Students tend to steer clear of the student service office. Why is that?

At East Meck, meeting with your counselor has become a waiting game; trying to get a meeting is like trying to get pre-sale concert tickets. When asked to describe the counselors, students primarily agreed on one word: busy. Many of the counselors at East find themselves pushed into a secretarial role. What is supposed to focus on the mental growth of students has been shrouded in a stack of paperwork and emails to scroll through and respond to.

So what has student services so backed up? The majority of administrators stated it has to do with the new Infinite Campus software. Recently, CMS made the colossal switch from PowerSchool to Infinite Campus. 15 years of grading, student-staff communication and management of student information were thrown out the window for a shiny new platform.

“The biggest obstacle this year was the transfer of student transcripts and credits from PowerSchool to Infinite Campus,’ said new counselor Frieda Ibarra. “With over 320 students on my caseload, that meant

double-checking and verifying each transcript while also making schedule changes and corrections.” This is 70 students over the recommended amount.

This change is not necessarily bad. Infinite Campus offers all the same features as PowerSchool and more. Infinite Campus gives school announcements, allows access to school stores and incorporates all the previous features of PowerSchool, like grading and attendance. The issues don’t lie with the general change of software– they lie with the sudden shift in such an important pillar that helped hold the school together.

“They change this one thing, and everything that touches it, and because of that, the old way can’t even be a part of the conversation,” said IB Director Heather Hayes. Many staff members, like Hayes, find the jump to be too major too fast, especially given the demand for software like Infinite campus. The school cannot operate without it.

Another reason why student services had been so backed up was the extreme influx of unregistered students that showed up within the first 10 days of the school year. Hundreds of students show up within the first 10 days of school — unregistered, unaccounted for, yet still sitting in classes. It is up to the counselors to find a place for these students to go, to build them a schedule, but most importantly, to make sure they’re enrolled in the first place.

“[They] have to look at all the new students that have shown up magically and nobody told them,” IB Director Erika Flanagan said.

They don’t just build schedules for new students, though. They rearrange already existing schedules and deal with constant complaints from not just students, but parents too. But how is it that a job made to advocate for the mental health of teens has been so diluted into paperwork and schedule changes?

“One of my personal frustrations is the training that we went through; the master’s degree that I had to get to do this job was heavily, heavily focused on mental health, really. And then we get here, and it’s technological schedules,” Burgess said.

When a desk is covered in slips and forms, and a calendar is blocked off or when a teacher or counselor seems legitimately busy, the illusion that they are only there for surface problems rises. They are there for so much more.

“There’s a lot more need out there, and I think that we could do more to support kids if they knew what we did and knew how easy it was to get here,” Burgess said.

So there it is, Student Services Debunked. Meeting with your counselors is not as impossible as it seems. While it is true they are busy with senior meetings and their fair share of paperwork, the core of their job is student interaction, which is overlooked and underutilized. Your counselors want to talk to students about things other than school. It is up to students to use those resources.

“I find it an honor to be a witness to you and the amazing things that you guys do, and all the amazing places you come from. I feel honored to be able to interact with you kids. I really do,” Burgess said.