By:Regina Tan
nbsp; Times are changing quickly in the Hillsborough High School guidance department, where four out of eight members of counseling staff will be newcomers.
And, the new staff will be headed by a new department head, Ed McNeil, who had previously worked as a guidance counselor at Montgomery High School.
In the past, maintaining stability within the guidance department staff has not been a problem, said Dr. Robert Gulick, superintendent of Hillsborough schools. "But (the department has experienced) … the largest turnover this summer. This has been very unusual."
The counselors who left the department cited career change, higher salaries, and shorter commutes as the primary reasons for resigning.
Three of the four new guidance counselors have not had previous guidance counseling experience. The fourth position still remains to be filled.
Mr. McNeil feels the change in staffing can only bring good tidings.
Each new counselor has been assigned a mentor, who is one of the four veteran guidance counselors, according to Joseph Adochio, the retiring head of the Hillsborough High School guidance department, who continues his position until the end of August.
The mentoring has helped to "rejuvenate people," said Mr. McNeil. "New blood is always a good thing," he said.
Mr. Adochio agreed, "People get in a comfort zone," which prevents them from discovering the best way to help students.
One way to grow as an individual is to teach other people, said Mr. McNeil. By having the veteran guidance counselors mentor the new guidance counselors, it may "change their (the veterans’) way of doing things."
With more than 200 students to advise, the new counselors and the veteran counselors will have much to keep them busy. Writing college recommendations only takes up part of the guidance counselor’s time, since prospective college students submit their requests for letters of recommendation in the spring of their junior year.
Being a guidance counselor, Mr. Adochio said, is a "difficult balancing act." Because the high school assigns each student with the same guidance counselor during his or her four years, it makes it easier to prevent students from "slipping through the cracks," he noted.
Guidance counseling is among the most "challenging and rewarding jobs in education" because it involves concerning oneself with the daily activities and lives of the students, according to Mr. Adochio.
