Returning students noticed that the start of this school year was full of staffing changes, and the counseling department was no exception. Through the bustle of counselors leaving and new counselors taking their place, one person stands out among the crowd: the brand-new head of the counseling department, Maureen Ponce.
Ponce was born and raised in New Jersey with two Puerto Rican parents. This upbringing strongly contrasted with the community she was surrounded by when she went to school, and it led to her growing up in two different worlds. “I’ve always been bilingual and bicultural. That’s just how I see the world because that’s how I was raised, immersed in two cultures,” Ponce said.
Ponce’s journey to becoming a counseling department head began when she earned her undergraduate degree from Trenton College, now named the College of New Jersey. Contrary to what may be expected from a counselor, she did not start her career with counseling, but rather with another profession in Fairfax County. “I’m a first generation college student, and when I graduated college, I got my degree in teaching, so I actually started as a social studies teacher,” Ponce said.
After continuing to teach high school in Fairfax, her pursuit of higher education continued: a master’s degree in counseling from George Mason University, a postmaster’s in counseling from Johns Hopkins University after she moved from Virginia to Maryland, and her doctorate in philosophy from Liberty University with a concentration in counseling, education and supervision. “Education for me has been super important, and I know the doors it’s opened for me as an individual. So that’s something I value very highly: not so much formal education, but knowledge. I value very highly the ability to be educated and the ability to have that in this country,” Ponce said.
Prior to earning her current position for this school year, she worked at Thomas Edison High School for one year as a counselor, and Northwood High School for six years as a resource counselor before that. However, while Northwood’s counseling department is similar to the structure she’s a part of now, her experience at Edison greatly differed from where she is today. “It was just myself and another counselor [at Edison]. There wasn’t really a department. We were in the main office with the admin because it’s a different program, so even though we do the same things that we do here as school counselors, the vibe is very different because there’s no department,” Ponce said.
Now, Ponce is determined to do everything she can to support the students here, as well as improve the counseling program overall. “Our goal as counselors is to implement a comprehensive school counseling program that every student in this building benefits from. So what we have to do is have three areas of focus in implementing a program: how are we supporting students’ academic development, how are we supporting their college and career, and then also their social-emotional well-being,” Ponce said.
Her passion for her work is also clear outside of the work she’s done in this school. She is extremely involved at the state and national level in regards to counseling, as she just finished her two-year term as the president of the Maryland School Counselors Association.
With varied titles and accomplishments to her name, Ponce aims to bring improvements to the community and the well-being of the student body. “We’re here to help kids and families, and you gotta love what you’re doing. And I do that. I love what I do,” Ponce said.
