Clad in his green and gold track shirt, Counselor Mr. José Marquez sits in front of the computer, helping a student enroll in night school. Right after he finishes, the bell rings and Mr. Marquez sets off for practice.
With a passion for counseling, Mr. Marquez enthusiastically took the open counselor’s spot, due to Ms. Ioele’s temporary absence. In order to take on this position, Mr. Marquez stopped teaching ELD classes, but remained the head track coach. As his coaching period conflicted with his counselor office hours, with the help of his colleagues, Mr. Marquez set up his own schedule that would satisfy both positions.
“When I’m counseling, I hope the student feels empowered,” Mr. Marquez said. “Any student can make a decision on his or her own, be comfortable with it and be ready to follow through it. I don’t ever want it to be me telling the student what to do.”
Though he intended to better his communication with his ELD students, Mr. Marquez became interested in school counseling when he enrolled in the Individual Counseling Skills program at the University of La Verne in 2015. This program required him to find a therapist and receive 10 hours of counseling. This offered him new insight and different perspective on counseling.
“I feel like I can help serve students of populations that are generally underserved,” Mr. Marquez said. “Whoever needs the most help, is the one that I’m most willing to help.”
Currently, Mr. Marquez is taking four courses at University of La Verne, online and on Saturdays. With the desire to help students, he chose courses like Counseling Diverse Populations and School Community Collaboration. Unlike his other courses, these require 600 hours of supervised field work, which he fulfills by being a student counselor and observing other counselors at work.
“He is really nice and patient as a counselor,” Junior Chloe Wang said. “Last week I saw him helping a new ELD student in the counselor office. The student doesn’t speak English so he found a friend to translate for him through a phone.”
