Counselors. The people who get our schedules in order every year. The people who help us when it is time to figure out our life’s plan. The people who help us with our ups and downs. And the people who are just there to talk when we feel like no one else understands us. Where would we be without them? Well, next year, we may just find out.

Because of the budget cuts plaguing the district, nearly every counselor in Stockton Unified School District got a pink slip. Although we understand the severity of this crisis, we think getting rid of counselors would be a horrible idea.

Counselors help students get their schedules ready at the end of every year, but who will do that if they are not around? Who will tell us we still need 15 P.E. credits and who will make us take the classes, like those core ones, that we all don’t want to take? 

Not only are they ready to help us transfer out of art into Spanish, but they are also there for so much more. Who will we talk to about problems at home, problems with friends, or problems at school, if they are not around? Counselors are supposed to be around to offer guidance and support, but what will happen if they are gone? 

Even if there are some counselors here next year, it is likely there will be fewer. That would mean instead of thousands of students being split up among seven people, they will now be split up among fewer. How are we supposed to be able to have a relationship with our counselor if to them we are just one of the hundreds of students they have to deal with?

We form special connections with our counselors and if we lost the counselors, we would lose a friend. Who would we talk to to resolve a problem between ourselves and another student? Who would get us into shape when we start to lag in our classes? We have gotten to nknow are couselors and they have gotten to know us. How are we supposed to form a new bond with a completely different counselor in only a few years? 

We understand that the schools need to make serious cuts, but getting rid of the counselors can’t be the right place. We just need them way too much.