Ms. San Juana Gonzalez has been part of our career center program for a year now. However, in September, she took the new job opening as an academic counselor.
Gonzalez’s first year with counseling is assisting the senior class of 2025. During this time of the year, seniors are applying to college and signing up for financial aid. Through this process, Gonzalez said, “I was able to assist about 100 students to complete their CSU or UC applications in one month’s frame, and soon as well for their financial aid.”
Next school year, Gonzalez will have to leave her seniors to begin the process of starting over with a new class of freshmen. Counselors move grade levels with the same group of students, so this will be a big change for her. Gonzalez stated, “Seniors know there’s consequences, they know the rules of this school and maybe in a couple of months go to a four year college. Freshmen are coming from middle school and don’t know about the A-G requirements or knowledge about how these years will go.”
Gonzalez wants to stay around for a few years to complete a four year cycle like this. She said, “I would like to go through a whole cycle of my freshman year. I want them to have a steady counselor who can help them for their four years of high school.”
Gonzalez hopes to continue teaching students how their education credits work and the importance of high school in order for them to be successful, not only during high school, but after graduation as well.
