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Health & Fitness

Helping Students to Overcome a Legacy of Underachievment

On February 26, Prof. Marissa Giujarro a professor in the School Counseling Graduate Program at LIU Hudson at Rockland delivered a presentation as part of the Counselor’s Casebook Series sponsored by the Counseling Honor Society of LIU Hudson at Rockland.  

A review:

Professor Guijarro did an excellent job in her presentation in addressing the real issues that students face in high school that lead to a state of underachievement.   She offered the audience a realistic view of what is happening to students in many school systems disabling them to further their education towards college.  School counselors are already challenged with the disproportionate ratio of counselors to students.  Yet lack of family intervention, socioeconomic factors, the differences in culture, religion and languages as well as lack of collaborative forces of parents and teachers are also reason’s why it is challenging for many students to graduate from high school.  The communities that students live ultimately have the power to cultivate a level of underachievement. Maybe it is simply a case of a student who just does not care about his education and does not have much support from his or her parents or maybe it is the stress of the parents who cannot assist the child’s transition with the application process for colleges?  It can also be a scenario where the child’s family’s socioeconomic status and differences in culture encourage the child to work for the family business instead of advancing their academics because of financial deficits.  In some cases parents and students are not even aware agencies that offer scholarships and therefore it is imperative for advocacy within the schools and community.  The point I am trying to make is that underachievement in the school systems is breached not only by receiving poor grades or a dislike for the teacher’s teaching style, but is also carried out through external forces that may be out of our control.  Professor Guijarro highlighted the importance of creating a college flowing culture from K-12 and encourages school counselors to examine and separate data collected to help increase access to resources while reaching towards an appropriate level of equity within the school system’s community.  By creating formidable alliances between the communities and schools, hopefully high school students in the U.S can surpass the graduation rate of 75.5%. 

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By John Mortsakis.  John is a Graduate Student in the Mental Health Counseling program at LIU Hudson at Rockland.   

For more information about this presentation or if you have questions about the graduate programs in Counseling at LIU Hudson at Rockland, contact Dr. Thomas J. Nardi, Program Director at Thomas.nardi@liu.edu or Jeffrey McDowell at Jeffrey.mcdowell@liu.edu

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