10 Things I Wish I Knew About School Counseling

After a measly 4 years as a special education teacher, I knew that I wanted to help students individually and in small groups, help direct parents to valuable resources, and I desired to be part of the leadership team. At first, being a licensed specialist in school psychology or better yet, LSSP, looked promising. I worked very closely with the LSSP at the school and I admired how she worked with the students and her organization skills. She was only an intern at the time. After researching, I saw that I would need to travel to a University with the psychology program and it took a while to obtain the degree and credential. This was before online schools were the norm. I received a university marketing email at work regarding an online school counseling program and I knew I had to sign up.

If you are considering a career change from teacher to school counselor, please be mindful of what a career as a school counselor entails. Here is a list of the things that I wished I knew before signing up to be a school counselor.

1. You may need to complete a 60 hour program.

Many school counseling programs are no longer 36 or 48 hours like they were in the past. These programs have 60 hour programs now. School counseling programs have more hours than education leadership programs. If someone decided they wanted to be in leadership and become a principal, those programs are only 36 hour programs. 

2. You may be compensated less than those on the leadership team at the school.

Most of the time, a school counselor is on the teacher salary scale and receives a stipend and or they may work more days than a teacher. Usually assistant principals make more than a school counselor so basically school counselors are educational leaders in the school that are paid the least. Please check your district’s pay scale. 

3. You may need to act as a coordinator for special programs.

Do not be surprised if you find yourself as a 504 coordinator, summer school coordinator or testing coordinator of a campus These duties are in addition to actual counseling duties. Some schools will divide these duties among the counselors on the campus. If you are the only counselor for a campus, you may do all duties. These duties are easily full time jobs. There are some individuals that serve as just a 504 coordinator for their campus. Please check the district first before applying for a counseling position or ask questions during your interview. 

4. You may work various duties within the school.

School counselors are part of the leadership team on campus and will have various duties outside of counseling to include morning and afternoon car/bus duties and lunch duties.

5. You may be in charge of award ceremonies.

Award ceremonies may be your responsibility totally. You may be responsible for printing honor roll spreadsheets, printing award certificates to give to teachers, creating invitations and decorating for ceremonies.

6. You may be the only counselor on your large campus.

Some school campuses only have 1 counselor present. That can become hectic and stressful when there are crisis situations and there is only one of you. Also, if you are a new counselor, you will not have anyone on campus to help you with counseling related questions. Please make sure you have or know who your mentor will be. 

7. You may have a large caseload of students.

According to the American School Counselor Association or ASCA, they recommend a ratio of 250 to 1, students to school counselors. The ratio may be 1 counselor for 500 or more students. Majority of the time, across the nation, the caseloads are usually 500 or more students to 1 counselor.

8. You may work with a team of counselors and the duties may be unfairly divided.

If you are working with a team of counselors, make sure you are aware of your duties from the beginning of the school year. If you feel that duties are not fairly divided, talk with your principal or someone from the district like the director of counseling. If duties are not divided fairly, it’s injustice to you and to any student that you are trying to support. 

9. You may not have a social emotional curriculum at your school.

Some districts do not have a school counselor curriculum. Sometimes it is due to affordability of such curriculum or inconsistency with availability of social emotional curriculum on different campuses. In this case, you will be responsible for creating lessons and teaching them.

10. You may need to set boundaries early in the school year. 

It is important that you have a schedule for yourself and that systems are put in place. Systems such as how to refer students for counseling or when teachers are able to converse with you. 

When individuals desire to shift their career by changing it completely or expanding it, they usually do not have valuable information to help them to make informed decisions. Hopefully this list helps to expand your knowledge.