https://www.axios.com/2024/05/26/school-counselors-shortage-inequality-midwest-west
The American School Counselor Association recommends no more than 250 students per counselor, but the US average is 385. Only two states average below 250.
Interesting, thanks for posting. The average ratio for just the high schools is 232-to-1. Our HS, which is regarded as a really good one in our state, is 50% above that at 350:1.
They’re swamped with so much work! Parents never meet them unless something is wrong, kids get switched around a lot (I think my eldest had like 4 different ones), and we didn’t even attempt to get any college advice from them. He said “here’s where I’m applying” and they said “great”! They did get all his college app materials in way early, and were clearly on the ball. They must have next-level organization skills to manage all those students.
Looking at the schools in the urban school district where I live, one high school has a ratio of 708:1 and another has a ratio of 632:1. A number of them are also more “reasonable” but well above the best practice target (i.e. 319, 349, 422, 399:1). On the bright side, though, 46% do meet the best practice target, some by a lot. And then there are three with no counselor at all.
1 Like
My mother was a guidance counselor at my public HS and our ratio was about 450-500:1. Writing reqs was an incredible amount of extra work for her (and back then she had to do them all manually on a typewriter).
That said, the ratio for my kids very well regarded public school in an affluent area is just right about 250:1, so they are probably adhering to the guidance. Still, we above average resources. Seems like an unrealistic target with publicly funded schools. Of course, education is massively under funded.
1 Like
Probably part of what one pays for at an elite private high school is a much smaller ratio of students to counselors and dedicated college counselors who can give much more useful guidance on college stuff and write higher quality recommendations for students.
1 Like
Arizona, a state with a large Latino and Native American population, had the worst student-to-school counselor ratio in the nation — 667-to-1 during the 2022-2023 school year.
Can concur. While our son was growing up here, we lived in one of the “best” school districts, and the HS he was slated for had only two counselors for thousands of students. Why, I asked? Because 1) All schools are underfunded:
Nationally, Arizona ranks dead last, with the average funding sitting at $10,244, falling $5,202 short of the $15,446 national average, according to the most recent report from the Education Law Center, which analyzed 2020 per-pupil funding.
The average per-pupil spending for 2022, factoring in both state and national funding sources, is $13,454, according to the Arizona Auditor General’s 2022 report.
But in a presentation to the Senate Education Committee last week, Alexa Tavasci, division of school audits manager, said spending was up in general because of continued Covid federal relief money, though she noted those federal funds are set to expire in 2024.
and 2) AZ has three large relatively inexpensive in-state universities, one of which basically takes all comers, and most students stay in-state, so counseling generally consists of directing students to one of those three websites–one of which actually stated (at the time), “Allow 30 minutes to complete your application.” Counseling complete!
So, we opted for a private HS with a 30:1 ratio, but that is not an option for most. We continued to fight for our public schools, volunteering, fundraising, and voting even while our son was elsewhere, but the needle hasn’t moved, and I suspect it won’t while the state remains a bastion of retirement and tourism with a high aversion to taxes and little concern for education.
3 Likes
Also, the largest one in the metro area with most of the state population says on its web site what stats will result in admission (and also what stats will result in admission to some majors which are slightly more selective than the university overall).
The student to counselor ratio at my kids’ schools roughly met this recommendation. That matters not at all when the counselor (x2) is sweeping major bullying under the rug so that it doesn’t look like “their grade” has any issues. It also matters not at all when the counselor is using all their accumulated sick time for vacations as they wind down to retirement and ignores pleas for help even from teachers on the rare occasions when they are there. There were some excellent and caring counselors, but these examples left me struggling to trust counselors in general.
1 Like
Yes, and the college counseling staff is separate from the staff devoted to mental health and general social and community well-being.
2 Likes
This topic was automatically closed 180 days after the last reply. If you’d like to reply, please flag the thread for moderator attention.