This opinion-editorial was written by Kennedy Dixon, a veteran school counselor in the Long Beach Unified School District (LBUSD), as well as a former assistant principal and student support services administrator.
Former Long Beach Unified Superintendent Dr. Jill Baker’s recent commentary rightly celebrates the importance of giving students meaningful pathways to college, careers and life. Expanded Career Technical Education (CTE) pathways, dual enrollment opportunities, internships and partnerships with Long Beach City College have created valuable opportunities for many students, and those accomplishments deserve recognition.
As I read her commentary, however, I found myself asking a different question: Who ensures every student can actually access those opportunities?
That question has guided much of my work throughout more than three decades in Long Beach Unified.
Throughout my career, I have learned that programs alone do not change lives. Relationships do.
Systems do.
Students do not automatically discover the pathway that best fits their interests and abilities. They do not instinctively know how to navigate graduation requirements, financial aid, college admissions, apprenticeships, military service or career opportunities. Many also carry burdens that make planning for the future difficult — family instability, anxiety, trauma, poverty, homelessness or simply the belief that college or a meaningful career is for someone else.
Someone has to help them see what is possible.
For countless students, that someone is a school counselor.
Long before students apply to college or begin internships, school counselors help students improve attendance, overcome personal challenges, develop academic plans, explore careers, build resilience and connect today’s classroom to tomorrow’s opportunities.
Comprehensive school counseling is not another initiative competing for limited resources. It is the infrastructure that connects students to every other initiative.
For years, Long Beach Unified has rightly embraced the ideals of equity and excellence.
But building pathways without ensuring students have sufficient guidance to access and successfully navigate those pathways is not truly equity, nor is it excellence.
Equity is not simply creating opportunities.
It is ensuring every student has meaningful access to those opportunities.
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Excellence is measured not only by the number of programs a district offers, but by whether every student has the guidance, support and relationships needed to benefit from them.
Ironically, many of the outcomes highlighted in Dr. Baker’s commentary — student voice, individualized pathways, college and career readiness, informed decision-making and equitable access to opportunity — are precisely the outcomes comprehensive school counseling programs are designed to achieve.
The challenge has always been the lack of a comprehensive system that ensures every student can benefit from that vision.
As I wrote in my previous Signal Tribune op-ed, comprehensive school counseling was never really about counselors. It has always been about creating the conditions teachers need to teach, students need to learn and school counselors need to provide the support that helps make both possible.
That same conviction guided the 2022 report I authored on behalf of the Teachers Association of Long Beach School Counselors Organizing Committee, Reimagining School Counseling in the Long Beach Unified School District. The report outlined a roadmap for building a comprehensive TK–12 school counseling program aligned with California’s Comprehensive School Counseling Standards.
Since then, I have shared those recommendations with district leadership and the Board of Education because I continue to believe every child deserves equitable access to the guidance, relationships and support that make opportunity possible.
One conversation has stayed with me for years.
A few years ago, Board Member Erik Miller spoke to a group of school counselors and parents who were advocating for the adoption of California’s Comprehensive School Counseling Standards in Long Beach Unified.
During his remarks, Mr. Miller shared a story he has told publicly on several occasions. Raised by a single mother in Long Beach, he recalled that during middle school he had begun running with the wrong crowd.
Then a school counselor stepped in.
He called Erik into his office.
He built a relationship with him.
He listened.
He encouraged him.
He challenged him.
Most importantly, he connected him with programs and opportunities that changed the direction of his life.
Mr. Miller has publicly credited that counselor with helping save him during one of the most vulnerable periods of his life.
After he finished speaking, I told Mr. Miller that if a young man with the same circumstances entered today’s Long Beach Unified, I worried he might never receive the same level of timely, relationship-based support that changed the course of his own life.
Why?
Not because today’s school counselors are any less dedicated or committed. Quite the opposite.
The challenge is that the current structure of Long Beach Unified’s school counseling program often does not provide counselors with the time, organizational support or comprehensive framework needed to consistently build the kinds of sustained, relationship-based connections that change lives.
As I wrote in my previous Signal Tribune op-ed, the current conditions within LBUSD’s school counseling system are simply not conducive to counselors consistently developing the meaningful relationships that allow them to identify struggling students, intervene early and connect them with the support and opportunities they need to succeed.
Relationships don’t happen by accident.
They happen by design.
That is exactly what California’s Comprehensive School Counseling Standards are intended to create.
Mr. Miller’s testimony and lived experience uniquely position him to help lead this effort. I sincerely hope he will use his voice and his position to champion California’s Comprehensive School Counseling Standards and help ensure every student in Long Beach has access to the same guidance, advocacy and life-changing opportunities that helped shape his own future.
This isn’t a criticism of school counselors. They continue to do extraordinary work under increasingly difficult circumstances.
It is, and always has been, a question about the system.
For years, I have advocated for Long Beach Unified to adopt California’s Comprehensive School Counseling Standards—not because standards alone transform schools, but because they provide the framework for building a comprehensive, equitable student support system.
Simply put, we cannot prepare 21st-century students with a 20th-century school counseling system.
Adopting California’s Comprehensive School Counseling Standards would not be the end of the work.
It would be the beginning.
The beginning of building a school counseling system that gives every student—not just the fortunate few—an equitable opportunity to discover their potential, pursue their aspirations, and prepare for the future they deserve.
If the life of a future Board member could be changed by one school counselor who had the time to notice, build a relationship and connect him to the right supports, shouldn’t every student have access to that same opportunity?
