The Beverly Hills Unified School District (BHUSD) has unveiled a transformation of the College and Career Counseling Department aimed at revamping student support at all grade levels.
BHUSD Assistant Superintendent Dustin Seemann told the Courier that the district decided to make the change after seeing the need for more individualized counseling for students and families.
The goal of the district is to support students through each educational transition, looking not only from secondary to post-secondary education, but also from fifth to sixth grade and eighth to ninth grade.
A new Director of Counseling, Kristi Bond, will lead the College and Career Counseling Department with the support of the board to connect and streamline the TK-12 counseling services.
“Our goal is to create a seamless roadmap of support that begins the moment a student enters BHUSD and continues until they walk across the graduation stage,” said Bond. “By investing in academic advisement, college counseling, and wellness, we are ensuring that each student feels cared for, supported, and prepared for the future.”
Under Bond’s direction, the district will initiate counseling support for students at a younger age, instead of waiting until high school.
“We want to make sure that our elementary, our fifth-grade families know all the options going into middle school,” said Seemann. Then, Seemann explained, high school counselors will visit eighth graders in the spring to help them prepare for ninth grade. These include helping students choose the best electives for the career pathway they want to follow.
Additionally, Beverly Hills High School will add three additional school counselors, totaling eight for the entire school. With the additional staffing, four counselors will be allocated to underclassmen and four to upperclassmen, providing a more specialized approach to counseling based on the students’ grade level needs. Seemann estimates that this equates to roughly 140 students per counselor, whereas the state average is around 500 students to one counselor.
“Just by personnel power to be able to meet each student individually and making sure we have robust conversations around many options, from Ivies [Ivy League] to UCs [University of California] to out-of-state—there’s so many options for our students, that we want to make sure that they’re making the best, most educated decision,” said Seemann. The model runs on the idea that through delegating counselors based on grade-level need, students are able to get the most specialized support.
The increased staffing also works to increase visibility and accessibility of counseling services, said Seemann. Now, instead of relying on students to reach out to their counselors, the counselors will schedule individualized meetings with each student and their family to discuss their specific needs and goals.
The investments in the College and Career Counseling Department are also focused on providing support for students’ social and emotional needs through programs like the NormanAid Wellness Center at BHHS and BulldogAid at Beverly Vista Middle School.
“The board has been instrumental in being able to expand our NormanAid into the middle school with the BulldogAid Center, and providing each of our school sites marriage and family therapists,” said Seemann. “When our kids are happier, our kids feel supported, our attendance is going to increase.”
The Beverly Hills Counseling Team was awarded Recognized ASCA Model Program designation by the American School Counselor Association, marking BHHS as one of the leading schools in data-driven counseling practices. They were one of 18 schools in California to receive the distinction.
“Now, we are in direct competition with our private schools in the local areas,” said Seemann. “I could confidently say that we match them for the number of Advanced Placement courses … and now, we’re matching them with the individualized white-glove support that they are able to provide their students because of the high tuition cost. Our board is now backing that with funds, and now we can say confidently that we not only have the exact same academic programming that they provide, we are providing all the support behind it.”
The ultimate goal of these expanded counseling services is to see higher test scores, increased enrollment, complete access to students’ post-secondary options of their choosing and more confidence in their abilities.
