“I had a student come to me about the idea that we needed some support for students who wanted to talk to someone other than a counselor because many students were sharing concerns about a friend who would not go see their counselor. So they wondered if there was a way to have student services be peer counselors. 

I was definitely more hands-on because I needed to be to train the peer counselors to make sure they came for their shifts, and to be at every single session. I was in the Wellness Center four out of five days a week during lunch to make sure in case someone had an issue during the peer counseling I was there to support the student if they were in tears and the peer counseling kind of went off the rails. I was very hands-on with academic and peer support but now it’s more tutoring and I still do play an active role in encouraging teachers to send their students for tutoring.

I realize as an advisor that my role is to teach the students to step up. And so I was tempted to turn to promote the club, and I thought, Wait, if I keep doing it, they’re not learning the skills. So that was the challenge. I find that students were really active, maybe their sophomore and junior years, and then by the time they were seniors, they would kind of step back. So that happened two years in a row where it kind of maybe as students became a senior, they were less active. And I know that senior year is busy. But that’s always been a challenge. 

I think Irvington students should understand the idea that we have our own lives. I will say I cannot be a HOSA advisor. I mean, that was a lot of hours for after school competitions on the weekends, a lot of logistics, gathering money, and registering. As an advisor, I’ve stepped away from clubs like that, because I do have a commute, and I do have a family. And so it’s challenging. Now, my daughter’s a senior, but when she was in school, my husband would say, ‘You know, you gotta stop being gone on the weekends for these competitions we don’t see you that often’. So I would say just to be respectful of the advisor’s timing, because people may think that it’s like just after school for a few days or one day a week, or competitions once in a while. But still, when you have a family, that means you’re not with them.”