For the past three weeks, students have been easing into their MSMS life, and the school counselors have been there to help with the process. All of the MSMS students have already met and know who their counselors are, but what they may not know is how much work goes into their job.

Dr. Ty Crook explains: “We provide individual career planning sessions, academic planning sessions; we coordinate referral services for students . . . Crisis interventions, and are coordinators for MSMS 101 series.”

Dr. Heath Stevens also cleared up some common misconceptions of a counselor’s work. “The counselors do not create the master schedule, and we do not program PowerSchool or actually ‘run’ the schedules in the system; questions about those aspects of the process should be addressed to the Director of Academic Affairs Kelly Brown. Our responsibility is twofold:  verifying that students have the necessary MSMS and State of Mississippi graduation requirements and walk-in schedule changes the first part of each semester. ” Some of that work includes checking students’ transcriptions and seeing what credits and courses they need.

This year, the counselors experienced some difficulties with PowerSchool. “For example,” Dr Heath explained, “the system did not always handle prerequisites properly; some students were scheduled for AP Cal 2 in the fall and AP Cal 1 in the spring. . .This year, PowerSchool also decided that no student needed lunch, so it didn’t schedule it for anyone.” In order to fix the problems, the counselors had to manually change schedules.

Another problem this year was course offering. “We had more students wanting and needing science courses than what we offered, and so we had to make some modifications to the master schedule,” Dr. Crook said. Dr. Crook and Dr. Heath do their best to give each student the classes they want, but sometimes this is not possible. However, whenever any scheduling conflicts arise, they will always help students make the best decision as to what classes they should take, depending on the student’s goals and needs for the future.

MSMS counselors do more than take care of scheduling questions. Dr. Crook and Dr. Heath, both Professional School Counselors and members of the American School Counselor Association, also help students “within the domains of academics, college/career planning, and personal/social concerns. Somewhat unique to MSMS, both of us also have experience working as mental health counselors, ” said Dr. Stevens.

The counselors also work to help with school events, and sponsor a few clubs. A less known fact, the counselors even advise Dr. Germain McConnell and Mrs. Brown.

Both Dr. Stevens and Dr. Crook were present for Parent’s Day  and met with the students’ parents and answered any questions.

As for their favorite part of the job, each replied that working with the students was the best part, or, in the words of Dr. Crook, “helping them dream, plan and prepare for the future”.