By Justin Brooks, NHS Member

Mr. Guttilla, a guidance counselor at Fair Lawn High School, has been working at the school for eight years. As a guidance counselor, Mr. Guttilla helps students through their issues with their classes, problems students may be facing, and completing and aiding with college applications for seniors. After almost a decade at FLHS, Mr. Guttilla has a lot of knowledge on his position and finds that the best thing about being a guidance counselor is getting to know students and helping them. Students come to Mr. Guttilla with all kinds of issues and questions and by working together, he helps to support them and find a solution to their problems. 

Although Mr. Guttilla loves being the person that a student can come to and ask for whatever they need help with, one of the less exciting aspects of being a guidance counselor is the less meaningful assignments, such as paperwork. This is not as impactful as brightening a student’s day or helping them through a problem, and therefore Mr. Guttilla does not get as much enjoyment out of it.

When discussing classes at FLHS, the question arose, if Mr. Guttilla could enroll in a teacher’s class, for even a day, what class would he join? One class that Mr. Guttilla would enroll in, is the American Musical Theater class. He would like to join this class because a dream job for him would be to perform on Broadway. A second class that Mr. Guttilla would love to be able to join is the Fashion and Interior Design class. Both Fashion and Interior Design were careers that Mr. Guttilla was interested in pursuing when he was younger and he would love to learn more about them.

Mr. Guttilla’s success and experience in his job has allowed him to gain a lot of wisdom about students and general advice that could be used to aid them through their problems. He explains, “The things that you are embarrassed of are probably the things that make you most interesting and you should embrace them and be confident in yourself.” He advises students to be positive and lean into parts of themselves that may make them uncomfortable.  Students should strive  to be successful and unique throughout their lives. 

This work with the younger generation has not only allowed him to gain and share valuable wisdom, but also has inspired him in aspects of his life. Mr. Guttilla tells, “Honestly, young people stepping up and trying to make a change and want to change things that are wrong by putting themselves out there to make things different like Greta Thunberg inspires me to help out the younger generation.”

Mr. Guttilla’s work at Fair Lawn High School has not gone unnoticed and over the years that he has worked at the school, he has changed the lives of students and allowed them to grow into better, more rounded adults. I want to thank Mr. Guttilla for all the hard work he puts in and the ability to always be there for a student whenever they need someone.