, a counselor at Walker Freshman High School, said White’s plan is a drastic change and one that would damage public schools. “It is just a complete disregard for our training, the role that we play, and I think it is just wrong,” Phinney said.

Even the current mandate — one counselor for every 450 students — is too lax, he said. “Even that is well above the national recommendation, which is like 250 to 1,” Phinney said.

White, asked for comment about the criticism, issued a prepared statement.

The superintendent said counselors provide “invaluable services” that assist students in their personal development. “But schools should be able to use partnerships, vendors, part-time staff and others, along with full-time counselors, to achieve (goals) in the way that is best for their students,” according to the statement.

Smith, who has exchanged emails with White about her concerns, noted that counselors are required to have advanced degrees.

“They are looking at a team of people to meet the needs,” Smith said. “Unfortunately, these people aren’t trained.”

Ending the staffing rule would also open the door to eliminate counselors, she said.

“To me that is what it is,” Smith said of White’s plan.

The state has about 2,300 school counselors, state education officials said.

The change is included in the superintendent’s plan to overhaul the state handbook for school administrators, which is called Bulletin 741.

White has said his proposal would allow local school districts to set their own academic calendar and allow students to earn credit for subjects where they can show proficiency rather than attending the class.

BESE leaders say they expect the plan to win approval next week.

Counselors contend that the only BESE members who have shown sympathy for their concerns are Lottie Beebe, of Breaux Bridge, and Carolyn Hill, of Baton Rouge.

Neither could be reached for comment.

Michael Lefort, who lives in Cutoff, recently retired after 33 years as a school counselor.

“The potential negative impact for students will become staggering,” Lefort said in an email when asked about the proposed change.

The role of counselors in public high schools has been debated at BESE off and on since 2007.

In the past, critics have said, counselors were routinely assigned odd tasks, such as prom planning and organizing the 4-H Club, and that doing so hurt their ability to help students.

But officials said that the state redefined the role of counselors a few years ago to follow a national model aimed at improving student achievement.

“And the whole counseling phenomenon that we were excited about is going to go by the wayside,” Smith said.

Comments

1) Comment by Wendarooski - 11/01/2013

@tradewinns: Counselors can only do what they are supposed to be doing when they are assigned appropriate tasks by their administrator. Administrator training programs do not teach principals how to hire, supervise or evaluate school counselors. School counselors are often assigned administrative tasks such as test coordination, substitute teaching, maintaining student records, duty,and other tasks that take counselors away from delivering direct services to students. Not to mention, Louisiana has a current mandate of 450 students per one counselor while the American School Counselor Association recommends a ratio of 250:1. To really see the benefit school counselors provide to students they need supportive administrators who understand their role and who support the comprehensive school counseling program that reaches all students at a reasonable counselor to student ratio. Louisiana has a Model for School Counseling which school districts should be implementing. For more information on school counseling visit www.schoolcounselor.org.

2) Comment by Noel Hammatt - 11/01/2013

@tradewinns: The Chicago School of Economics (what some have derisively termed the Chicago Boy's Club) playbook has always advocated the economic starvation of government services to the point where those using the services rise up against it because it no longer meets their needs. Remember, the goal of the Boy's Club is to eliminate, to the greatest degree possible, any government services in order to maximize profit in the private sector. Louisiana is their playground, their dream state! John White, Governor Jindal, and their handlers at the national level are advising them at every step of the way. One of the recommendations of their handlers is to keep stirring the pot, keep people sniping at different aspects of the coming takeover (and often at each other as the conditions under which they operate get worse and worse) in order to hide their true intent. The effective destruction of Bulletin 741 (which just a few years ago was considered sacrosanct, and the "Bible" by the reformers who were using it to attack local districts) is now being used to pit Superintendents and School Boards against their School Counselors. John White promised superintendents more flexibility in order to get them to agree to not fight the defunding of Public Education. (And then there is the payoff for codicils written into law that help protect Superintendents from their local School Boards. Did you know that it only takes a simple majority to HIRE a Superintendent but it takes a super-majority to FIRE them?) In addition, White, like his predecessor Pastorek, has used the power of his office to reward Superintendents who genuflect at his altar of privatization, while penalizing those who dare to question. The former group gets special non-competitive grants (look at Jefferson Parish) and of course, get cushy jobs without any clear responsibilities when they leave their districts while those who dare to question get publicly chastised and have their positions undermined for daring to actually read the laws and not depend on White's interpretation of them. Remember the attack by White in the media on local Superintendents and School Boards that did not follow White's example of how to craft personnel policies on lay-offs, even though their policies were meeting the requirements of the law. You can be sure that no one who questions White will find themselves hired in these cushy jobs at the newer, top-heavy Department of Education. Now, since the Superintendents find their districts starved for funding (yes, Virginia, there is a budget crisis in almost every district, directly caused by this administration) they welcome flexibility, even though that flexibility starts to pit some teachers against others and now counselors are caught in the budget battles. All this time the handlers of White and Jindal are nearly wetting their pants as they see even more privatization coming into focus in their wet-dream state of Louisiana. None of these changes have anything to do with improving the lives and the education of children. That is the saddest part of all of this jockeying for control of public education by the reformers. I am often asked, "Noel, do you think (put in the name of a so-called "reformer" here) really believes this is helping children? I used to give many reformers the benefit of the doubt in my mind. I have since learned to0 doubt the benefit of that. I say to those who ask about the reformers: "Ask yourself these questions. Why have the reformers used the playbooks of Goebbels and Madison Avenue to promote lies (remember them saying that vouchers would NOT be paid using local funds?) and myth-information ("Watch this Joe Public, don't look at Letter Grades in the RSD, look at this magic number we call improvement, and ignore those schools over there we are using to hide the low-performing students), all while refusing to open their books and allow researchers and the media access to their public records? Why are they constantly reshuffling the deck of "accountability" and having their number crunchers constantly redoing their formulas until they get one they like? Can you envision White and Dobard standing over a programmer running the numbers on the Recovery School District in New Orleans, ordering the programmer to keep shifting numbers and deciding which schools won't be included in the numbers until they get just over the number that moves them into the "D" grade? Yeah, I can too." When you start asking questions, or start looking at hard data (if you can somehow get if freed from the minions of myth-information at the State Department of Education) you will begin to see how lies and deceit are just tools in the toolbox of these merchants of privatized profit who call themselves "reformers." What is most amazing, is that the media doesn't seem to be very interested in questioning many of these reforms, and certainly doesn't seem to be willing to spend any of their resources at digging a bit. But then, newspapers and the electronic media depend on advertising to keep us informed… so they too are held hostage, at times, to the whims of the reformers. After all, with most sources of data and information controlled by the reformers, they have to "go along to get along." A sad state of affairs for us, the culmination of a wet dream for ALEC, APEL, BROAD, BRAC and BRAF (and now we have BRAZ), and the Cabal of CABL and their handlers at LABI. All of this is playing out beautifully for the Champions of the Chicago Boy's Club. The students? The reformers don't really care about them. @tradewinns: Ask youself one final question. Many of these pro- reform groups are giving Louisiana's so-called reformers "bragging rights" which are then passed on to the media in Press Release after Press Release, yet none of these kudos have anything to do with measuring actual student performance? Remember when it was the reformers that said: "Student Achievement is the Number One Goal." Now, when their schools are utter failures using THEIR STANDARDS (yes, the RSD New Orleans runs schools themselves, and every single one is an F or a D school after more than 5 years, in fact over 80% of the students in RSD-run schools in New Orleans are in schools rated F and, of course, every single school taken over by the RSD in the Capitol Area has a grade of F), please tell me why ANYONE with a brain is claiming that the reformers have the answers?

3) Comment by tradewinns - 10/01/2013

“If a counselor is doing what they are supposed to be doing, they are making a huge difference, ....". with almost half of the students behind schedule or dropping out completely, what are they doing? before i'd just dismiss all of them, i'd find out which ones ARE productive and utilize them as the team white is talking about. the others are just marking time anyway.

4) Comment by Warp7 - 10/01/2013

The out of control Jindal ego is going to wreck the state and the ultra right can't see it. You voted for him, a person who never held a real job outside of political appointments.

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6) Comment by Get Real - 10/01/2013

Most voted for Piyush and Roemer so when now they are getting their reward...quit crying

7) Comment by spqr - 10/01/2013

Do not worry. Carpetbagging John-boy White gets to keep his six-figure job.