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Counselors urge board to include them in stipend plan; board pledges to seek solutions
Summary
A group of counselors told the board that proposed stipend changes would exclude many counselors despite professional licensure and heavy caseloads; the board responded that it will explore funding options to preserve stipends for counselors and other support staff.
Leanne Partridge, a licensed professional counselor at La Rondeau Elementary School, told the board that counselors are being excluded from a proposed stipend program despite serving thousands of students and performing mental-health work beyond traditional guidance duties.
Partridge said the district’s counselors include 41 full-time positions that served 17,896 students last year and that the district’s counselor-to-student ratio is about 436 to 1, compared with a national recommended ratio of 250 to 1. "Counselors in our school system are no longer simply guidance counselors ... most of us are actual licensed mental health professionals," she told the board and asked that counselors be classified as critical personnel for stipend purposes. Board members responded in the acknowledgment period, with several pledging to try to fund counselor stipends and to seek ways to cover the local match required by the governor’s executive order.
Board members emphasized they did not intend to cut existing compensation or step raises and said they would work with administration to identify options; one member called the executive order’s timetable challenging but said the board would try to meet the district’s obligations.
