Where are all of the school counselors?

According to The American School Counselor Association (ASCA) the student to counselor ratio should be 250:1, so where are all of the school counselors? Oh, that's right! Education takes a back seat to everything else. Even when we have a tragedy like a school shooting or a suicide, the general consensus tends to be 'more security' in the form of metal detectors and the possibility of arming teachers rather than looking at what we could have done before the tragedy occurred in order to stave off the incident. What signs were there BEFORE tragedy struck? Who was there to recognize these signs and this cry for help and to intervene? Probably not the school counselor since there are so many schools (1 in 4 according to an article by KARE https://www.kare11.com/article/news/investigations/americas-school-counseling-crisis-a-tegna-investigation/89-609618559) who don't even have a school counselor. In addition to the schools who don't have a school counselor are the ones whose ratio is far above the 250:1 recommended by ASCA. When there are so many students on the case load of one school counselor, even the best of intentions aren't enough because there just aren't enough hours in the school day. Believe me, this is not a plug to extend school hours. As a teacher who is back in school to become a school counselor, I don't think more hours in school is the answer.

First, I think that America needs to prioritize education as a whole. We lose far too many really good teachers, counselors, and other faculty members because it is so hard to live on the salary of an educator, especially when the salary is frozen. No pay raises for you this year. I mean, let's be honest, how many of you would work for the same salary year after year with no raise, not even for cost of living. That means, with inflation, an educator earns less each year. Education is a calling not just a job (at least for me). That is why I have been willing to stick with it even with the financial struggles of raising a family on an educator's salary. Once we, as a nation, make education a priority, we can look at distributing the money into reducing the student to counselor ratio and into smaller class sizes because let's face it, teachers spend more time with the students than any other professional in the education system. If the teachers weren't so overwhelmed with classes of 35 students, maybe they would be more aware of the changes in the students.

Then there is testing. I could write an entire blog just on that topic, but for now, let's just leave it at: we test too much! This testing causes undo stress on the students, on the teachers, and on the administration. It also takes time away from the services that the students need because the counselors (even though in my county they cannot be a Testing Coordinator) are so bogged down with all of the logistics of testing. The only people who truly benefit from all of this testing are the companies who make millions from the tests they create and sell to the school districts.

Finally, I think that parents need to be involved in the equation. The saying has become a cliché: "A baby doesn't come with an instruction manual." I think that the education system needs to take this into account and potentially offer parenting support/classes, and the earlier in the K-12 spectrum this is done, the more of a benefit it will have. Teach the parents to teach the kids. This will serve two purposes. First, it will show the children that they are important to their parents, and next, it will empower the parents to recognize signs of distress in their own children. Parents and educators should work together instead of pointing fingers and shifting blame.