Elementary School
Navigators and Heroes in Life's Daily Trials
Bristow Run Elementary Counselor Mary Pat McCartney chats with Carson Luttrell, left, Sarah Gorham and Lindsay Manning during their lunch period. McCartney tries to help students realize that everyone occasionally has problems.
(By Rich Lipski -- The Washington Post)
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Kindergartners go to their teachers with problems. Second-graders, on occasion, drop by the counselor's office for help. But by third grade, all inhibition about going to the school counselor has been lost, and the kids come streaming in.
That's the assessment of Mary Pat McCartney, a counselor at Bristow Run Elementary School in Prince William County and vice president of the American School Counselor Association. Her school has one counselor for every 500 students, better than Virginia law requires.
In her 17 years of counseling, McCartney said she and her colleagues have never spent as much time as they do today supporting teachers. It is necessary, she said, because they "are under a lot more stress" in the high-stakes standardized testing environment.
Teachers now will more quickly refer an uncooperative or unfocused child to the counselors because they feel pressure to cover a lot of material, she said.
The increasingly diverse student population presents communication challenges between counselors and families whose first language is not English. McCartney also sees more youngsters struggling when parents divorce.
But she said she knows she has helped when students realize they're not alone and everyone occasionally has problems.
Being in a position to help a child navigate life is a central satisfaction cited by many counselors. Making little moments of "magic" happen for kids or smoothing over troubles so school can be a joy is what drives Heather Quill, who works at Whittier Elementary School in Frederick.
At Whittier, more than one-third of the student body has at least one active-duty military parent, and Quill works with students to help them handle absence and unpredictability. She focuses on the notion of heroism -- not just by adults but also by the children -- and employs novel solutions to difficult problems.
For example, she set up a "kitchen" in her office -- with brown bags, bread, peanut butter and jelly and applesauce -- for needy kids who never brought lunch to school. On the last day of school, kids leaving for middle school left her a note on the last slice of bread saying: "You have been OUR hero. Thank you!"
*Tasks for elementary school counselors include:
Grades K-2 Help kids learn essential skills, about different professions, and how to make friends.
Grades 3-5 Teach students how to take notes, set goals, prepare for tests; help kids understand what "the future" means and to recognize that their actions have consequences.
