Katie Kirby comes in as dual-school counselor

Having served as the director of the Washakie County Youth Alternative program in Worland for the past two years, Katie Kirby is excited to come back to school as a counselor who will split her time between Worland High School and the new alternative high school Whitehawk Academy.

Kirby was born, raised and lived most of her life in the Midwest. She lived in Illinois until she went to college in Ohio, where she earned a bachelor's degree in social work, and master's degrees in counseling and school administration. She said, "After that, I moved to Arizona after I got tired of the cold weather."

She has spent over 20 years of her career working in counseling either in schools or with them, spending some time at the beginning in juvenile detention and probation while she finished out her degrees. She said that she knew early on she wanted to work with students.

Kirby returned to work in the area of juvenile justice when she moved to Worland with Tawn Argeris two years ago when he was hired as the superintendent of Washakie County School District No. 1 schools. She said of the move, "This is his hometown, and I've been vacationing here for the last 15 years, and I thought it would be a good place for my son, who's currently in high school, and so far that's been the case."

She didn't anticipate that she would work right away, because there weren't any counselor positions open for her at the time. She said, "Youth Alternatives was something that kind of evolved after I arrived." In that position she worked with young people who had violated the law in a program that aimed to educate them and offer them support in an effort to reduce the risk of future offenses.

She said, "I feel like me coming in as an outsider gave me a little bit different perspective from those who have been here for many years, adults and kids alike. I felt that I could offer a unique view to the students that I work with, many of which are going through their own struggles, and feel written off or labelled in some way."

Coming from counseling at a large school in Arizona before beginning at Youth Alternatives, Kirby was in charge of meeting the needs of a large body of students at a ratio of 800 students to one of her. On the transition between the two jobs, she said, "Youth Alternatives was just a smaller case-load." Otherwise, her role in supporting students was much the same. Kirby doesn't see her students in the Youth Alternative program differently; they're all just young people with their own sets of problems.

Through Kirby's position in the Youth Alternative program, she was able to throw her name in the hat when it came to hiring a counselor at Whitehawk Academy, which began its first semester this fall. She said, "I was hired as a shared position counselor; I split my time between Worland High School and Whitehawk Academy. I had an idea of what I was coming into because in the last 11 years I've been doing a little bit of everything, and that's a good way to describe how this is. It's brand new, so there's some hiccups. Between myself and [Principal Bruce] Miller we've had to be adaptive when it comes to solving problems with technology in the building and other logistics. Once we get past the first couple weeks it will iron out."

She again compared her role in counseling to that in Youth Alternatives, saying, "At Youth Alternatives, I had 50 kids over the course of one year. I can help in a much more meaningful way in that environment. I loved being able to do that, and it's much the same here. It's manageable."

While trying to navigate getting Whitehawk Academy off to a good start, Kirby has found that she has had to spend more of her efforts there than the high school to begin the school year, but her aim is to evenly split her time between the two buildings.

She added, "I've been really impressed with this community's commitment to finding new ways of trying to do what's best for kids, and the district's commitment to counselors. My placement has been very intentional, allowing me to help ease the responsibilities of the counselors that were already at the high school, and spreading the service across multiple counselors so we can better tailor our approach for individual needs."

Kirby is happy to be returning to the school setting in a unique role. She's up for all the challenges that come with it, and she looks forward to the community of Worland seeing how it works to the benefit of students.

She said, "With regard to Whitehawk Academy, I want to help show that this can work. I want the community to be proud of their efforts and their investment in this, and see that these programs are worthwhile. There are lots of changes at the high school too, and I'm looking forward to contributing and offering support to those kids."