New school counselor looks to help students plan for future

Julie Williams believes life is a "limited time offer," and that opportunities should be taken where they can.

The new school counselor is invested in helping Wrangell's high school and middle school students plan their futures, while helping them understand that sometimes adjustments need to be made for the curveballs life throws their way.

Williams holds degrees from Stanford University, Goddard College and the University of Idaho and her focus has been on curriculum and instruction. She grew up hunting and trapping and enjoys the outdoors. Both she and her husband, Ralph Lotspeich, like fishing and golfing, so Wrangell is a perfect fit, they said. Within three days of arriving in town, they had already played a round at Muskeg Meadows.

Williams took a few moments last Thursday to speak with the Sentinel about her approach to counseling, what led her to the position in Wrangell, and how she intends to help students maximize their educational path.

Q: What are your goals with counseling?

A: I've always been invested in trying to serve the needs of every single student. That's been my quest and kept me in it for my 30th year now. I just keep trying to look at each student individually and trying to figure out what's going to help that particular student and that particular family find success later on.

Q: What has been your experience before coming to Wrangell?

A: I was in Dillingham last year. Ideally, you find a community you can match with, and you can spend multiple years there. Prior to Dillingham, I was at the North Slope Borough for a year. That position was discontinued midyear by the political structure of the school. That's where I started to look at it year-to-year.

Prior to the North Slope, I was in China at an international school for families at embassies and very motivated students from around the world. That was my pandemic story. I'm in China and I have to decide what I'm going to do next. I just ended up on this side of the Pacific. That's when my life kind of became this year-to-year, looking for a match that was close enough that I could spend my summers helping Ralph at the golf course (in Bonners Ferry, Idaho) and still do my job and my work in education. Prior to that ... about 20 years of my career was spent working in north Idaho in small communities there.

Q: How does having that experience in various cultures and locations inform your approach to working with students here?

A: I feel like every kid is gifted and talented. Sometimes it's in career and technical education, which was part of my background. Honestly, I think the three decades of experience really gives me that ability to read kids and families and then to work to serve their individual needs with a long-term plan.

Q: What are your first impressions on the staff you've met so far in the district?

A: I do know that the staff that I've interacted with are very professional. The superintendent (Bill Burr) has some common connections with folks that I've worked with in other schools in Alaska and he comes highly recommended as a guy who is focused on the needs of students and the needs of the communities he's worked with. Kim Powell (at the district office) is amazing. She's been fantastic. It's been a very friendly welcome. As I told my family back home and my husband, we'll know in a couple of months how things feel and how things really work, and where my needs of working harder and working less are. I don't go in with a judgment of yes or no or whatever is going to work or isn't. If I don't leave my mind open, I don't tend to get very far. I just dwell in possibility and keep trying to find what's working.

Q: What is your role as counselor? How do you see your part in the educational process?

A: Historically, my part has been to help students and families have academic plans. Schools are primarily academic in nature, and I think that's a huge piece. However, as a counselor, you also have those pieces allowing students access to education. I think that's where those activities and the BASE program, that's where ... the grant writing class, those sorts of things, that's where those points of access are - what we're teaching kids as well through the counseling approach. Then, of course, you have mandated reporting and those bits and pieces that fall into some portion of my world, and having enough awareness and knowledge of the difficulties certain students are facing so that they can get the help they need and attend (school) regularly and have the basics they require to even focus on learning.

Q: Is there a danger of too much of a workload for students to take on?

A: Always. The beauty is that Wrangell has a pace of life that's slow enough that there's a little insulation that's right outside your door. Overachievers are not immune from bad things, bad choices, that belief that they are the activities, they are the grades, they're not a person, they're those things. There's a necessary protection from that that they feel like human beings. That's bigger than what's on the resume.

Q: Do you see the growth mindset with the "safety to fail" as part of the learning process?

A: That's important about everything. That's life. That's why I love golf so much. You never have the same shot twice and you're going to screw it up half the time, and you figure out what you're going to do with the mistake when you're done with it. I think that's an absolute mandate in life, realizing that perfection is not a possibility. You're always making mistakes and grappling through the ripples caused by that. You want to limit those that unintentionally create harm, but at the same time you do the best you can with whatever comes your way.

Peer culture and peer thoughts are so important. They can be positive and negative, and it can really be a big influence in positive or negative directions. It's really important that other voices are in there and adults feel like they're being shunned are still saying something because that bubble can be very frightening for kids to be in by themselves.