OHS counseling is one of the largest and most well known student support systems in the school. Not only does OHS counseling help students align for their futures, but they also provide emotional support for those who need it.

In the OHS counseling department, every day is unpredictable. Even though there is no consistency in the day’s events, OHS counseling does their best to provide the highest quality of advice to any student who may need it.

“I can talk to them about where I want to go to college and what I want to experience and I know I am going to get good advice,” said Grace Richardson, senior. 

The OHS counseling department is always there to aid each and every student’s needs and does their best to cater to each and every student and their needs. 

“There is always something going on campus. We help students all the way from academic questions and course selections for their next school year to students who might be in crisis or need a little emotional support. We’re here for a whole realm of reasons,” said Holly Gillaspy, counselor. 

The OHS counselors’ goals are to stay on top of students’ needs and do all that they can to help students get to where they want to be. 

“We meet with students twice a year and we do units for lessons in the media center and what we do is we help educate students,” Gillaspy said. 

Even though a lot of what the counselors do is behind the scenes, they still try to keep students and parents involved as much as possible. 

“We do scholarships, career exploration, we speak to students about universities and post- secondary plans. We try to help them with finding interests so that they can be prepared for their plans after high school,” said Kathleen Giacini, counselor. 

Everything that the OHS counseling team does is to benefit the students, and overall, they do their best to make sure that every student has access to the best resources in order to succeed. 

“Every one of us will have students fill out college applications where they need recommendations so we write those recommendations. We’ll interview students to get more information when we need a letter of recommendation we need to write based on students that seek additional opportunities,” Gillaspy said. 

The OHS counseling department is always helping students get where they need to be, even if it’s time consuming for them. 

“We’re kind of always involved with that side of things and just helping them understand what impacts [their] class rank and what colleges are kind of looking at, what’s important to focus on maybe what you know doesn’t matter as much and just kind of helping them keep their priorities based on what they say they want,” Gillaspy said. 

OHS does their best to offer the best resources to all students, and most of these resources come from the counseling department. Not only do OHS counselors have to help students choose the courses that would be best for them, but they also have to help upperclassmen apply to colleges that would best suit them. 

“My counselor recommended me to take honors and higher level classes because I’ve always been in them and she even recommended I take forensics because that’s what I’m most interested in,” Richardson said. 

Even though students are very capable of finding and applying to schools, they are not always the best at finding the right fit for themselves. The OHS counseling department’s job is to guide students in the right direction and give them the opportunity to reach their highest potential. 

“When I joined ROTC, I knew I wanted to do something with the military but I wasn’t sure what so I talked to my counselor about it and she told me to take certain classes that are more specific to my interests and now I am almost certain about what I want to do and I don’t know If I would have even considered that career path if it wasn’t recommended to me by someone,” Richardson said.