Shelter Island School Guidance Counselor works with all grades

Alyssa Prior starts her second year as the Shelter Island School District guidance counselor, but her third working in the district.

Preparing to start the school year, Ms. Prior admits it’s with a greater comfort level than she had last September.

Ms. Prior is a career changer, but her passion has always been for education, particularly as a guidance counselor. She majored in business at C.W. Post of Long Island University on advice from her mother. Her first job was with her mother’s business as a pet shipper — a company specializing in transporting pets throughout the country and internationally. She wasn’t unhappy with the work, but with the onset of the COVID pandemic, business was cut back because airlines stopped scheduling flights of pets.

Ms. Prior saw it as an opportunity to return to school to gain her teaching credentials with an eye to pursuing a position as a guidance counselor. As she was looking for work, she learned the district had an opening for a substitute teacher. She applied and got the job. And when the position as guidance counselor opened, she applied and received the appointment to her dream job.

Superintendent Brian Doelger, Ed.D., said Ms. Prior “has been doing an outstanding job since joining our team.” She approaches her work with compassion and a deep understanding of student needs, he added. “She has quickly built strong relationships with both students and staff, whether assisting with academic planning, personal development to emotional support, her presence has brought a positive and reassuring energy to the school community.”

Students who had her as a substitute teacher didn’t know she was trained in guidance and she wasn’t sure how they might react to her changed role, Ms. Prior said.

“I was nervous,” she said. Would they feel comfortable talking to her? she wondered.

She is also sensitive to parents’ concerns about the experiences their children are having at school and the guidance they are receiving.

Last September, Ms. Prior let students take the lead, but told them they could talk to her about any concerns they had, she said. They would stop at the guidance office to see Meghan Lang, whose title of office assistant doesn’t begin to capture the role she plays at the school, both as a woman with a steady understanding of the guidance function, but also a strong right arm to help those who have worked in that office. Ms. Prior has high praise for Ms. Lang from whom she said she continues to learn.

Gradually, students began to develop a relationship with her, Ms. Prior, she said.

One concern she had was how to serve students from a wide level of grades, but learned the younger students might express their needs more simply, but are affected by many of the same issues that concern older students, as well as their parents.

Ms. Prior and her husband Kristian have three children — their daughter Ainsley, 9; son Quinn, 7; and daughter Adaline, 3. She believes her parenting abilities enhance her job performance and her own children benefit from what she experiences with her students.

Ms. Prior has been junior class advisor and now becomes senior class advisor, another source of information that expands on her knowledge of issues that concern students at that level.

“These kids are exposed to way more than I was,” Ms. Prior said about her own growing up years.

Students demonstrate they are good advocates for themselves, she said.

Given the changing requirements for graduation handed down by the state, she will be a major guide to older students in terms of the courses they will need to graduate successfully.

She said she benefits from other faculty members whose relationships with students enables them to guide students along with the assistance she renders. “They get a lot of attention and guidance not just from me,” Ms. Prior said. Everyone encourages students to be as independent as possible, she said.

Guidance, along with other original plans for the current school year, will be affected by the money crunch imposed by a tightened budget after voters rejected the district’s original spending plan. There will still be trips to visit some colleges so students might get an idea of where they want to study after their high school graduation. But hoped-for overnight trips that could accommodate schools further away are not likely to happen during this school year, she said.

Despite the cutbacks, Ms. Prior appreciates a role she finds fulfilling and is pleased to be doing so on Shelter Island.