It's August and a new school year is here. With a new school year comes back to school preparation.
As parents visited stores to pick out the right backpacks and pencils, you might have found Peoria High Social Worker Anthony Jones in his office, reviewing a poster of reasons to be a social worker. Often, it means working with kids at some of the most delicate moments of their development.
“You want them to have the same opportunities that you had. That may not happen ever in their lifetime and that’s okay, but you want to give them and make sure that they have an opportunity to become a better person, a good member of society,” Jones said. “To help take away that anxiety and depression they feel. To give them the things they never had an opportunity for. That’s why I do it.”
Jones has been at his post at Peoria High for 13 years. He's one of about 20 social workers employed by District 150. While Jones is stationary at the high school, other social workers will rotate between as many as three buildings.
The extra help is necessary because of the consistently high demand. For example, here's what a busy day is like for Jones.
“I come in at 7:15 in the morning and we’ve already got a line out the door at 7:00,” he said. “And that rolls until about 2:30.”
The range of student needs can vary drastically, by type, seriousness and the time required to address them.
It's important here to take a second to distinguish between a school counselor and a social worker. As Jones explains it, counselors usually have an academic, as well as a personal component. There are clear lines where an issue becomes a social worker's job.
“We have some heavy hitters. You know, there’s a lot of trauma involved. And that’s what we’re truly trained in, the aspects of trauma,” he said. “We are very fortunate at Peoria High, that our counselors know their limitations. As well as, I think, all of our teachers and everybody as an entire staff know our limitations. I think that’s the biggest thing.”
When interactions with other staff members brush against the raw edges of trauma, a student can be referred to a social worker. That can include abuse and gun violence, the loss of a friend or family member, suicide and food insecurity.
To deal with all these topics, Jones says training is a career-long endeavor. For example, when Jones started thirteen years ago, the now foundational concept of "trauma" was barely mentioned in his schooling.
“We’re taking another look at it. We’re taking a deeper look into it and the effects of it developmentally when it happens and what can occur down the road,” he said.
Social workers also work closely with special education students in ways counselors and therapists don't. They're the office that helps evaluate whether a student needs special education programs and coordinates with the family on creating special education plans.
“They may have to modify a curriculum. That’s where we step in and we do social histories, we do more testing. School psychologists are also involved in that process,” Jones said. “Then once we go through that process it’s yea or nay, they either meet the criteria or they don’t meet the criteria for special education.”
here's a lot of different responsibilities on the plate of a District 150 social worker. One way they get some assistance and relief is internships.
Earlier this year, the board approved a new wave of interns for the 2025-26 school year, with one each coming from Aurora University and Illinois State University.
Ann Bond is the Assistant Superintendent of Student Services for Peoria Public Schools. She says the interns will do anything and everything a full time social worker would do, supervised of course.
“When our social workers come to us and they do their internship here, they really seem to fall in love, quite honestly, with our teams and our kids and our family,” she said. “So, so many of the social workers on our team have really grown up within the walls of Peoria Public Schools.”
Bond says the District 150 internship has something unique to offer, with the variety of facilities the interns can cycle between during their year.
“We really pride ourselves on being able to provide, sometimes, several months, for example, at a high school,” she said. “Several months at a primary building. Because it’s very different, really, what they experience at a primary level versus high school.”
Bond says the interns started this week, along with other staff returning for "Institute Day."
For Jones, it's the start of a 14th year of dealing with some of Peoria students' most difficult, sensitive and, he says, ultimately rewarding issues.
