At Kathleen Macdonald Highschool (KMHS), the counseling Department is currently being managed by Daniela Azuela, Richard Mendoza, and Laura Gradiska. The department focuses on academic planning, college readiness, and social-emotional support. The team started individual meetings with seniors at the beginning of the school year, with focus shifting toward graduation requirements and underclassman support as the year progresses. Students rely on the counseling department to prepare for post-secondary plans, understand graduation eligibility, and gain skills in self-advocacy. The department emphasizes trust-building, identifying student needs, and navigating complex district systems, providing support that applies beyond high school.
Azuela describes the current situation as a period of significant uncertainty due to the Santa Clara Unified School District’s (SCUSD) “right-sizing” plan.
“Under the ‘Last-in, First-Out’ policy, all three of us [counselors] are low on the seniority list,”she said.
Azuela recommends stability for the counseling team to ensure students receive personalized care from staff who know their histories. She also encourages the district to consider the specialized skills of the current team, such as bilingual support, when making staffing decisions.
“When counseling teams are newly established, they often must spend significant time catching up and addressing gaps left from previous years.”
Forcing the school to be in a constant cycle of “survival mode” rather than being able to focus on long-term growth.
The current staff offer valuable insights into how these staffing changes work. Azuela shared that her work with the Class of 2026 was centered on individual 30-minute meetings to understand their personal growth and goals. Azuela noted that these meetings were important because new counselors, such as herself, do not yet know their students well enough to write detailed letters of recommendation for college. These transitions require counselors to rely on transcripts and “brag sheets” rather than personal experience. Azuela said “When students provided fewer personal examples, letters tended to be more general and focused more on their academic performance than on campus involvement and personal growth.”
Azuela said that staff turnover affects “institutional knowledge” regarding a student’s family situation or personal challenges. This gives new staff significantly less background information when they take on a caseload.
“Navigating these challenges without a shared history can make it harder to build trust,” she said.
The workload in the counseling department differs depending on the time of year. Currently, the past few months have focused on college workshops and FAFSA completion.Gradiska the brand-new counseling team requires more time for program development.
Gradiska said “[as a result of this] we don’t have as much time to run groups with students who need support at school and in their classes.”
Organization is essential in the KMHS counseling office. Azuela said the counseling program is still taking shape but is structured around college application nights, classroom presentations, and wellness support. Although the schedule shifts each semester, the practices of academic and emotional support remain consistent.
Azuela wants the district to recognize that seniority-based policies can result in the loss of specialized skills and experience, such as language access.
She said “Our team also brings diverse educational and personal experiences. Some counselors attended community college and then transferred to a university, while another participated in athletics, and went directly to a university after high school.”
The varied experiences held by each counselor allows them to provide students with important insights on the many post-secondary pathways they can choose from.
When it comes to the district, Mendoza actually attended and spoke at the board meeting that was held on January 8th 2026, sharing some of the concerns he had about the district’s proposal. He emphasized at the board meeting that consistency is important to a new school, like KMHS.
He said “ I firmly believe that relationships are the backbone of education.” Which makes losing counselors hard on the students who have already established comfortability with their current counselor.
Mendoza also stressed that the collective 37 years of experience between himself and his colleagues serves as a major asset to the school.
He said “ if the district moves forward with its proposed cuts, we know that other district counselors would come in and work well with our students. However, having three new counselors would definitely take time to establish themselves and it would definitely take time to get to know students.”
Moreover, Mendoza said that the current student-to-counselor ratio at KMHS is very helpful to counselors. Rather than managing too many students per counselor, each is provided with approximately 280-300 students, which allows all the counselors to provide the best service to their students.
He said “we [counselors] feel that the current counselor to students ratio is right where it should be and we’re thankful for this.”
Regarding student support, Gradiska recommended that students should continue to use the Wellness Center as a primary source of mental health support. The Wellness Center provides crisis intervention and connections to community providers.She said there is one piece of positive news for staffing in light of the district’s proposal.
Gradiska said: “We are really happy to hear that Wellness Support will not be leaving MacDonald!”
While the SCUSD board approaches its final decisions, the cousneling team continues to advocate for a system that values school-specfic needs over seniority math. Mendoza, Azuela, and Gradiska maintain that their collective 37 years of experience and diverse personal backgrounds are essential assets that cannot be easily replaced. By staying committed to their roles, they hope to protect the “backbone of education” at KMHS: the deep, consistent support that guides students from their first day of high school to graduation.
