When Doherty drives to work every morning, he does not know what to expect.

“It’s exciting, not knowing what each day is going to bring,” Doherty said.

Although each day may be surprising, there is still a basic outline to the day of a guidance counselor.

Usually, each guidance counselor will have seven or eight appointments every day. These meetings can range from college or post-high school planning sessions to appointments with students to discuss what classes they are taking. Many guidance counselor meetings serve as a check in with students to see how they are doing.

Each guidance counselor has an average of 180 to 190 students they are responsible for, so meeting with students can be difficult for a guidance counselor as they must be sure to reach out to all of them.

“We try to make sure that our students are receiving the academic support that they need, that they are connected to a variety of extracurricular activities, that socially things are going well and that life both inside and outside of school is going well,” Doherty said.

While this level of involvement may be expected from a guidance counselor, the truly unique aspect of a guidance counselor’s job is how much communication goes on beyond face to face meetings with a student.

“Communication is essential to the success of any school, and we spend a lot of our time communicating with teachers, parents and special educators,” Doherty said. “I think there’s a lot of communication that happens that students aren’t totally aware of.”

Doherty shared that he had even just gotten off the phone with a middle school teacher, discussing the appropriate math class for a student at the high school.

“We meet with students every day, all day,” Doherty said. “We write a lot of letters of recommendation and things like that, but it’s that internal communication piece that is a behind the scenes part of our position here.”