From Purdue University and IUPUI, new counselor Rennee Buckel has made her way to the SHS offices, and not for the first time.

“I would love to get more motivation from my students,” Buckel said. “I would love to see a turnaround.”

She is excited for her new role at school, in which she aspires to make her students as successful as possible.

Buckel was an intern at SHS during the 2020-2021 school year. She remembers this time as an incredible opportunity where she got to understand how high schools really work. 

She is majored in Human Development and Family Studies, with masters in both Counseling and Counseling Education. All of this preparation was worth it, as, according to SHS staff, everyone was already impressed with her skills from the start of her internship.

Witnesses of her work like principal Brian Knight, agree that she has belonged here from the very beginning. Now, she is back with the Cardinal community replacing former guidance counselor Margaret Tidrow, to give her best once again.

“It’s nice when you hire somebody that you already have had a working relationship with,” Knight said. “She was very willing to get involved in everything.”

Her first steps were made at Cardinal Ritter High School. According to Buckel, everything about it is quite different compared to Southport.

The main differences are the diversity within the students. Now she gets to see much more individuality when walking into the school building. Students have their own styles, goals, beliefs, and the list goes on. 

However, this new profile of students was not the only reason why she decided to change jobs and come back to SHS. Buckel just loved the atmosphere when she was an intern and got to have her first close contact with the school.

Although she did not attend high school here, she has always had a great interest in working at SHS.

“If I was even told that this position would open up and had to wait a year, I probably would have come either way,” Buckel said.

Looking back to her days as an intern, she remembers that one of her favorite parts were those “one-to-one conversations,” as she calls it, with students. That still remains the same now. She loves having students over while building connections with them.  

Buckel is happy now as an official counselor in the guidance office because she gets to have her own groups of students and meet with them frequently.

In terms of her relationship with other guidance workers, she shares that she also got close to counselor Lamont Rascoe, as he was her supervisor during the internship. 

He felt that she was so ambitious about everything since she started.

As Rascoe also worked and knew Tidrow, he can clearly see how different they are from one another. Despite these differences between their personalities, he shared how both were or are essential individuals for the office and brought a great and new variety of working skills.

On the one hand, according to him, Tidrow was very outgoing while Buckel is very reserved. But, they both have good relationships with students.

“Even then and even now, she is an asset to us, “ Rascoe said.

Currently, Buckel is focused on making sure that all of her students are in the right pathway and set to graduate. She is excited about all the new things that are in the years to come, as she hopes to stay with the Cardinal community for much longer.

She is loving SHS so far, and her co-workers are loving her. 

“She has a very unique skill set,” Rascoe said “She is the perfect fit.”