Thomas Academy counselors aim to ‘build real relationships’ with students.

Teresa Hunt sat on the bench outside the Thomas Academy high school building listening carefully to the student sitting at the other end. At the same time, Sherry Kennedy sat in the high school’s office helping one of the seniors make an update to her college financial aid application.

While their formal titles are mental health counselor and instructional coordinator respectively, these two women work together to perform an enhanced version of a school guidance counselor at the public charter school operated by Boys and Girls Homes of North Carolina.

“Students achieve school success and plan for careers with their school counselor,” said Thomas Academy Principal Cathy Gantz. “At Thomas Academy we put such an emphasis on an individualized educational experience we realized that our school counselor program needed to look a bit different. We kept the focus on academics and the educational planning and added the emotional support component that was missing in the traditional model.”