Panic rushed through her when she realized that she was only halfway through her day. She still had to go through Anatomy, Physics and volleyball practice. Overwhelmed, she thought I can just go see my mom.

When senior Sydney Lauck is having a bad day, she doesn’t have to wait to go home to talk to her mom, she can just go to the guidance office.

“It was weird at first, but I got over it,” Sydney said. “It was awkward because you’re like, ‘okay, that’s my mom, she’s here at school’, but I got used to it and it turned out to be a good thing.”

Guidance counselor Jill Lauck loves being available for her daughter at a moment’s notice, she said.

“I like getting to see her,” Lauck said. “I like to be able to see how she’s doing, if she’s having a good or bad day and just seeing if she’s happy.”

Some of Sydney’s friends think that having their mom work at their school would be weird, but Sydney thinks it’s helpful she said.

“It’s actually nice,” Sydney said. “She’s always there if something happens. I can just go in her office if I have a problem.”

When Sydney started high school, she took mostly pre-AP classes. That changed her junior year when her mom realized how stressful those classes can be. She saw her daughter experience that stress first hand.

“She told me if I needed or wanted to do AP, I could try, but I didn’t have to,” Sydney said. “With me here, she realized how hard it actually is.”

Lauck hasn’t always been in the guidance office, when she started her job 23 years ago, she was a teacher.

“I taught English and French,” Lauck said. “I taught both because we needed a French teacher and we also needed an English teacher.”

While she was teaching, she discovered that she was more concerned with her students’ personal feelings than getting them to learn everything in the classroom.

“My first experience, I’ll never forget, was a student who was missing school a lot,” Lauck said. “His friends would come to class and tell me that he got kicked out of the house again. That stuck with me and got me started really thinking about their emotional well being.”

Since her mom is well acquainted with students and issues at school, Sydney said she is better prepared to offer advice at home.

“She’s done this for a long time so she can help me,” Sydney said. “Especially with the experience she’s had with kids coming to her with certain problems.”