Superintendent Kevin Skelly listens to a report on the differing guidance counseling systems at Gunn High School and Palo Alto High School. The author of the report, Kelun Zhang, found that “Paly spends some amount more than Gunn on guidance counseling related activities.”

– Jeffrey Lu

After enduring a few weeks of surveys during Advisory, Palo Alto High School students and staff will finally learn the results of a comprehensive study targeting the district’s high school guidance programs.

Members of the Paly guidance department and other district employees sat together as an independent consultant presented the results of the study, Tuesday night, at the Palo Alto Unified School District headquarters during a board meeting.

The consultant, Kelun Zhang of the Rocketship Education group, presented the results to the board, specifically highlighting the demographic similarities between the Paly and Henry M. Gunn High School communities. 

“Demographically, students at the two communities were very much the same,” Zhang said. “[Students have] similar high academic-achievement levels at these two schools.”Despite these similarities, there exist differences between the Paly and Gunn guidance programs, according to Zhang. Whereas Paly employs 46 teacher advisers to aid in its guidance and counseling services, Gunn relies heavily on its guidance counselors to help students with academic, post-secondary and social-emotional issues.

Despite her high praise for the two programs, Zhang pointed to Gunn’s 325:1 student to counselor ratio as evidence that there may be room for improvement. 

“Guidance Counselor’s at Gunn provide a wide range of services while simultaneously maximizing availability to students and parents,” Zhang wrote in the study. “The program may eventually consider whether to add additional staff.”

The recommended counselor-student ratio, according to the American School Counselor Association, is 1:250, putting Gunn 75 students above the recommendation. However, Zhang did not advocate necessarily allocating more staff-members to student guidance. Instead of immediately rushing to hire more counselors, Zhang suggested that “there are ways to use existing time more efficiently.”

Zhang also suggested that Gunn seek more input from the community. 

“The guidance team at Gunn can benefit from more sources of meaningful feedback,” Zhang said. 

Despite many successes, according to Zhang, Paly’s program has room to improve as well, especially in terms of the guidance department’s long-term focus.

“[Students could benefit from] a model predicated on the goal of students having more exposure to adults on campus who are specifically dedicated to well-being and performance,” Zhang said. 

The study also focused on the allocation of funds to school officials involved with guidance. Using a formula of full-time equivalency, which compares the time teachers spend doing guidance-related work to that of a full-time guidance counselor. For example, a teacher who spends 25% of his or her time at work aiding in guidance-related work, that teacher’s contribution would be assigned .25 FTE’s. According to Zhang, Gunn allocates 12.3 FTEs to guidance, whereas Paly allocates 18.6 FTEs and $1.5 million to guidance. 

The majority of Zhang’s testimony in relation to both schools proved positive. Zhang complimented the Paly guidance system on its effective use of a “robust set of resources and tools on the [guidance] website.” She also characterized the Gunn program as “response and effective.”

Yet, the study may not have been an all-encompassing analysis of the guidance programs, Zhang acknowledged in response to a question from board member Melissa Caswell. 

“One of the things we didn’t delve into is how much time each student receives with their T.A. [teacher adviser],” Zhang said. “A significant portion of [the current time] goes into coordination.”

Check back soon for more commentary and an analysis of the statistics.