On a day-to-day basis, Broomfield High School counselor Gina Malecha adapts to her ever-changing schedule and manages her time, all while sustaining the well-being and morale of the student body.

Hustling from classroom to classroom, attending to endless phone calls from irate parents and maintaining what feels like millions of students. Being a school counselor is no easy task; it takes patience, empathy, stability, and endurance. 

Every week, Malecha takes care of students and staff, tending to many cases of anxiety, depression, and suicide risk reviews. “We can’t make it through a week without a suicide risk review,” she said. “We had one kid in the hospital each week in August.” 

Malecha’s job is dealing with what to do when things go wrong. She constantly works with a substantial amount of trauma. This consists of communicating closely with students who need someone to talk to and developing relationships with these students. 

Additionally, school shootings have brought several more trauma cases into all of the counselors’ offices. Last spring, Malecha says the threats and call-ins affected the teachers more than it did the students. She stated that she had numerous members of the staff come to talk to her about their anxiety and stress about the subject. 

She also works closely with other counselors from other schools, and her job differs greatly from that of a teacher. A counselor’s job isn’t structured like a teacher’s is — it’s very flexible, fluctuating, and inconsistent. 

Malecha’s job never goes according to the schedule.  Conflicts often come up that need more attention than what was previously planned. 

More often than not, Malecha ends up doing something far different than what she originally thought, helping students with any needs they have, talking to parents, or even receiving phone calls from random people in the Broomfield community that couldn’t think of who else to call.

With her schedule being incredibly busy, Malecha tries to balance her time as effectively as she can. “There really is no time management,” she said. “It’s like if you find yourself with five minutes, great.”

When she does find herself with rare free time, she and the other counselors visit and tour colleges to get a feel and acquire valuable information to be able to best advise seniors with their college decisions. 

Even throughout all of the difficulties Malecha encounters each school year she spends at Broomfield High School, she couldn’t envision herself anywhere else. She has developed strong relationships with students, and the faculty have become some of her best friends. “People in this office are my family,” she said.