By Grace Rauh, STAFF WRITER Inside Bay Area
OAKLAND- Just before Genette Carter started her freshman year at Oakland High School, she discovered she was signed up to take algebra, the same mathematics class in which she had earned an A the previous year. She went to campus to change her schedule, but when she arrived at her counselor's office, she found a line of students waiting outside. The next day when school started, Carter's schedule was still the same. She skipped her algebra class, knowing that she would drop it as soon as she had the chance. Several days later, Carter secured an appointment with her counselor and made the change.
Waiting to meet with guidance counselors is a common experience for Oakland students, Carter said. On average, Oakland counselors have 500 students in their care, double the ratio recommended by the American School Counselor Association.
California's student-to-counselor ratio lags even further behind, with one counselor for every 966 students, the highest ratio of any state in the country, according to the American School Counselor Association's figures for the 2003-04 school year. The District of Columbia is at the very bottom, with one counselor for every 1,301 students.
According to a report issued Tuesday by Californians for Justice, a nonprofit organization with offices in Oakland, there are not enough counselors in Oakland schools, and the lack of guidance is affecting students far beyond schedule change delays.
The report notes students are not receiving information about college from their counselors and finds while most students want to attend college, they do not feel adequately prepared.
It also states counselors do not spend enough time speaking to students about college and students are missing important information about graduation requirements and college prerequisites.
Oakland School Board member Dan Siegel said he would like to see the state dedicate money for counselors, so the positions cannot be cut from cash-strapped school districts. "The reality is the state doesn't provide enough money for education," he said.
The report is based on results of nearly 400 student surveys collected from four Oakland high schools. Carter and other students teamed up with Californians for Justice to conduct the study.
The group found only 34 percent of graduating seniors from Oakland public schools have taken the classes required to attend a California State University or a campus in the University of California system. Students who worked on the report think many graduates don't realize that meeting their school's graduation requirements won't gain them entry into the Cal State or UC system.
"These students need information about college. They need information about the SAT. They need information that can set them up to graduate," said Carter, now a high school junior who hopes to attend New York University or the University of California, Los Angeles one day. Having one counselor for every 500 students is "a little over the top," she said.
Cherie Streiff, a counselor at Oakland Technical High School with 500 students in her care, acknowledges there is little time to give students individual attention. To reach more children, she and other counselors meet with students in groups to talk about class schedules, and college and career planning. But come September, her student load could increase even more. A tentative contract agreement reached last week between the Oakland teachers union and the school district allows the counselor-to-student ratio to increase to 700 to 1.
However, schools are encouraged to draw from different pots of money to reduce the ratio and union president Ben Visnick said it is not a "real cut" to counselors.
"We have a commitment from the district not to lay off counselors," he said. "My wife is a counselor at Skyline High. If I sold out the counselors, I wouldn't have a very good domestic life."
Streiff isn't so sure. "It's going from bad to worse," she said. "It's already a situation that has been very taxed and stressed, so it ain't going to get any better."
The work of helping students learn about college and gain admittance does not just take place on high school campuses. Many students learn about college from friends, family and groups outside the school system.
The East Bay Consortium of the California Student Opportunity and Access Program, for example, encourages children at a young age to one day attend college. Its "I'm Going To College" program targets fifth graders from Oakland and Richmond elementary schools.
On Friday, program coordinator Denise Little will accompany 218 students from Jefferson Elementary School and International Community School in Oakland, and Washington Elementary School in Richmond to the University of California, Berkeley, to teach them how to apply and prepare to attend a four-year college.
Little said elementary school students are not too young to meet with college students and admissions officers. She thinks fifth grade is a critical year for student development, adding it often is the time when students decide to either focus on school or ignore their studies.
"It's a year kids need to start thinking about college," she said. "We need to start at kindergarten, really. Or preschool."
