New Staff: Ms. Buchanan

Redwood’s counselors are dedicated to helping every student to the best of their ability. Their goal is to help make sure the students are supported while on campus.

You may have noticed Redwood has a new addition to the counseling department at Redwood. Her name is Ms. Aubrey Buchanan, and she is the counselor for students with last names A-C.

Buchanan is a Redwood class of 2008 alumna. She says, “It’s super weird because now I have teachers that I work with that were my teachers, and I can’t call them by their first name because it’s too weird.”

Buchanan’s favorite part of this job is being able to work with kids. She especially enjoys working with high school students. She feels that this is a very important stage where extra support and guidance is needed, “I want to be someone that you guys can lean on and go to for help when you need it- like a mentor,” says Buchanan. 

Buchanan has always wanted to be a counselor. She says, “This is super cliché, but my counselor in high school was amazing, and I loved her so much and looked up to her,” Buchanan reminisced.

Buchanan acknowledged that she has finally made it to her dream job, “It took a lot of student loans that I’m going to be paying off until I’m grey and wrinkly, but I think that it will be worth it.”

Being a counselor isn’t as easy as some would think. Buchanan notes that on top of being new to Redwood, this is also her first year ever as a counselor, “It’s just a lot of learning, and then making mistakes, and then fixing them.” 

Also, it wasn’t just her high school counselor that inspired her, another special person in her life did as well. Buchanan says, “My grandma inspires me. She lives in Portland, Oregon and has done so much good for the world. She has been an advocate for so many people during her younger days, and still continues to volunteer for nonprofits and fights for the causes she believes in.” 

After high school, Buchanan went to CSU Channel Islands and majored in Communications. Prior to her start here at Redwood, she worked as a dance teacher, server, receptionist, substitute teacher, and Special Education Teacher.

Beyond the duties of being a high school counselor, a few things that people might be surprised to know about Ms. Buchanan are that she teaches Pre-K ballet, she loves concerts, hiking, kayaking, and she has an inner-lip tattoo with her area code on it “559 y’all.” However, Buchanan is quick to remind, “Remember kids, tattoos are forever.”

Buchanan also has an obsession with musicals, but was never in a Drama class. Her friends joke that she’s, “A theatre kid that never got her time on the stage.” 

Buchanan is excited to be back at Redwood. She says, “I’m excited to be here and work with all of you guys. I think what really brought me here is that I was a student at Redwood and my support team and counselors when I was a kid here.”

Tags: counselors, humans of redwood, mia angulo, new staff, Redwood, redwood gigantea, redwood journalism, redwood rangers