In an effort to help more students continue beyond high school, the House Education Committee approved a bill Friday to put intern counselors in Utah schools.
The committee passed HB65 by 10-2 on Friday after the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Patrice Arent, D-Salt Lake City, said it could help students get more scholarships and college opportunities. The bill would create a pilot program in which 18 graduate students studying high school counseling would be given training and then placed in high schools. School districts would apply for grants to hire them.
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In many cases, Utah’s current school counselors are stretched thin, with counselor-to-student ratios in Utah junior high and high schools at about 1:363, Arent said. Putting the interns in schools would help students get more guidance, supporters said.
"We know that when we have a specialist in a high school that knows how to do this, admissions and scholarships go way, way up," Arent said.
Some expressed concern Friday over the bill’s cost — $800,000 a year until 2015. Peter Cannon, a member of the Davis School Board who spoke as an individual Friday, also said he thinks regular counselors would do a better job than intern counselors, and perhaps what’s needed is more regular counselors, though the decision should be left up to schools.
Many others, however, including representatives from the Utah PTA, the Utah School Counselor Association and the state school board, spoke in support of the concept, which started as a recommendation out of a governor’s task force for women in education.
The bill now moves to the House floor.
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