Student Scheduling Problem

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The article, "At Crossland, Some Crossed Wires" from the Washington Post, discusses the problems that one student has with her pre-college schedule objectives. The school counselor, who would have normally helped her find a solution to her history class problem, was already overwhelmed with his allotment of 300 students in a school of 1500 students. According to him, a solution could have been worked out earlier and he "wished Houston had come to see him sooner" (Mathews 1). Jamieka Houston did send a note to the counselor the very first day of class to request a solution. A needed physics course conflicted with the AP history class so there seemed to be no solution to Houston's dilemma at such short notice. Counselors from other schools said that "a student with a course conflict like Houston's would have been called before school started and given a chance to work out a solution" (1).

My immediate reaction to Jamieka Houston's situation was that the school counselor did not try hard enough to solve this problem, specifically "there was no other physics class she could switched to conveniently" (1). Convenient or not, Jamieka did send a note the first day of class in regards to the problem; he should have contacted her within the week. On the other hand, Jamieka could have been more proactive in contacting him when he did not get back to her. Yet, being a high school junior and not a college junior she had, up until this point, trusted the adults in

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l, counselors often feel as if they are missing something and that they are simply performing "random acts of counseling" (B-3). Reaction Being a counselor is not an easy job. In fact, in reading this article, I realized that it could be a job full of long days and difficult decisions. Martin points out how Paul Pagano begins his day by 7:45 AM when classes start and works well after 3:10 PM when classes are over (B-3). Additionally, Pagano did not start his counseling career straight out of school, but was a teacher for a number of years before going into counseling. Yet, even with this added experience, he appears to have to constantly juggle the needs of the students and teachers. What is most amazing is the amount of patience and endurance he must have to be able to jump from situation to situation and keep tabs on kids currently on in-school suspension while talking to a parent, a teacher and other students. I also think it was very creative and proactive of him to instigate the peer-counseling program. Not only does it help Pagano reach all his students, but it also teaches his students, who will soon be facing high school and then college or the work world, problem solving, listening and counseling skills. These are
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Approximate Word count = 2226
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)

Student Scheduling Problem

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