What’s your name and what section of students do you like to cover? 

My name is Sha’Quaella Levy. This year I have alpha split Cr, through H. So if their last name falls between Cr through H, they belong to me. And Mr. Sweeney is my assistant principal. We partner together.

How long have you been a counselor at CHS? 

I’ve been a counselor for five years at Clements High School.

Before that, were you a counselor too? 

Before that, I taught special ed, so I was a special ed teacher. My classroom was Faye Mayo’s room.

What do you like about working at CHS? Is there anything that sticks out? 

What I like about working here is the huge support from the community. The parental involvement, the staff support. Every department, every section, every club, every organization is extremely important, and we’re all working together to make sure the students are successful.

Is there a challenge or difficulty that you’ve faced while working as a counselor? 

Yes. So some of the struggles that I face and that I deal with is that I have close to 500 students, and I wish I had enough time to be with all 500, but it’s just not enough hours in the day.

So why did you decide to become a counselor? Have you always known, or was there a moment where you realized this is what you wanted to do? 

I always knew that I wanted to be a counselor because I loved helping people. I started in middle school. I would be in clubs to help people, and I wished I would have known a lot of information. Like back when I was in school, the internet was kind of developing, so I only thought it was four careers. I thought it was just lawyer, doctor, nurse, teacher, because that’s just what we had.

Then, when I went to college, I was like, oh my gosh, there’s over 13,000 careers, and I wish somebody would have taken the time to explore and go through those options. I said that I would love to give people options and help them explore the different careers and explore what they’re good at. No one really took the time to do that with me, and so I wanted to do it and help people process their emotions and feelings. When I was going to school, it was just students and children. There wasn’t a two-way conversation. It was just adults told you what to do, and you just said yes and we didn’t get a chance to express our opinions and values and what was important to us.

I wanted to be someone, to be an outlet for students to be able to express their true emotions, their true feelings, and help them explore different ways to be successful.

Is there a memorable moment that you’ve had while working with CHS between students? It could be pertaining to Counselor Appreciation Week or not.

Yes, I just did Matilda, and that was truly amazing because normally I’m pushing students to say, try something. And you know, you have to take a fine arts credit for graduation. So I tell students, hey, get in the choir, do something a little different with that one credit. And so the choir department asked me to be mom number three in the musical. So I kind of got a taste of my own medicine because I’m normally the one encouraging people.

So we had practices and rehearsals, and I got to see how the theater students worked with the choir students and the orchestra and the band and the production students and got to see all of that through practices. And we did four shows. And so I got to be behind the curtain and on stage. And normally I’m just in the audience watching and to be a part of that where the students were excited to see me. And then I had to say my lines. And if I didn’t do my lines correctly, it threw off the person behind me. And so just getting that nervous feeling of getting it right and getting in the spotlight and being with other students, it was truly amazing. And it made me appreciate all the hard work that the students do every day.

So have students and staff celebrated you for Counselor Appreciation Week in the past or this week at all? 

Yes. Yes. So well, I’ve been gone. I’ve been doing middle school. So I was at Club Valley in Sartartia. But the district had a breakfast for us yesterday that we went to, and we got some goodies. And the staff is amazing. Each department have been coming and giving us breakfast and cookies, and I’ve been receiving emails. So I’ve definitely felt the love this week.