Liv Ames for EdSource

Liv Ames for EdSource

Tawnya Pringle was named one of the best school counselors in the nation this year, has won accolades from colleagues and students, and will before long exist honored at a special White House ceremony.

But ask her to describe a typical twenty-four hour period on the job, and she hesitates. "A typical day…" pauses Pringle, a veteran advisor at Hoover High School in San Diego. "My task is and so varied."

She rattles off a range of duties, from checking up on a suicidal student referred for mental health counseling, to coming together with 9th graders struggling with attendance and grades, to corralling juniors and seniors to review financial aid applications. The twenty-four hours might round out with a visit to the home of a struggling student.

Counselors play a central function in helping students succeed in school and persist to college, research suggests, just advocates say a shortage of counselors has hampered efforts to serve students. Still several leaders in the school counseling field are optimistic. Additional Thousand-12 funding and a growing land focus on college and career preparation – and a new push from Kickoff Lady Michelle Obama– are translating to more than resources in some districts and greater recognition of the crucial role of counselors.

"Right now there'due south a swell focus which I actually oasis't seen probably for a long fourth dimension," said Pringle, one of five-and-a-half total-time counselors at Hoover Loftier, who manages a caseload of about 430 students.

"Nosotros're not able to exercise the job that the kids deserve and that we know nosotros demand to do," said Kirsten Barnes, counselor at Hanford West High School.

California had the highest ratio of students to counselors in the nation, with one counselor for every ane,016 K-12 students, according to the well-nigh recent U.South. Department of Education rankings from 2010-11.  Nationally, the ratio was 471 students to every advisor. The American School Counselor Clan recommends a ratio of 250 to ane.

No state mandate requires that schools rent counselors or sets a minimum ratio.

'Squeaky door syndrome'

"I used to exist able to meet with my students three or four times a year," said Kirsten Barnes, a counselor at Hanford West High Schoolhouse in Kings Canton. "Sometimes I only become to meet with them one fourth dimension a twelvemonth and that's not enough. We're non able to do the chore that the kids deserve and that we know we need to do."

Tawnya Pringle, counselor at Hoover High School in San Diego, was a 2022 School Counselor of the Year finalist.

Courtesy Tawnya Pringle

Tawnya Pringle, advisor at Hoover Loftier School in San Diego, was a 2022 School Counselor of the Year finalist.

Barnes, one of three counselors at Hanford Due west, has 430 students this year. Six years ago, before the recession and associated budget cuts, the campus had five counselors, each serving about 300 students, Barnes said.

"So much has changed in the xx years since I've been a school counselor," said Barnes, board president of the California Clan of Schoolhouse Counselors. "There are more home life issues, more foster children, more grouping homes, more displaced students, pupil anxiety problems, more than social-emotional issues, so there's the whole cyber-bullying consequence and suicide. Information technology's taken everything to a whole dissimilar level – and then trying to become them ready for college and career."

Counselors provide academic and career counseling and are often the first responders guiding students through personal bug. Counselors aren't therapists, but office of their task is identifying students in crisis and referring them for additional help.

A typical scenario played out one contempo Friday in the office of advisor Christine MacInnis. MacInnis, who manages a caseload of 500 students at N High School in Torrance, was – as she often is – double booked for a 9 a.yard. appointment.

One meeting was with anxious parents, concerned considering their ninth-grade daughter's grade bespeak average had fallen from iii.v to 2.5. The other: a student who was homeless afterwards all of a sudden losing living arrangements.

With the practice of 19 years' experience, MacInnis assessed the parents' situation – their daughter had recently joined a softball team, which ate into much of her study time – and arranged a follow-upwardly coming together to discuss the girl's academics. The homeless pupil was referred to social services.

"Information technology'due south the squeaky door syndrome," MacInnis said. "The ones that are in the office are the ones that are getting all the attending. I don't think it's my district or any commune that doesn't provide enough. I recall we all don't provide enough. Nosotros don't recognize that the counseling piece is so essential."

Pivotal office

Research suggests that counselors are cardinal to providing information about college and career opportunities to students, particularly for students who are the offset in their families to nourish college.

A 2022 study past researchers at UC Irvine found that a smaller student-to-counselor ratio was associated with higher rates of higher enrollment and more noesis of postsecondary instruction. Most lxx pct of students in schools with low student-to-counselor ratios took the Saturday or Deed exam, compared with about 59 percent of students in schools with loftier ratios, co-ordinate to the study. The exams, used by many universities in admissions decisions, are seen as an indicator of students' higher aspirations.

Loftier educatee-to-advisor ratios likewise raise equity issues.

"White students tend to be full-bodied in schools with the smallest caseloads," the study said, "whereas black and Latino students are concentrated in schools with larger caseloads."

Loretta Whitson, executive director of the California Clan of Schoolhouse Counselors, sees modify on the horizon.

She said counselors are integral to meeting the eight priority areas districts must address under the state'south new funding system, the Local Control Funding Formula. The formula requires districts to file Local Control and Accountability Plans, or LCAPs, outlining how they are meeting the priority areas, which include student achievement, positive school climate, admission to higher-preparatory courses and more. The state provides additional coin for schools with loftier concentrations of low-income students, English learners and foster children.

Some districts are using extra state coin to hire more counselors, besides every bit social workers, attendance counselors and other student support staff, said David Kopperud, an education programs consultant at the California Department of Didactics. The state is non tracking the new hires, just Kopperud said anecdotal evidence points to a "resurgence" in hiring certificated counselors focusing on career and technical education programs.

Torrance'due south North High, for case, increased its counseling staff final year from three to four, MacInnis said, and opened up a college and career center on campus this year.

Tracking bear on

Nevertheless, the approach is scattershot, said Trish Hatch, managing director of the schoolhouse counseling plan at San Diego Land Academy and a consultant on effective school counseling programs.

"There are some existent areas of brilliance and excellence, just in other places, people are quite challenged," Hatch said. "They seem to exist unaware of the means school counselors can contribute to the Common Cadre and the LCAPs and all the outcomes we're looking to take students achieve."

Counselors need to get better almost tracking their effectiveness, providing data to administrators and policy makers on their touch, Hatch said.

She points to the Riverside County Role of Education equally an instance of the ability of constructive data. A leadership team has been focusing on counselors as a key part of improving graduation and college-going rates at Riverside County schools. The attempt was recognized by President Barack Obama in December during a "College Opportunity Day of Action."

"Counselors are going to exist the catalyst to this," said Mark LeNoir, principal in residence at the Leadership Found of Riverside County.

LeNoir audited the transcripts of Riverside County high school students, analyzing how many had taken the sequence of classes, called a-g, that are required for admission to the University of California and California State University. He provided color-coded reports to schools – green in areas a pupil was on track, scarlet where they were defective – that allowed for targeted intervention.

The results were promising: At Santiago High Schoolhouse in Corona, for instance, 76 percentage of the class of 2022 was on track to complete their a-g requirements, up from 61 per centum in the form of 2010, according to data from the canton office. At Chaparral Loftier Schoolhouse in Temecula, a-g completion rose to 62 pct for the class of 2014, up from 50 percentage for the form of 2011. Additional growth is projected at campuses throughout the county this year.

LeNoir and school counselor coordinator Catalina Cifuentes also organized professional development seminars for counselors at school districts throughout the county.

"We're trying to get our counselors to exist higher and career readiness oriented," Cifuentes said. "We're still including the social-emotional piece, but nosotros constitute if we raise the rigor and get them college and career ready, we're educational activity our students resiliency and dust through that advising. We're filling the gaps."

Whitson also credits Michelle Obama's Achieve Higher Initiative with putting a national focus on counselors that is translating to more sensation of their role. The campaign encourages students to go along their instruction past high school, and the First Lady has highlighted the role counselors play in informing students nigh their options.

On Jan. 29, the national Schoolhouse Counselor of the Yr finalists, including Pringle, will be best-selling at a White House ceremony – a first for the counselors.

"Information technology'south got people talking about it at the national level," Barnes said. "Just having that conversation and having people go, 'Oh aye, this is important.' It's probably the virtually promising information technology's been in a while."

To get more reports like this one, click here to sign up for EdSource'due south no-cost daily email on latest developments in pedagogy.