...I read the following two-minute speech at the ASD School Board's Public Hearing last night:
As a parent and elementary counselor at Airport Heights, I am here tonight, to urge you to keep full-time counselor positions in schools. Safety is a requirement for learning. As a school board you know this, it is one of your core beliefs. And you also know we carry more than just pens and books in our backpacks. We carry our wonder and curiosity. Our families and cultures. Our dreams. And you know that some kids come to school with backpacks burdened with far more than they can bear.
I sometimes tell my students about my son’s hospitalization after his premature birth and how it was only after I felt the threat of possibly losing my first child, that my frontal lobes finally re-fired and I became proficient in the medical language needed to care for my son. I tell them this story so they will know on the days their mental backpacks weigh more than their bodyweight, that their feelings matter, and with support, not only will they regain the ability to learn, but be stronger because of their experiences. And I tell you this, because if our goal is to educate all students for success in life than we do a disservice to this mission by cutting six elementary counselors and creating 12 part-time positions at schools. Crises don’t happen every other week. And children shouldn’t have to wait to process their feelings. Their emotions will come out in their behavior, whether its the second grade boy who disrupts his classmates learning with his angry outbursts or the 5th grade girl who quietly cuts her arm at night. The children will bleed whether or not someone is in the building with the training and flexibility to respond.
A third grade girl pulled her hood over her head in class and refused to work. Sent to my office, she sat, stoic. “Do you want to take a walk?” I asked. She nodded. By our second lap she spoke, “I wish someone would build a spaceship that could go up and bring back a star.” “What would you do with it?” I asked. She smiled. “I’d keep it in a box just for me.” In less than 15 minutes, she returned to class, engaged with her teacher, apologized, completed her work, even wrote a thank you note. This nine-year old girl just needed a moment to breathe.
Don’t we all need a star at times? And somewhere safe to put it? Our elementary students deserve the right to graduate someday, to live successful lives, and it is school counselors, please stand, working in collaboration with teachers, families, and the community, who will help make that wish come true.
Thank you all for the work that you do.
LOVE it! xo
Posted by: elizabeth | 02/02/2012 at 06:47 PM
It is just right.
You are amazing.
Posted by: jessica | 02/02/2012 at 06:55 PM
So great!! Hope there was a standing ovation after you finished like in the movies. Even if not, you rocked it!
Posted by: Kate | 02/03/2012 at 04:40 AM
I was in tears reading this. I hope your speech reaches a much wider audience, and of course, I hope it changes the hearts and minds of your school board to enact a different decision.
Posted by: tanguerramama | 02/03/2012 at 07:37 AM
Damn, you're good!
Posted by: Stacey | 02/03/2012 at 04:47 PM
Beautifully said...good luck!
Posted by: Shelley | 02/04/2012 at 04:39 PM
I just read a blog post by a Chicago-based educator who touched on many of the same issues. I immediately thought of you and thought I'd give you the link--http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2012/02/katie_osgood_the_reform_my_stu.html?cmp=ENL-EU-VIEWS2
Posted by: Ginny | 02/05/2012 at 12:58 AM
Christy, You said it well. They are trying to do the same at my daughter's school. I don't know how she will make it through without the counseling and special help she gets that she needs. And yet the school board literally spent millions on a fancy schmancy building that nobody needs and NO ONE is using. But to save money they HAVE to cut the counselors for kids with needs. I feel your pain in Missouri as well as Alaska.
Posted by: Karen | 02/06/2012 at 04:51 AM
No standing ovation Kate, but the 11th speaker and the first claps of the night. I felt like the Board and the 200 plus people in attendance heard me so I'm glad I spoke.
Ginny, loved the post you suggested, every word.
Karen, at the Hearing I learned they are also cutting HS Special Ed counselors, and it broke my heart listening to the parents and counselors speak. Its crazy. We are a wealthy state that will not give schools enough money to fund much-need positions that all serve kids. Librarians. Resource teachers. Gifted program teachers. Counselors. And yet they talk about family values.
Posted by: Christy | 02/06/2012 at 09:13 PM
I am sending this to the counselor at my granddaughter's elementary school. We are in a wealthy county in the mid-Atlantic area, but there has been a move to part-time counselors here as well.
Posted by: Sarah Lynn | 02/07/2012 at 06:49 AM
Sarah Lynn, thank you for sharing my post with the counselor at your granddaughter's school. I think if the decision-makers knew the half of what our children are dealing with they would fund not just one but two full-time counselors at all elementary schools so we could relieve them of their loads, just a bit, allowing them the freedom to grow, learn, and play.
Posted by: Christy | 02/07/2012 at 07:38 PM