Meet Your School Counselor

Dr. Noelle Hinrickson

I was raised in Mapleton, Iowa until 8th grade, when my family relocated to Allen, Nebraska. Upon graduation, I started a family and eventually attended Briar Cliff University where I earned a degree in Secondary English Education. I completed a K-12 Music Education Certificate from Wayne State College in 2000, and started my teaching career teaching music in rural Nebraska.

In the early 2000s, I moved to Omaha and began teaching music at Roncalli Catholic. While there, I was fortunate enough to attend and graduate from Creighton University with my master's in School Counseling. After serving Roncalli Catholic as a school counselor for three years, I worked at Omaha South High. I was then offered a position at Mount Michael Benedictine in Elkhorn, where I became Director of School Counseling my second year. After relocating to Oakland, Iowa, I was fortunate to work on Fremont-Mills for the 2021-2022 school year. At the end of that year, I also completed my doctoral work and graduated with my Ed.D. in School Leadership from Creighton University.

I live in rural Oakland on an acreage. We have dogs, cats, and too many chickens! My daughter Makenzie lives in Omaha with her family, which includes my granddaughter Bella. She is a first grader in OPS. In my free time, I like to paint, read, garden, camp, and come up with crazy upcycling ideas that my family seems to tolerate.

I feel strongly that my varied experiences make me a school counselor who understands a lot of perspectives and some of the challenges students and families go through. My number one job as a school counselor is to advocate for students, and my unique path to school counseling prepared me to do that. I also believe it is important to continually challenge students to challenge themselves, for it is in the difficult spaces that learning often takes place.

I am an advocate for the School Counseling profession and a member of the Iowa School Counseling Association and American School Counseling Association.

Role of the School Counselor

Parents, the press, administrators and the general public often wonder just what it is that school counselors do on a daily basis. Gone are the days of school counselors sitting in their office simply handing out college applications, making schedule changes for students who want to drop a class or waiting for a crisis to occur. Today's school counselors are vital members of the education team. They help all students in the areas of academic achievement, career and social/emotional development, ensuring today's students become the productive, well-adjusted adults of tomorrow.

American School Counseling Association