Planning to improve student relations, school counselors began the Chat and Chew program and spent lunch inside the lecture hall with open doors for any student that wished to talk with their respective counselors.
“We wanted to offer an informal setting during lunch that would make it easy for students to come drop by,” counselor Lauren Crispino said.
The idea was conceived earlier in the year when counselors set up a similar situation for seniors interested in talking about college.
“We had an opportunity for seniors to meet with the counselors,” Crispino said. “I believe there was feedback from other students that they wanted to meet with their Counselors as well.”
One of the biggest complaints that students have about talking with counselors is their lack of accessibility, with many citing that they cannot find their counselors or that they do not have the time for meetings.
Counselors seemed originally optimistic about the idea, believing that lunch would appear as an excellent meeting time for anyone that wanted to talk, as it was planned during their own free time and would also allow many different students to visit at once.
“I think it’s good for any student if they want to take advantage of it,” counselor Bill Campbell said. “It’s they’re decision how they spend their lunch time, but if it’s an opportunity that they want to take to come and see us, and they are in that group that seems to think that it is hard to get a hold of us, then this is a free opportunity that we’re here for two hours and everybody knows we’re here.”
However, less than twenty students visited the counselors, possibly due to the fact that some students did not hear about the offer, which was advertised over the morning announcements.
“I didn’t hear anything about it,” senior Catherine La Valley said. “If it came out over the morning announcements then it’s hard for some students to hear it because the classes are so loud.”
There have been no announcements for an official second Chat and Chew session, but Crispino voiced her opinion that counselors would still work hard to keep in touch with students, even if the session was not popular.
“The way that we typically operate is that if something isn’t successful then we’ll get feedback from the students,” Crispino said “We have an advisory council, where we meet with teacher and administrators and student representatives, so we’ll get there feedback on a better way for students to meet with us.”
Counselors are still found inside their respective sub school offices and are usually available at all time of the day.