Posted by Kevin Dudley on 2/9/2024
Emily Magnuson is a counselor at Lewis & Clark High School, where she works with ninth graders and English Language Learners (ELL)—students of all high school grades who recently relocated to the United States.
Emily’s been at Lewis & Clark since 2021 and has been a school counselor since 2017.
As part of National School Counseling Week, Emily sat down with us to share her unique role.
What are the needs of your students?
With my ninth-grade students, I’d say the biggest needs are lessons on time management, communication, navigating social relationships and self-advocacy. I help them communicate accurately with their parents or guardians about their grades and help them stay ahead of things instead of playing catch up. I also do a lot of general time management process lessons with them to help them map out their time. That transition from middle school to high school can be difficult for some.
With my English Language Learner students, it really depends on their situation and where they’re coming from. I’ve worked with a lot of refugee students and students who have lived in the U.S. for several years but are still receiving English services. The cultural complexities of joining a U.S. high school are very challenging. We also work on expectations, how we process things, how transcripts are evaluated, how credits are awarded—there’s a huge learning curve. I’ve also worked with kids who’ve never seen a computer before. That enrollment meeting and learning curve is going to look a lot different than a ninth grader transferring in from another school.
Going from living in a refugee camp or different countries to our school system is a big change. The differences in dress, interaction, social/cultural norms, all those things are sitting in front of me. I’ve had students who’ve fled war torn areas, so, for instance, emergency protocols and drills can be very triggering. So, there are the nuts and bolts of the job like classes, credits, and learning, but there’s also the dynamic of becoming part of the U.S. culture and what our school system looks like. It just comes down to experience and empathizing with them and listening to their stories and getting to know them on an individual level.
What kinds of things do you address when students come to your office?
It’s such a wide spectrum. It’s anything from future planning careers and higher education and graduation planning to crisis response, mental health needs, students’ relationships, career goals, dealing with culture clashes. You name it, in an hour I can see all those things.
What’s something the public might not know about school counselors?
At their core, counselors are strong student advocates and have a very unique opportunity to support students in the in-between. When you think of school, you think of math, science, English. We’re the gel that holds all that together.
The role of the school counselor has evolved and continues to do so. It’s so much more than organizing student schedules. Every child is important to us.
Alicia Shenefelt is the ninth grade counselor at North Central High School, a place she’s been for the past four years. She has nine years of experience as a school counselor.
As part of National School Counseling Week, Spokane Public Schools is featuring counselors from its schools all week. Alicia sat down with us recently to share what she sees everyday in her role at North Central.
What are the needs of your high school students?
Right now with freshman, we’re working on school behaviors like staying in class, getting assignments done, prioritizing, communicating, follow-through, responsibility, those kinds of things.
We also have a ninth grade homework center, which is really rad. Staff help students with goals, grades, communication with teachers, advocating for themselves and just overall responsibility and accountability that is a step up from middle school.
What do high school counselors focus on at each grade level?
In 10th grade, it’s still a little bit more about fine tuning skills and building their academic confidence. By 10th grade hopefully they have some credits under their belt and we’re making bigger plans, which is fun.
By junior year, a lot of different doors open. They can go to NEWTech, and On Track Academy opens up to students. We also get to talk about college and post-high school. Junior year is still the hardest academically, which is cool because they’re ready for it.
Senior year is so much of making sure we’ve met every requirement, making sure that kids who are ready for college are getting their applications in and their FAFSA done. We communicate with parents a lot and answer all the questions that have to do with having a senior in high school.
With such a large student body in our high schools, what’s the range of things counselors address?
In just the last week alone, we’ve had things range from ‘My boyfriend broke up with me,’ or ‘I lost this paper,’ or ‘I’m having bad thoughts and I need help,’ and everything in between. We have some freshman who are still young in their minds, and that’s fine because it’s developmentally appropriate. So, it’s ‘My friend is mad at me,’ to ‘I can’t find my paper and my mom will be mad because my grade will be lower’ to ‘We’re going to be homeless tomorrow.’ So, we have a huge variety of needs, and that is the same for every grade level.
There’s a big prioritizing piece for counselors. You can have a list of what you’re doing that day, but if a kid comes in with some big mental health needs or at-home needs, those things always come first. We never know who’s going to walk in the door.
What is something the public might not know about high school counselors?
A school counselor is kind of a gatekeeper. We’re not a mental health therapist, we’re not an academic specialist. We get to kind of field the different resources. When students come in the door, we find what will work for them. Oftentimes that helps us build a relationship and can have a check-in. We’re not a weekly meeting resource. We refer out to others for that.
Over the four years, we do get to see each kid for a different reason, which is cool. We get to spend time with everybody.
