My name is Justice Rucker, and I'm a school counselor at Cochran Primary in Williamsport.

I come into my office and from 820 to 850, we have something called a PFC time, which is a professional time for staff to make copies, get their day ready.

And then at 850, our first bell rings and I'm standing at the front by the doors greeting kids as they come in and then things start to pick up a little bit.

If they need help in their classroom or they left their classroom and I get a call on there that somebody needs a little bit of help , I will respond to that.

Then at 11:00, about 1115, I have kindergarten lunch duty every single day.

So I get to be with the kindergartners every day doing that.

And then sometimes I'll stay for first grade lunch and help out with first grade lunch.

After first grade lunch is second grade lunch and I try to do lunch punch with second graders.

So that's just an informal lunch.

We don't work on anything or talk about anything specific, but it's just a time for me to get to know second graders.

Or if I'm not doing that, I try to eat my own lunch at that time and then third grade lunch.

I also do lunch lunch with third graders, but I do a career lunch where we talk about their career interests.

All right.

So the first one says, I like working outside.

So if you like working outside, give it a check.

The next one says, I like to build things.

I like to build things out of all of these.

So like, what would be your top career that you think would be good with your personality?

I'm being is the zookeeper also really I'm only working with.

So has what do you think in actress?

Love that.

What about you lawyer?

Lawyer.

And then by then it's 145.

So our day is almost over and I'm either able to sit in my office for a little bit, do some more of that paperwork stuff, whether that's, you know, faxing documents to doctors or having meetings.

Every day is something different.

So it's hard to say what I do during the day because it changes every single day of what I do.

School counselors.

I feel like we have our hands on a little bit of everything.

I'm the school wide, positive behavior coach.

I do a lot of groups, so I do grief groups, anger groups for students behaviors, or I also have worry groups for kids who have anxiety during their lunch or a different time or their day.

I'll bring them down to my office and, you know, help them with these coping skills and social skills that they might need some extra help in.

But then by the end of the day, I am checking out with the kids who I do check and check out with.

I go over their chart with them if they meet their goal.

I have prizes in my room that I give them every day for meeting their goal.

Then at the end of the day and I have to be here until 350.

So dismissal at 330.

There's two.

Mrs. Holtz are okay.

I'm going out with them.

Okay.

I'm.

I'm glad about all I feel sorry for.

So we have 20 minutes.

That again is just a time for me to probably come back to my office and clean up the mess that was made from the day.

And then it's time to go home.

Some of my hobbies outside of school are, of course, hanging out with my family and my friends, my fiancee and my pets.

I really love doing anything outside, walking around with my dog at the park.

Those are the things that I like doing.

It's important qualities of being a school counselor is you have to be friendly, you have to want to talk to people and communicate with them because that's the biggest part of our job, is being able to be warm and have kids want to come talk to you when they're having problems.

This job does give me a lot of fulfillment.

I'm going to be honest.

At the end of each day, I am pretty drained.

It's a lot.

I'm meeting with a lot of kids throughout the day.

I'm listening to a lot of their traumas or their things that they're going through, which can weigh on you a lot and be exhausting.

But I will say the benefits weigh out the cons and just being that person for some students and knowing that I'm making a difference by letting them talk to me and just me being that listener.

And for example, there's kids that I worked with when they were in first grade and struggling with things that now they're in third grade and they're not having these problems anymore.

And I don't think it's all of what I did by any means, but just knowing that I was with them through their experience and watching them be successful now is just a really awesome opportunity.