CASE STUDIES
Our hope is that a counselor, administrator and faculty member will be in each group.
Scenario 1
While in freshmen group with a guidance counselor, a bunch of students started talking about a party that happened
over the weekend with some other Xavier students (along with students from other schools). None of the boys
themselves had gone to the party however they knew of boys that had. They started openly telling the counselor that
another Xavier student brought pot brownies and alcohol to the party and that other kids from the school were
partaking in what was brought. Shortly after group ended, the counselor heard from other counselors that this party
was being discussed very openly with a variety of people and added that they heard the host parents were aware of
alcohol and drugs at the party.
-How should the counselors proceed/what is the next step?
-How should the Dean’s Office be involved? Should the Dean be involved? Why? Why not?
Scenario 2
A situation was brought to the attention Dean of Students that sexually charged and offensive comments were made
about a Xavier faculty member on the website Ask.Fm. This is a social media site that focuses on an anonymous question
and answer platform. You can choose to be anonymous or not.
In this particular situation, the three freshmen involved (in their first semester of school) were not anonymous; their
names and profile pictures were linked to their comments. One student’s comments made reference to sexually
assaulting a female teacher. Another student commented on that by saying he would watch. These two students
traded comments after the first two, but quickly moved on to an unrelated topic. A third student “liked” the “I would
watch” comment (if you “like” something on ask.fm, you cannot retract or edit the action).
-How should the Dean proceed/what would be your next steps?
-What is the role of the counselor in this instance? At what point should the Dean (if at all) involve the counselors of
these students?
-How can a counselor serve as an advocate in this situation?
Scenario 3
Prior to the homeroom bell, a student (junior year) is sitting in his guidance counselor’s office, drinking a Vitamin Water;
he was his usual, boisterous and gregarious self that morning. The student is a member of the varsity basketball team,
can be intimidating among his peers and is no stranger to the JUG line. After all students had left the room, the
counselor, who spent years developing a level of trust with the student who she consistently advocates for, smelled a
faint sent of alcohol in the room. She called a fellow counselor to ask what he thought of the scent in the Vitamin Water
bottle. Both counselors believe that there was some kind of unidentifiable sweet-smelling alcohol in the bottle.
As a counselor, what is your first reaction to this situation?
How should the counselors proceed?
Is this a counseling issue? A discipline issue? Both? What should be the end result of this situation from an institutional
perspective?
Who should take the lead?
Did I mention the parents of this student where incredibly difficult to work with and have a “hard time” believing their
son could ever do wrong?
Scenario 4
Friday, May 15th was the last day of senior classes. After 2nd period, all seniors are invited to a bar-b-que in the
Quadrangle to celebrate four years of hard work, to spend time with teachers and classmates, sign each other’s
yearbooks and end their high school careers on a good note.
As the senior event is winding down, during a period where a majority of the underclassmen are at lunch in the
cafeteria, the fire alarm goes off, unbeknownst to any adult in the building. While the entire school community took
steps to evacuate the building, it was clear (to administrators) that this was not a scheduled drill. Reading the log of the
fires safety system near the exit/entrance of the building, we quickly found that someone had pulled the lever of a pull
station in a student locker area.
After reviewing video footage of the area in question, a student was brought to the office and admitted pulling the lever
out of curiosity, claiming that he didn’t think it would sound the alarm due to the tape on the pull station saying “not in
use”. In his discussion with the Dean, and subsequently with the student’s mother, we found out that the student (a
sophomore) was seeing a therapist since the Fall due to issues of anxiety and depression stemming from a break in his
relationship with his father. The student had been taking two medications to help with these issues and was also on
allergy medication (all prescribed by his doctors). The day before he received his third quarter report card with multiple
failures that mom was not expecting.
Upon speaking to his mother, you find that the student’s father left their family a year earlier for a younger woman; the
student has twin 7-year old autistic sisters attending specialized schools in NYC (the family left a happy life in New Jersey
so the girls could attend the specialized school in NYC). Mom is a single mom who can’t work regularly as she needs to
care for her daughters. The student has not been in any kind of trouble leading up to today’s event.
Where do we go from here?