The Liberty students have experienced a substantial change going into the 2025-2026 school year with the way the staff supports their personalized experience in their educational careers. The counseling department has progressed to a system that is divided by student’s last names alphabetically in order to build stronger, long-lasting relationships and to provide personalized consistency to each individual.
Workload for both students and counselors in terms of getting adequate aid has always been an obstacle for the student-administrator correspondence. The goal, above all, has always been to build a considerable connection to each individual to support their educational and emotional needs and future goals.
As a solution to grow the department with these goals in mind, a fifth and sixth counselor has been built into the system, one as an additional counselor with their own set of students by last name and one specifically to support the needs of the freshman class. Not only will this allow for the goal of more frequent access to assistance from counselors on demand by the student, but the intensive transition for freshmen is hoped to be alleviated substantially.
The original counseling system was based on grade level, with each grade having one counselor following all students through all four years of high school. The new change introducing the alphabet system was due to a grant given by the Colorado Department of Education. Kristin Jaramillo, a counselor at Liberty defined, “With that grant came an additional counselor.”
The division was not for student separation from counselors, but for easier proximity to more counselors. Jaramillo goes on to say “We came up with this structure to help support Freshman” who will now have not one, but two counselors. For seniors who have had the same counselor up until this year, the change may be disappointing. Though according to Jaramillo, “…We would love if students still want to come by and check in.”
For the counselors, they are able to do their tasks at a more frequent rate to prioritize student interaction. Documents can be reviewed at a quicker rate, graduation requirements are critically analyzed and college and career logistics can be sorted out thoroughly, according to Jaramillo.
Students’ reactions to the new policy are mixed, yet still open. Sophomore Claire Austin added “If I have time to get my schedule changed it’s helpful to have more opportunities to do that.”
While she additionally pointed out, “I just remember waiting in line to try and get my schedule changed on the first day and there was a crazy line in the office.”
Who is my counselor?:
- Rosalie Krosker: A-Da
- Andrea Edwards: Db-H
- Kriston Jaramillo: I-Mx
- Samantha Derosier My-SI
- Kristin Bendig: Sm-Z
An obvious drawback of this system is that old student-counselor relationships will change to new ones, and that aspect has been a tough transition for many students, as strong connections can lead to an emotional response when concluding. Many students have noted that they have gone to their counselor to have a place to hang out and had educational friendships with their grade level counselor; they got used to their counselor and then they changed.
The staff has recognized similar hardships in the system. As counselors, the student connections of their past have proved to have lasting attachments to the classes they assisted in previous years. As a comfort, they would console each other in the fact that, as Jaramillo described, “we’re still going to take care of our kids, we’re going to get to know new ones.”
A prevalent point, however, is that the counselors don’t see that the relationships have to terminate, just have an addition in another person to go to. The counselor assigned to the student’s last name should be the primary “go-to” for needs, especially academics, but students have the opportunity to chat with the counselor they have already shared information with for chats. On behalf of all the counselors, Jaramillo declared that, “we would love it if students still want to come by and check in and tell us what’s going on in their lives, we’re really open at lunchtime.”
Freshman Rilo Smith thoughts on lasting effects of this system included that “ I think it will help us as freshmen get the help we need because it’s already going to be here.” along with the additional support of a counselor specific to the freshman class. We have yet to see if the changes will overall hinder or improve student outcomes.
College and career readiness, an aspect of counseling that previously had a dedicated administrator set in place, was the most impacted in the shift in the fact that it is now integrated into the providence of each student’s counselor. The rationale came from the same place as the previous goals of the system, the length to which counselors can connect with students.
An example provided by Jarmillo includes when seniors get to the point when they are, “asking for counselor recommendation letters or help with applications.” Combining the personal counselor and college and career aspect is gathered to have ambitions in success because each counselor will, at the point of a student’s senior year, have an exceedingly high knowledge of who the student is and therefore provide the highest quality and personalized college help.