A Few Words to the Wise About High School Counselors

How many of you share this anxiety (or maybe you’ve already been there)?

My son is a high school freshman, a fine young man, but heavily influenced by peer pressure. We think we’re safe with him on the big issues: drugs, alcohol, violence, crime.

But I sometimes worry whether my son would turn to my wife and me for help if he had troubles that overwhelmed him. If you have similar concerns, here’s a suggestion you might consider: Make sure your teen-age son or daughter gets to know the school counselor.

I’ve been talking to a lot of high school counselors lately. I confess I’ve often thought of these people as bureaucrats who mainly keep up with the numbers on college requirements. But I’ve learned how much these counselors really care about our children.

It’s true, the counselors are largely responsible for assuring that students are prepared academically to go on to college. But that’s just part of the overall mission of caring about a student’s welfare.

Help for students comes from a whole team of people at any school, said Art Wahl, a counselor at Laguna Beach High School.

“Rarely will students come in and admit they have substance abuse problems,” Wahl said. “But we learn about it in other ways. A teacher notices a behavioral change in class, or the student gets into some kind of trouble.”

Cheri Hansen, head counselor at Fullerton High School, says students won’t volunteer information about their problems “until you can develop a relationship with them. Maybe they’ll want to change their schedule. You find out why, and then get down to what the real problem is. And that takes time.”

Once a problem is exposed, most students are going to find the counselors more than just willing listeners; they’re there to help. And in cases where the counselor can’t do it alone, most schools have outside assistance available from district-level therapists or psychologists.

Valley High School in Santa Ana has an interesting program: Saturday counseling for parents. Head counselor Johnny Walker told me that the students are always present at these sessions, so the group--counselor, students, parents and sometimes teachers--can figure out what the problems might be.

One theme I heard from all the counselors I talked with: Many students who abuse substances or get into trouble at school have problems at home.

“The most common problem we see is a student trying to do well at school while dealing at the same time with a difficult home life,” said James LeGrand, who has been a counselor at Loara High School in Anaheim for 34 years.

But most parents, counselors say, are willing to improve, once they are made to realize they are part of what is wrong. Once the talking starts, some can even identify with what their children are going through.

“Many of today’s parents grew up in the ‘60s, and they themselves abused drugs and alcohol,” Wahl said. “So they know how easy it is for some students to develop those same habits.”

LeGrand says student problems haven’t really changed much over the years. “Kids are still kids,” he said. “They face tremendous pressure to succeed, just as they did when I first started.”

Counselors have added pressures of their own: tighter school budgets. Fullerton High, for example, once had five counselors. Now it has two. LeGrand was once part of a team of six at Loara; now he’s one of two. So the workload is much heavier.

Another problem they face: making sure the students know that their door is always open--and that everything discussed is confidential. My son hasn’t gotten to know his counselor very well yet. But that’s going to change, real quick. And if he gets into situations he cannot tell his parents about, just maybe he’ll believe his counselor is someone he can turn to.

No Stopping Them: Here’s another strong vote for high school counselors: From the Stop-Gap nonprofit performing troupe, which puts on skits with messages for hundreds of Orange County schools each year.

Group leader Barbara Clem brought three of its performers, all professional actors, to our office Wednesday as part of a United Way rally. They gave us a taste of one of their shows and the important message they convey to students on subjects such as alcohol or drug abuse, AIDS, date rape and difficulties at home. Clem told me later that many of the calls to perform come from school counselors.

“These counselors do a terrific job,” she said. She explained that counselors know that it sometimes takes an outside group like Stop-Gap to help get the message across.

“We had one sixth-grade counselor ask us to put on our date-rape performance,” she said. “We ordinarily wouldn’t do that for students that young. But at this school, the counselor knew that it was a needed message.”

I asked one of the performers, Nancy Petersen, who puts on a show every school day, how she manages to stay up for each performance.

“Sometimes you don’t feel like it,” she explained. “But once we’re on stage, the students energize us. The feedback they give us is so incredible, it keeps you wanting to give more.”

Latin Lover: The influence of teachers sometimes goes far beyond what they might have expected. One grateful student, Superior Court Judge John C. Woolley, called me after reading Tuesday’s column on the Well Spouse Foundation.

In the column, I mentioned that Margy Kleinerman of Brea, whose husband, Joe Kleinerman, suffers from Alzheimer’s disease, was starting her own chapter of the organization, which helps spouses of the seriously ill. Joe Kleinerman, retired from Cerritos College after 30 years as a counselor, once taught Woolley high school Latin in Bellflower.

“In that cultural wasteland, there was this one teacher who was just a tremendous influence on me, and a lot of other students too,” Woolley said. “It was Joe Kleinerman. I’d tell other people about the books he’d exposed us to, and they’d say, ‘You read that in high school?’ He was a real scholar.”

The judge took time to call Margy Kleinerman to tell her that, and to wish her the best with her new group.

Wrap-Up: I mentioned to several counselors that it must be a tremendous feeling to see progress in students who have come to them with problems.

“It’s wonderful,” said Wahl of Laguna High. “It’s why we do this.”

Hansen, the Fullerton High counselor, said something that must sum up how many of them feel: “It is a privilege to work here. When you have students for four years, you get to see some of those who have had difficulties just take off and fly.”

Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by calling the Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823 or by fax to (714) 966-7711, or e-mail to jerry.hicks@latimes.com