Community High School

Diane Grant

Diane Grant had her life planned. She had graduated from the University of Rochester with a full scholarship from the U.S. Air Force, and was guaranteed a job in accounting when she returned home for summer break.

“That’s when my heart said, ‘What are you doing?’” Grant said. She realized that working for a military organization was not for her, and decided to completely revamp the life she had laid out so perfectly.

Now employed at Community High School, Grant appreciates the value of keeping all options open in her counseling. “People put so much pressure
on themselves to know what they want to do in their lives,” she said. However, as Grant pointed out, most people change their careers multiple times.

After her life-changing decision to leave the Air Force, Grant decided to become a math teacher. She found a job as a prevention counselor in Buffalo,
NY, which she eventually quit to start over in Michigan at the suggestion of her sister.

“My husband and I are both calculated risk-takers,” she explained. “We enjoy making a plan, and then we can follow it or not.”

In Michigan, Grant looked for a counseling position and found a job as a math teacher. She switched around before settling at Pioneer High School. While working as a counselor at PHS, Grant heard that Mike Mouradian (a previous CHS counselor) was retiring and wanted the position. Grant came from a town not much larger than 500 people, so working in a small-scale environment was familiar.

“Kids are trusted here,” she said. Many of the problems counseling at Pioneer came from issues involving kids who did not want to be at school, and most of that is absent at CHS. Taking the job also allowed her to spend a lot of time raising her 11-month-old boy, Ryan, an experience which she believes enriches her qualities as a counselor. “People say your life will change [with children] and I believed them… you learn patience.” Grant also loves music (she drums), boating and getting to know people, which she does in her office next to John Boshoven.

Here, Grant’s office is decorated with mementos from past jobs and experiences, a counseling award and a poem encouraging students to follow their hearts like she did.