As need for school counselors grows, numbers decrease

CINCINNATI -- Spring is a busy time for high school guidance counselors.

Unfortunately, they've become something of a rare commodity on high school campuses these days.

In the 2008-09 school year, for example, the average ratio of guidance counselors to students nationwide was 457 to 1. By 2011 – the most recent year for which numbers are available – the ratio had increased to 471 students per single counselor.

It's hardly the "ideal" of 250-1 recommended by some school officials and the American School Counselors Association.

Counselors, educators say, are becoming ever more necessary.

Unlike 10 or so years ago, when counselors primarily helped students apply for college and financial aid, their offices now echo with pleas for help in dealing with a host of teenage woes.

They dispense advice on everything from mental health issues, family problems, bullying, social media pitfalls, peer suicides, grief counseling and drug abuse to more traditional topics like college testing guidance and providing references for students headed to college or the job market.

Former high school counselor Brian Martin has seen firsthand the challenges faced by fading ranks of high school guidance counselors. In every high school, society's future walks into counselor offices, he said, lugging with them a distressing array of modern woes.

"Counselors are even more important today than they have ever been," said Martin, principal at Ross High School in Hamilton, Ohio.

Years of budget slashing is to blame for the drop in their number. They're often first on the chopping block when districts look to cut costs.

Counselors still help the top performers as those students head to college but are increasingly called upon to help lift troubled teens, said Martin and area school counselors.

"The student-to-counselor ratio is higher than it has ever been ... (as) schools are almost being asked to serve as social service agencies," said Martin, whose 950-student enrollment is split among three counselors. "The amount of personnel available to address those issues has been declining."

Belle Allen has worked as a guidance counselor since 1996 in Butler and Warren county high schools. She still shakes her head in disbelief when she thinks about the number of teens she and her peers are expected to serve.

"It's unbelievable and it's unrealistic," said Allen. She is responsible for helping 317 students.

Years ago "we did a lot of scheduling, a lot about colleges, but now there are a lot of mental health issues that students are dealing with," she said.

Some local districts, like Newport Independent Schools, are getting creative to beef up the number of counselors. With the help of grant money, Newport High School this year doubled its number of counselors – to two, both serving the 650 students in grades nine-12.

"They have to be ready for anything," Newport Superintendent Kelly Middleton said. "This year we had a student suicide and our counselors had to organize counseling sessions for many students."

The region's largest school system has also enlisted new partnerships to alleviate the pressure on its smaller pool of counselors.

With 33,000 students, Cincinnati Public Schools has 13 high school counselors, down from 17 a decade ago, and the district has tried to farm out some of their responsibilities.

"Fortunately," spokeswoman Janet Walsh said, "we have several college access partners working in our schools who have been able to support some of the work traditionally performed by counselors."

More than any other school staffers, the dwindling number of counselors handle the brunt of student burdens. And there is no sign of that changing, said Jill Cook, spokeswoman for the Virginia-based American School Counselor Association, which represents 33,000 school counselors nationwide.

"High school counselors … have shifted from working with a small number of students – perhaps those who are in trouble a great deal or those applying to college. But today, they are working with all students," she said.

Ross High School senior Carolyn Conrad couldn't have imagined her successful high school career with the help of a counselor for both academic and personal issues.

"My counselor has been absolutely amazing through my four years of high school. High school would definitely be a lot different without her," said Conrad, a top academic performer who this month was accepted to Miami University.

Warren County's Mason High School is among the top academic high schools in the region, and officials there credit, in part, their staff of eight counselors.

"They are kind of that front line that identify where kids are struggling ... and they really serve an important role in helping us reach all the kids we can," said Dan Distel, assistant principal at the high school.

Veteran Mason High School counselor Nikeisha Brooks still loves the job, despite the growing pressures.

"I love helping students and seeing them accomplish their dreams and goals," Brooks said. "This is one of the most gratifying things I've done in my life."

---

(Contributing: Cliff Peale of The Enquirer)