Nov. 30 was the last day at Venice for Ms. Bernadette Reyes, the school’s college counselor.  

“We’re actively seeking a new college counselor,” said Assistant Principal Craig Alessi.  “At this point we can only recruit current employees who are working at other schools,” said Principal Elsa Mendoza. “For the most part, everyone is settled in and are committed to staying there the whole year.” 

According to Dr. Mendoza, the school has recruited the help of LAUSD to increase publicity about the position. Ms. Nilou Pourmoussa, currently the NuEARTH small learning community counselor, will be the temporary college counselor. A substitute counselor or Mr. Craig Alessi will be available to meet with NuEARTH students. Before coming to Venice, Ms. Pourmoussa was a college counselor for four years at Orthopedic High School Medical Magnet. According to Ms. Pourmoussa, a college counselor has an important role to create “a college-going culture at a school.” The counselor “will make sure that every single student will know about colleges.”

  Mr. Brendan Schallert, the Foreign Language/International Studies Magnet Coordinator, will also be writing letters of recommendation for magnet seniors who weren’t able to get in contact with Ms. Reyes before she left. 

“I offered my help to Ms. Pourmoussa, who is off to an amazing, busy start already,” wrote Mr. Schallert in an email. “I told her I would help specifically with magnet students since I can speak on behalf of the magnet program during the application process as I include information about our program in their letters. I wanted to make sure nobody fell through the cracks during this important process.”

“We’ve found that some students who didn’t think they would apply to private schools changed their minds, especially when they finished with the Cal States and UC’s,” wrote Mr. Schallert. Many private school applications require letters of recommendation. 

“Ms. Pourmoussa, who has been a college counselor during her career, is the expert and will continue to serve all students in the school, but during this transition time, we want to make sure everyone gets taken care of,” wrote Mr. Schallert.

Ms. Reyes, who started working at Venice in March 2006, is now the college counselor at Central Los Angeles High School #9. “Professionally it was a good move for me,” wrote Ms. Reyes in an email. “I am at a new high school that has never had a college counselor and has only been open for two years now. So I have an opportunity to build an entirely new program from the ground up and be part of creating a new school.” 

“Ideally this opportunity would have come up during the summer, but you can’t always plan for things to happen exactly when you want them to happen. You’ve got to grab an opportunity when it comes along because you never know if you will have that opportunity again,” wrote Ms. Reyes. 

Before she left, Ms. Reyes helped seniors with Cal State, University of California, and some private school applications. Although Mr. Alessi doesn’t expect college-bound seniors to suffer from Ms. Reyes’ departure, one student affected is senior Angelica Jue.

  “Ms. Reyes didn’t have a chance to write a recommendation for me. I am allowed to have any counselor write one, but I feel that I am somewhat disadvantaged because Ms. Reyes had experience with recommendations and knew exactly what to write for them,” said Jue, who is applying to multiple private colleges that require letters from counselors.  

Although Ms. Reyes is no longer Venice’s college counselor, she sends these last few words of advice. “Never give up!”