Washington schools may hire registrar

WASHINGTON — Washington school officials are making plans to hire a new staff member to handle desk work currently managed by school counselors. School board members expect to make a motion opening the position at next month’s meeting.

During the group’s regular April meeting, Superintendent Willie Stone said the position would entail a net cost to the district of around $45,000, would likely work from the high school, and would not require a teaching certificate, although he said having one would "be a positive.“

The discussion first began at a meeting in February, where Stone said guidance councilors were swamped with paperwork beyond the scope of their specialized duties.

“Our counselors aren’t able to spend time counseling because they’re doing apprenticeships, they’re doing master schedules, they’re doing schedule changes, things like that,” he said in February. “It’s really taking away from the ability for them to provide (social-emotional behavioral health) learning for our students.”

At that meeting, High School Principal Teresa Beenblossom said “probably 90%” of her counselors’ time was spent handling the mountain of documents, rather than their traditional duties like academic planning and social-emotional support.

During April’s discussion, school board Member Eric Turner said that would be a welcome change.

“The frustration I’ve heard is, (students) can’t communicate with someone, nobody gets back to them, so there’s certain channels of people you have to talk to, to get something done,” he said. “I hope that improves through this process.”

Stone said the workload still amounted to one person’s abilities, since the newly hired registrar would specialize in it and because they wouldn’t face constant interruptions a school counselor does.

Stone said the job would handle a wide regimen of paperwork across the district including mail registrations, oversight checks, middle school and high school scheduling, and PowerSchool management. Some, such as scholarship applications, would stay on the shoulders of counseling staff.

“It may be, the first year, we say, ‘This is the job description,’ and if it’s too much, we back some of the things off,” he said. “If it’s not enough, we add some things onto it. It may have to be a fluid job.”

At the board’s April 12 meeting, Beenblossom said few students were currently enrolled in apprenticeships through the school, but attributed that to the lack of dedicated staff, rather than a lack of student interest.

“We don’t push it because we don’t have the staff to man those,” she said. “That could all be done and we could already have established relationships with people, and the person that mans that is your registrar, they would work with the student and the company.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com