From attendance to administration, the many different secretaries at Lakewood High School work to keep the school running smoothly. They work with students, parents, staff, and administrators to ensure the school’s needs are met. There are many different types of secretaries at the high school, ranging from those who strictly handle attendance to those who help in the counseling department.
With so many different types of secretaries, there are many jobs that are performed throughout the day. The attendance secretary, Laura Butterfield, for example, spends her day awaiting “parents call[ing] their absences in, late arrivals, early dismissals, and full day absences on the attendance line,” Butterfield said. “And then I record them off the sheet, into the system, and I’m writing out release slips so kids can leave early. It’s not rocket science, but the volume is huge.”
Butterfield helps the roughly 1,400 students at LHS make sure that their attendance is taken care of and assists them with leaving school for appointments or arriving late.
Along with that, there are house secretaries who work even closer with students and administrators to make sure that students’ needs are taken care of, outside of attendance. One of the house secretaries, Rebecca Boatman, said, “I take care of students with letters A through K. I take care of everything a student would need, if they need their schedules printed, a letter sent home, if a principal needs something, work permits. This is where they would stop first.”
Some secretaries focus more on how the building itself is actually run. “I think that it’s almost like an office management job. It comes down to [figuring out which] subs [are] covering for teachers. I help schedule interviews. I run payroll for our employees. I oversee all the budgets, and sometimes just simple things like sitting up front at the desk and answering doors or phone calls,” main office secretary Erin Sislowski said.
With so many people and tasks to take care of, secretaries, especially at the high school level, have to develop skills that help them work in such an eventful environment. West Shore secretary Leah Kapsalis said “good communication and patience” are some skills for being a successful school secretary, while main office secretary Stephanie McNally adds on “organization…[and] time management.”
Along with that, secretaries utilize apps like Google Calendar and note apps to set important dates and keep track of tasks and meetings. “It’s really just prioritizing things. If principals say they need this student or this done, I mean, pretty much everything stops, and that is the priority. And then students come in all day, [so we help them throughout the day too],” Boatman said.
But even with so many things to do and so many people to help, the Lakewood High School secretaries love the people they work with and the students they get to see, and they love to build relationships with them. “I don’t know what all their struggles are. Maybe things aren’t the greatest at home, but they’re still coming in, and sometimes a smile goes a long way,” Butterfield said.
It’s more than just a smile, too. “I make sure I know their name. And I think just asking questions, open-ended questions, tell me more. But you know, just calling people by name is so important and it makes them feel like they’re seen, and that they’re important to you,” guidance secretary Colleen Bryan said.
The high school secretaries are an integral part of how Lakewood High School runs so smoothly, with each secretary’s job being unique and important in its own way. “[We] just make sure that the school is a well-oiled machine and we are always focused on what our tasks are, so nothing gets overlooked. Students don’t feel like they’re being ignored, and staff know [we’re] responding to them,” Sislowski said. It’s all thanks to the hard work and dedication of the many secretaries who are found throughout the school.
