I am excited to be the school counselor at Emile Elementary. My husband and I just moved here from Cambridge Maryland where I was a teacher for 13 years.

I am originally from Hermitage Pennsylvania.

I went to college at Slippery Rock University in Slippery Rock, PA-BS Elementary Education.

I received my Master's at Westminster College in New Wilmington, PA-School Counselor.

Laura Stradling, LMSW serves as the Program Manager for Emile Elementary with the Communities in Schools of Central Texas. Stradling received her Bachelors Degree in Sociology with double minors in Family Science and Psychology from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah in 1994.  She moved back home to College Station to decide what her next steps were while working at a fifth grade school and discovered she wanted to go in to social work. She obtained a Masters in Social Work from the University of Texas at Austin in 1998.  

After obtaining her masters, she moved to Bastrop where she worked as a Family Based Safety Services caseworker for almost 12 years. From there Laura took a position as the Social Worker for the Cen-Tex Family Services Head Start and Early Head start program for about 8 years. During her masters program, she had an internship with Communities In Schools so when she found out that CIS was coming to BISD, Laura jumped at the chance.  Stradling began working with CIS as a Program Manager at Emile in 2019 and is now in her third year.  

"My primary goal as a CIS Program Manager is to make every child I work with, and many that I don't, feel that they are the most important person in the world," said Stradling.

 You can reach Laura Stradling by email at lstradling@bisdtx.org.