Catholic grade-school counselors now standard for today's students

Published: 2004-08-27

WILMINGTON, Del. (CNS) -- Judy White plans to watch for signs of separation anxiety among all 365 students at St. Anthony of Padua School when the new school year starts. But she will keep a special eye on the school's 50 new students as she tries to make their transition as easy as possible. The school's full-time counselor meets with the new students as a group so they will not feel like outsiders. She planned to give them a tour of the school and set them up with a buddy in their class so they would feel more comfortable. In the Wilmington Diocese, 20 of the diocese's 27 elementary schools have counselors. Most work part time or split their time between counseling and other duties. The most recent figures from the National Center for Education Statistics show that, during the 1999-2000 school year, 1,661 counselors were on staff at some of the 5,822 U.S. Catholic elementary schools and 2,318 counselors were employed by 1,094 Catholic high schools. Counselors in Catholic elementary schools may seem unnecessary to those of other generations, but counselors point out that today's world is different.

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