Schools counselors honored by students

A trail of paper hearts in red and pink with messages of thanks line the walls leading to the school counselors’ office at Sandpoint High School.

Those messages were part of an effort by student leadership at the school to recognize the work done by their counselors for National School Counseling Week.

Counselors regularly help students with their schedules, applying for scholarships and post-secondary plans — a job that became more difficult this year when school schedules were rearranged to fit a shortened day, and many students switched to remote learning.

Counselors also did the job of checking in on students remotely, all while performing their normal duties.

Several students said their counselors had also helped them in providing mental health support in the past year.

Erin Eddy, a junior, said she remembered a morning about a year ago when she was having a rough day and came to the counselors’ office. Shannon Kerrigan took time that morning to go on a walk with her and talk about the problems she was having.

“I went back and got to stay at school the whole day,” she said. “She just turned my whole day around. And it was really special.

School counselors regularly go above and beyond what they’re required to do, said SHS Principal David Miles.

“It's pretty common to see counselors being the last to leave a building, whether it's this building or any other,” he said. “They're just — they're here, you know, so late trying to help all of our students. So I’m glad that we can take some time to appreciate them.”

On one occasion, Miles said, a counselor took the time to drive out and check on a person who was living out of town and hadn’t been coming to school.

Olivia Lynch, the senior class president at SHS, said she doesn’t know where the counselors get their energy.

“Jeralyn [Mire] will come in, and we're all just like, like dead inside. Like, I want to leave, and she's like, ‘how are you guys doing today? A bit of a tough crowd.” And she just doesn't let it get her down at all, and I think that's pretty inspiring.”

Mire, who serves as the school’s post-secondary transition counselor, has been as school counselor since 1997. She loves connecting with students, she said, and seeing them grown up years later.

“The number of people in our community and groups that really care about our students is just — how could you not be so excited to come to work?” she said. “ I always joke with the kids that I'm not all super young, and hip, and cool and tech savvy. I just have to be a little crazier than they are.”

Heather Howard, a school counselor at Kootenai and Hope elementaries, said one of the best experiences she has in her job is seeing students who are withdrawn start to greet her and come out of their shell.

This year, she said, students have been dealing with more worry about the unknown.

Many students, said Jessica Lippi, a seventh grade counselor at Sandpoint Middle School, have had trouble feeling motivated in the past year because of stress caused by the pandemic.

“I think it's harder to find your motivation when you don't know what tomorrow is going to bring,” she said. “Yeah, and I think we see that in the classroom.”

Sara Gosling, another member of the SHS counseling team, said one of the things she values most in her job in the ability to connect with, and help, students.

“There's a really special place that you can go in counseling when you're working with somebody who's struggling, where they become very authentic and real. And when you give them a place to do that, there's an honor to that,” she said.

Although school counselors are more of a stopgap when it comes to mental health, she said, they’re often able to help out a student comes in having a particularly hard day.

For Lippi, her career started because of her experience as a high school student with her own counselor at the time, Becky Meyer, she said.

“I just had some things that had happened, that kind of completely changed my path after high school, and I was pretty lost,” Lippi said. “Without her help and guidance, I would have struggled to kind of figure out what the next step was. And so I, at that time, always had in the back of my mind that that [counseling] might be a path that I would want to go down after college.”

The job can be challenging, said Todd Riley, an eighth grade counselor at the middle school. In his job, he’s working to support children at a challenging part of their lives when they’re still learning to navigate new responsibilities in school and relationships with peers.

Counselors don’t always see the results of their work right away, he said, but now as a counselor of over 30 years, he’s gotten to see some of his students grow into adults.

Deb Osborn, a counselor at the Lake Pend Oreille High School, said for her one of the most important parts of her job is to help students to believe in their own ability.

Osborn, who was a clinical therapist for 25 years in an educational setting before becoming a school counselor, said she often sees students with enormous potential who need to be told that they’re capable.

“I see that one kid that has the drive, the intelligence, the dreaming,” she said, but their home life or the culture they were raised in has been telling them their whole lives they’re worthless and they’re not able to do it … [it’s about] planting those possible expectations.”