SALT LAKE CITY — With less than a month until school resumes nationwide, the U.S. is facing a school counseling crisis with the average ratio of students to counselors at 500 to 1 — double the ratio recommended by the American School Counselor Association, Governing magazine is reporting.
Meanwhile, the Florida State Board of Education approved a mandate last week requiring Florida public schools to provide students with at least five hours of mental health instruction beginning in sixth grade, reports Education Week.
The five-hour minimum will be included in the curriculum for grades six through 12, and the content will "probably (come from) ... a combination of school counselors, classroom instruction and some of our informational tools,” Kyle Dresback, St. Johns County School District associate superintendent for student support services, told Education Week.
Policies like the Florida mandate may give some tools to students, but they also add to an already heavy load for school counselors at a time when overtaxing is causing many to leave the profession, according to a number of industry studies.
With school districts across America reporting that kids are slipping through the cracks of a crowded system, what are the benefits school counselors provide, and can states do anything to turn the school counseling crisis around?
Why school counselors matter
School counselors today are proving increasingly vital to the communities of kids and parents they serve. As students present issues beyond academic advisement, schools and parents look to counselors to provide social, physical and emotional support as well as career guidance, reports NPR.
School counselors are required to have an advanced degree in school counseling as well as pass licensure exams and take continuing education courses, according to the American School Counselor Association. The counselor association also defines them as “vital members of the education team” tasked with “ensuring today’s students become the productive, well-adjusted adults of tomorrow.”
The term “guidance counselor” began to change to “school counselor” in the early 2000s, Gregg Curtis, school counseling consultant with the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, told WMTV. The name change allowed counselors to focus on the rise of mental health issues students faced, Curtis said.
As school counselors help measure students’ “real life” readiness, “students are becoming more well-rounded by including social and emotional development (and) looking at resilience, self-advocacy and hope” instead of just test scores, said Curtis.
In addition to addressing the varied needs of students, school counselors bridge gaps by working not just with students but also with “administrators, teachers, school support staff, parents and outside community members to design, implement and evaluate comprehensive wellness programs within schools,” finds a study from the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire.
In other words, the study says, school counselors don’t just help kids get scholarships, they give students access to assistance with substance abuse issues, learning disabilities and even suicidal thoughts.
The most obvious steps that states can take to improve school counselor access are to establish maximum caseload requirements and ensure that schools have adequate funds to meet such requirements. – University of New Hampshire study
Approximately 50 percent of lifetime cases of mental illness begin at age 14, and another 50 percent of students ages 14 and older with a mental illness drop out of high school, according to the National Alliance of Mental Illness. “School counselors develop the scaffolding kids need in order to develop academically,” Jill Cook, assistant director of the American School Counselor Association, told Governing magazine, so when school staff can’t provide students with counselors, “the children aren’t getting the support they need.”
And the consequences are substantial.
Only 1 in 5 U.S. high school students is enrolled in a school with a sufficient number of school counselors, says the Education Trust. A disproportionate number of these students are students of color and from low-income families, the trust also finds.
In addition, counselors in rural schools often fulfill more responsibilities outside their job descriptions and at multiple schools, according to a Brookings study, leaving students with less access to career guidance and other supports.
Can states reverse this crisis?
The bottom line in reversing the school counseling crisis is funding, finds the UNH study.
"The most obvious steps that states can take to improve school counselor access are to establish maximum caseload requirements and ensure that schools have adequate funds to meet such requirements," the authors state.
In North Carolina, for example, the state’s Department of Public Instruction estimated it would need around $688 million in additional state funding to hire the staff — nurses, social workers, counselors, psychologists and school resource officers — required to reach nationally recommended ratios, reports the News and Observer.
Instead, the North Carolina state budget released in April provided a total of $60.2 million over two years for this expense.
Other states, such as Virginia, Pennsylvania and Washington, have attempted to address similar needs and are finding similar roadblocks in budget issues.
At the national level, a bill proposed by Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, and Rep. Katherine Clark, D-Massachusetts, seeks to staff public elementary and secondary schools with mental health providers and “would provide dedicated funding to states in order to decrease the student to school counselor ratios,” reports the American Counseling Association.
Additionally, the House approved a spending bill last month of $25 million for School Safety National Activities that would add more school counselors to schools.
But the insufficiency of these funding attempts is proving frustrating to those who provide mental health services in schools.
“The fact that North Carolina’s (student-to-counselor) ratio is ‘better than other states’ doesn’t put food on my students’ plates or create a safety plan for a child considering suicide,” Simone Kiddoo, social worker in Durham Public Schools, told the News and Observer. “We have a duty to provide the best for our students and our families, not just ‘better than the national average.’”