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My professional perspective includes work experience as an elementary teacher, re-entry education liaison at a juvenile facility and foster care program, career specialist, and am currently serving as a Program Director for a non-profit Adult Basic Education program.  My perspective is that education is the foundation for people to become successful adults, and school counselors play a key role in reinforcing a strong educational foundation.  I earned my Associates in Applied Science in Health and Human Services from South Texas College, my Bachelor of Science in Social Science from the University of Houston-Downtown, and am working towards my Masters in Education in Guidance and Counseling at Angelo State University. I hope to become a school counselor in a high school setting where I can help prepare students to be successful, well-balanced adults.

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Step 2  Option 1  Top 5 According to a Current School Counselor

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Step 2  Option 1  Top 5 According to a Current School Counselor

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I interviewed Michelle Rodriguez, Lead School Counselor at Brennan High School.  Based on prior interaction with Michelle, I asked her about her about balancing administrative work with the rising need to help students with mental health issues.

#1  The frequency of mental health issues in the school system is rising faster than our government entities realize.  Schools are understaffed with counselors who can help with the increasing number affected by mental health issues.

#2  For many students, a school counselor will be the only resource they come in contact with to address mental health.  Some of the reasons are cost of private mental health treatment, parents are unaware of the child's condition, and the lack of understanding about how to get help and the benefits.  Counselors have to be cognizant of confidentiality and if and when parents need to be notified about their child's mental state.

#3  Mental health services seem to be reactive rather than proactive.  Sometimes signs of mental health conditions are unnoticed or ignored, which can lead to severe consequences such as suicide. Sometimes school counselors' hands are tied when they have administrative duties they have to prioritized and/or cannot divulge information to parents as a result of confidentiality.

#4  School counselors are busy with administrative duties such as being in compliance with HB 5 and ensuring that students graduation plans are in place.  Counselors struggle to find a balance to meet administrative duties and address social-emotional conflicts that their students are experiencing.

#5  A temporary fix in the form of guidance and counseling curriculum lessons are no longer sufficient for the mental health issues that students are experiencing in K-12 settings.  Consistent and long-term counseling needs to take place within the school.  Requiring counselors to spend 80 percent of their work time addressing social-emotional needs can be more effective in helping students. This has just been presented in the currently legislative session.

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Step 2 Option 2 , Slide 1  American School Counselor Association

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Step 2 Option 2 , Slide 1  American School Counselor Association

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According to a joint publication by ASCA, The Education Trust and Reach Higher (2019), ASCA recommends that students have meaningful and direct or indirect interaction with their school counselors at least 80% of the school counselor's scheduled work time and the ideal ratio is 1 counselor to 250 students.  After reviewing the ASCA Ethical Standards for school counselors, it seems that the decreased quantity and quality of social-emotional counseling available in schools is reflective of increased  and undetected mental health concerns within the school system, which poses an ethical dilemma for school counselors.  ASCA ethical guidelines state that school counselors have very explicit duties to provide services to students which require at least 80% of their work time, if they are to follow the guidelines accurately and effectively. Proposed bill S.B. 426 in the 86th Legislative session addresses this issue.
The second ethical and legal issue relates to the webinar titled "Legal and Ethical Complications in working with Minors in Schools" on the ASCA website.  As counselors, we have a duty to help students regardless of our personal morals and beliefs.  Finding a balance in providing confidential services to students and parents simultaneously as they are both clients and also divulging information to other school personnel in the best interest of the student.  I was very surprised to learn that substantial interest in the best interest of the child supersedes privacy rights of the student and parents if it means providing better educational services in school.

Reference
American School Counselor Association, (2019).  School counselors matter.
https://www.schoolcounselor.org/

American School Counselor Association, (2016).  Ethical standards for school counselors. https://www.schoolcounselor.org/

American School Counselors Association, (n.d.).  Legal and ethical complications in working with minors in school.  https://videos.schoolcounselor.org/legal-and-ethical-complications-in-working-with-minors-in-schools

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Step 2, Option 2, Slide 2  TCA/TSCA Testifies Before Senate Select Committee on Violence in Schools

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Step 2, Option 2, Slide 2  TCA/TSCA Testifies Before Senate Select Committee on Violence in Schools

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TCA and TSCA testified before the Senate committee. They addressed mental illness as it relates to being a risk factor for students and can increase violence in schools. School counselors can help reduce the likelihood of mental health becoming so severe that students are driven to drastic measure such as school violence.  The lack of time a counselor can spend teaching coping and social skills is reduced by the amount of administrative work delegated to them.
The second ethical and legal issue addressed in the TCA website was the separation of immigrant children from their parents and the adverse effects it has on their mental health.

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senate select committee on violence in schools & school security

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Senate Select Committee on Violence in Schools & School Security - Jul 18th, 2018

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Live and Recorded Public meetings of Senate Select Committee on Violence in Schools & School Security for Texas Legislative Council - Senate

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I chose to focus on the 80/20 proposed legislative bill (S.B. 426) because it is the most current debate that is taking place.  I believe it also has the most impact on growing mental health concerns in the school system and is the contributing factor to the other 3 legal and ethical issues I discussed.

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This is the academic resource found in the ASU library titled "Reported Levels of Satisfaction and Frustration by Arizona School Counselors: A Desire for Greater Connections with Students in a Data-Driven Era".

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Angelo State University - Library Online Resources

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Unauthorized use is prohibited; Usage may be subject to security testing and monitoring; Misuse is subject to criminal prosecution; No expectation of privacy except as otherwise provided by applicable privacy laws.

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The academic resource titled, "Reported Levels of Satisfaction and Frustration by Arizona School Counselors: A Desire for Greater Connections with Students in a Data-Driven Era," provided data recorded from a survey given to a group of school counselors.  According to Kolodinsky, Draves, Schroder, Lindsey, and Zlatev (2009), the ultimate goal of this study was to more fully understand the components that lead to school counselors feeling both satisfied and dissatisfaction in their professional roles" (p. 194).  The results of the study showed that while school counselors were dissatisfied and frustrated with the decreasing amount of time spent providing direct service to students as a result of being asked to help with administrative duties. In previous research, schools following guidelines which closely resemble the ASCA model, reported high job satisfaction because counselors' duties are more defined and provide direct services to students more frequently.
In the Education Week article, Catherine Gewertz (2018), discusses the unmanageable counselor caseload.  This article reinforces the aforementioned study in that school counselor's are expected to do too many tasks with little time, such as preparing students with college and career readiness, social-emotional issues, course scheduling, graduation planning, test proctoring, and many other duties. Gewertz included information about studies showing the benefits of increasing the number of school  counselors such as"higher graduation rates, lower dropout rates, and increased college enrollment" (Gewertz, 2018).
Proposed Senate Bill 426 is important to educators because a clear definition of the role of a school counselor is needed and school districts need to be held accountable for denying direct services to students, especially at-risk populations.  The ethical issue addressed with this topic is that school counselors have a responsibility to provide quality student development services.  If counselors are spread thin and cannot perform their job duties as outlined by ASCA, then we are doing a disservice to the students.  One situation I can see as a dilemma related to this topic is that there will come a time that the principal will ask that I help with their reports or lunch duty and take time away from my role.  I will have to really assess whether I am being asked to do something unethical and address it in the most professional manner with my principal.  It is not a position I would like to be in, but understand that it will happen sometime in my career.

References

Gewertz, C. (2018). School Counselors Responsible for 482 Students on Average, Report Finds. Education Week. https://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/high_school_and_beyond/2018/02/school_counselors_responsible_for_482_students_on_average.html

Kolodinsky, P., Draves, P., Schroder, V., Lindsey, C., & Zlatev, M. (2009). Reported levels of satisfaction and frustration by Arizona school counselors: A desire for greater connections with students in a data-driven era. Professional School Counseling, 12(3), 193–199. https://doi-org.easydb.angelo.edu/10.5330/PSC.n.2010-12.193

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Education Week contains various articles related to a school counselor's difficult task of providing quality services when the counselor tostudent ratio is disproportionate.

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The heavy caseloads of school counselors haven't gotten much lighter in the past decade, even as schools are under pressure to deliver quality advice and guidance on a growing range of issues.

A report issued Thursday by two groups that represent school counselors shows that the national average student-counselor ratio was 482 to 1 in 2014-15, the most recent year for which data are available. In 2004-05, the average ratio was 479 to 1.

The National Association for College Admission Counseling and the American School Counselor Association conducted the study, drawing from information that states submit to the National Center for Education Statistics.

"Our intention in producing this data is to shed light on the often unmanageable caseloads public school counselors must serve," their report says.

The most recent numbers represented an improvement over the previous year: In 2013-14, there were 491 students for every counselor, the highest ratio in the 10-year period that's the focus of the report.

The two organizations pointed to research showing that counseling can influence students' postsecondary aspirations and improve the chances that they'll go to college.

A 2013 study by the College Board, for instance, calculated that adding one counselor to a high school's staff predicted a 10-percentage-point increase in its four-year-college enrollment. A separate report by NACAC showed that meeting one-on-one with a counselor to discuss financial aid or college triples students' chances of going to college and increases by sevenfold the likelihood that they'll apply for federal financial aid.

But to produce results like that, the report says, counselors must "operate in an environment free of overwhelmingly large student caseloads."

The study calls for stepped-up state and federal funding to support hiring more counselors. The American School Counselor Association recommends a ratio of no more than 250 students for each counselor, but only three states-New Hampshire, Vermont, and Wyoming-reported that level of staffing in the new study.

The report lands at a time of rising pressure to provide students with good career and college advising. Many counselors struggle to get enough time to do that in addition to their other duties, such as scheduling, helping students with course planning, and providing social and emotional support. Their administrators also often deploy them on tasks unrelated to their training, such as lunchroom duty or test proctoring.

"The fact that the student-to-school-counselor ratio has effectively not budged on the national level suggests the need to invest in these professionals, particularly when they are being asked to cover such a wide swath of student experiences and outcomes," David Hawkins, NACAC's executive director for educational content and policy, said in an email.

Elementary schools are an important part of the picture of high student-counselor ratios, said Amanda Fitzgerald, ASCA's director of public policy. Only half the states require schools to have counselors in elementary schools, she said, so counselor-to-student ratios are much higher in those states. An Education Week analysis of federal data in 2016 showed that nearly 3 in 10 pre-K-12 schools have no counselor.

Activists who push for counselors at that level often face a steeper climb, Fitzgerald said.

"Most people see the relevance of a high school counselor, for college admission, scheduling, and other things. It's those elementary services that are really falling behind," she said. "But those are our prevention services. That ounce of prevention in the elementary years could really ward off some of the issues older adolescents face."

Some states have launched big initiatives to expand counseling support in schools. Colorado's "School Counselor Corps" grants began at the high school level, but expanded downward into middle schools, and is now making its way into some elementary schools, Fitzgerald said.

A report on that program found that schools with additional counselors saw higher graduation rates, lower dropout rates, and increased college enrollment. Another study calculated that Colorado's $16 million investment saved the state $300 million in safety-net services.

That program has a limited reach, however. Colorado's student-counselor ratio showed a 30 percent decline in the ten-year period that's the focus of the new study. Some other states saw big drops, too: The ratio in the District of Columbia dropped 53 percent, and in New Jersey, it declined 37 percent.

Other states saw big gains: Louisiana's student-to-counselor ratio went up 114 percent in the last decade. Idaho and New York each saw improvements of more than 40 percent. The report didn't include details of what drove those changes, however.

Fitzgerald said she is hopeful that the Every Student Succeeds Act will encourage schools to beef up their counselor ranks. She noted that many states are using college and career readiness as their required "fifth indicator" for accountability, and others are factoring social and emotional learning into their accountability metrics. Counselors can play key roles in improving schools' performance in those areas, Fitzgerald said.
For more stories on school counseling, see: States Beef Up School Counseling Corps
Get High School & Beyond posts delivered to your inbox as soon as they're published. Sign up here. Also, follow @cgewertz for news and analysis of issues that shape adolescents' preparation for work and higher education.
Photo: Getty Images

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national association for college admission counseling

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School Counselors Responsible for 482 Students on Average, Report Finds

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The heavy caseloads of school counselors haven't gotten much lighter in the past decade, even as schools are under pressure to deliver quality advice and guidance on a growing range of issues. A report issued Thursday by two groups that represent school counselors shows that the national average student-counselor ratio was 482 to 1 in 2014-15, the most recent year for which data are available.