From Counselor to EdTech Advocate: What I’ve Learned About Supporting Students and Schools
Seventeen years in education teaches you a lot. It teaches you resilience, patience, and—above all—a deep appreciation for the work that goes into shaping students’ futures.
I’ve walked the hallways as a high school teacher, fine arts director, and guidance counselor. Now, in my current role at Education Advanced, I’m working with educators in a different way, but with the same mission at heart: helping students succeed.
Lately, I’ve been reconnecting with school counselors, and it’s been eye-opening.
I left counseling over a decade ago, and I can tell you this: the job has not gotten any easier. In fact, it’s only become more complex. The amount of paperwork, tracking, and accountability measures have increased exponentially.
Counselors aren’t just guiding students through graduation requirements—they’re managing community service logs, tracking fine arts endorsements, and ensuring students stay on the right path for postsecondary success. And, too often, they’re doing it all with outdated, manual systems that weren’t built for the level of complexity they now face.
I remember that feeling well. The frustration of knowing my time was being pulled away from students because I had to focus on documentation, compliance, and keeping everything organized. I had entered counseling to support students, but I found myself drowning in logistics. It’s a struggle I hear echoed in every conversation I have with counselors today.
What’s been most rewarding in this new chapter of my career is being able to say: You don’t have to do it this way anymore. There are tools out there that can simplify these processes and give counselors their time back—time that should be spent talking to students, not pushing paper.
At Education Advanced, we build solutions that are rooted in real educational experience. We’re not just another tech company selling software; we’re former educators who understand the daily grind. We know what it feels like to stay late, take paperwork home, and sacrifice time with students because the administrative load is too heavy. That’s why we’re committed to creating tools that truly serve educators, not just check a compliance box.
One of the biggest challenges I see is that many educators don’t realize how much better things could be. It’s the ‘this is just how we’ve always done it’ mindset. But innovation in education shouldn’t be scary—it should be empowering.
Imagine if you had to go back to handwriting all your emails or manually tracking grades on paper. You wouldn’t, right? So why are so many schools still relying on spreadsheets and disconnected systems for something as critical as student progress tracking?
I’ve had some incredible conversations lately with districts that are ready to make a change. They see the potential in having one centralized place to manage student readiness, graduation pathways, and all the other moving parts that fall under a counselor’s responsibilities. When they realize that technology can actually lighten their load rather than add to it, you can see the relief on their faces.
If you’re feeling buried under the weight of documentation, tracking, and accountability, I get it. I’ve been there. And I want you to know—it doesn’t have to be that way. Let’s start a conversation about how we can make your work easier, so you can get back to what matters most: the students.
To my fellow educators—especially counselors—you are doing some of the hardest, most important work in education. You shouldn’t have to choose between keeping up with compliance and actually supporting students. The tools exist to help you do both, and I’m honored to be part of a team bringing those solutions to schools.
