Wednesdays are my least favorite days of the week. It’s the middle of the week so the beginning of the week energy is gone and it’s not the end of the week so the excitement for the weekend isn’t there yet either. It’s just blah.

Then to add insult to injury, I usually spend all day on Wednesdays in meetings; IEP meetings, to be exact. It’s so hard, sometimes, to sit in 7 of them, back-to-back especially when the parents start saying things like “you aren’t doing enough for my child”, “my child is failing because you aren’t doing your job”. Is that ever entirely true? No. Is there ever some truth to it? Yes.

I have 634 kids all to myself as the counselor. Studies have shown to have optimal efficacy, counselors should have 250 kids per counselor. I’m almost triple that. It’s hard. But you can’t say that to parents, it’ll be seen as an excuse and you’ll be told that you’re clearly not fit for your job. And honestly, no, I’m not fit to have 630+ (and growing) kids all to myself, no counselor is. There is no way to give individual attention to every student when you have that many (and have one day a week that you are in meetings the ENTIRE school day). You do the best that you can, but you eventually have to accept that your best will never be good enough for some people and move on, which is hard.

Because of all of this, Wednesdays exhaust me. Probably more than any other day of the week. All other days, I get to be with the kids and I don’t have to be reminded all the time how much I’m not giving to the kids.

I’m one person. I know this. I accept this. I do everything in my power to try and change it because I would love to see every child able to receive adequate mental health care in schools. The world is scary and they need someone they trust that they can talk to when ever they want. If it were a perfect world, my school would have two full time counselors and a part time. But it’s not. And I do the best I can. I know that my best will never satisfy some and I accept that.

I just wish Wednesdays weren’t so tiring.