Blog: Increasing Counseling Support for all Students

Dear LVUSD Community Members,

We are proud of the way the Las Virgenes Unified School District has been able to maintain our award-winning schools in the face of drastic funding cuts. By working tirelessly with our staff, students, parent groups, and community, we are still able to give every student an excellent foundation for life-long success. Moreover, the quality reputation of LVUSD helps keep our local property values high and enhances our entire community. 

However, due to ongoing state budget cuts, the district eliminated all school counselor funding at the elementary schools, and limited the counseling we provide at middle and high schools. 

Student counselors are an essential component to keeping our students safe, as well as healthy and thriving. These talented, credentialed professionals are trained to detect and defuse student issues before they fester and escalate.  They help our children develop life skills to overcome anxiety and grief, teach conflict resolution, encourage leadership techniques, and provide support in countless ways. Additionally, trained counselors assist our administrators and staff in being proactive when safety issues arise. 

The loss of student counselors has been keenly felt in LVUSD. While a few schools have been able to restore a fraction of the lost counseling through local parent fundraising efforts, we need to restore counseling to all schools, and increase counselors at the schools where there is counseling now. Therefore, we are delighted to announce that the District and T.H.E. Foundation for Las Virgenes Schools are committed to increasing counseling services at all LVUSD schools, starting in the 2013-2014 school year.  

T.H.E. Foundation is dedicated to raising $422,000 for this effort.  This will allow us to provide additional days of counseling at every school site. Of course, we cannot do this without your help.  

We understand the realities of our economy and we recognize that you are asked to help many worthy causes. But we also know how much you value our children and how greatly our whole community benefits from our schools. Thus, we ask that everyone in our LVUSD community join our cause and make a tax-deductible donation of $150.00 or more to T.H.E. Foundation’s Counselor Campaign. Every dollar donated to this campaign will go directly to hire school counselors. 

Make a difference today by going to the link below and donating. Our children and community need us all to work together and step up now.  We thank you for doing so.

Click here to donate

Dr. Dan Stepenosky, Superintendent, LVUSD

Marc Hernandez, President, T.H.E. Foundation

The LVUSD Principals

 
PS—After you donate, please send this email on to anyone you know who would also support our cause.