Last Tuesday, January 17^th, was the first day for Dominion’s new counselor Stacey Marville.  Ms. Marville is replacing Ms. Patel who left in November.  She will be working as a counselor for the first time after years of experience as a special-education teacher in Prince George’s County, Maryland.

Director of School Counseling Jaclyn Smith said that Marville was chosen for the position because she “brought a depth of knowledge, professionalism, and experience in education” and responded to the situational questions asked in the job interview with answers that were “confident and aligned very well with what we do here at Dominion.”

Ms. Marville is a native of Northern Virginia, growing up in Arlington and attending Wakefield High School.  After graduating high school, she went to college at Hampden University where she graduated with a B.A. in Psychology, and then went on to the George Washington University (GW) for a masters in teaching special-education students with emotional disabilities.

After ten years of teaching, she returned to GW and graduated in May 2016 with a masters in school counseling.  “I became a counselor because most of the students that I was working with … were coming to school with a lot of social and emotional problems, either from personal life or at school, and that would impact how they did in the classroom, so I wanted to get some skills and learn how to be able to better help students deal with those issues,” Marville said.

Marville is looking forward to getting to know the student body, evaluating “the needs of the school.”  She wants to introduce programs and services that help “not only the students, but to the school as a whole.”  Her main priority is “helping [students] be successful, not only academically, but also socially and emotionally so that [they] can be well prepared” after high school.

Since seniors only have a few months of school left before graduation, Marville acknowledges that the transition to a new counselor “might be a little bit difficult”, but she also believes “they need support and I plan on being there to provide it however I can.”  She understands that this is a critical time in the lives of seniors and hopes to “be a support system for students who may need it, helping them weigh their options.”

Marville is happy and excited to be joining the Dominion community, which she describes as “really nice and supportive.”  Her message to the student body is: “I don’t profess to know everything, but if I don’t have the answers, I will reach out to those who do and just try to help you guys the best that I can because the goal is for you all to be successful citizens.”