In October 2020, the American School Counselor Association distributed a state-of-the-profession survey to nearly 75,000 members and nonmembers. The survey was designed to gather details on school counselor demographic data, roles and responsibilities, the challenges of virtual learning necessitated by COVID-19, efforts to combat systemic racism, their most significant day-to-day challenges, professional development needs and other areas. The data reveals that the nation’s school counselors consider meeting student needs in a virtual environment to be their biggest challenge, followed by managing a large number of students and addressing achievement and opportunity gaps.
Not surprisingly, respondents indicate that having access to students in a virtual environment (68% rate extremely challenging/challenging) is their biggest day-to-day challenge at work, followed by providing counseling and lessons to students in a virtual environment (62%).
Among the other responsibilities that have increased under COVID-19 are managing student schedules, additional paperwork related to hybrid structures, community engagement activities, additional meetings with building leadership, learning new technology platforms and more. “
Crisis Planning Teams
Asked if they are part of a crisis planning and response team for natural disasters, school violence, suicide risk assessment, etc., 77% respondent yes, while 23% responded no. Respondents who work in high schools are less likely than elementary and middle school counselors to be part of a crisis planning and response team.
Commenting on their crisis planning team, respondents indicate the team serves a number of roles – from dangerous situations to student risk assessments. “Student services and administrators meet each week to discuss collaborative efforts for student and family support. Protocols for crises are discussed and reviewed with the entire staff,” a respondent notes. Unfortunately, several survey respondents indicate that while a team is in place, it doesn’t meet regularly. And among those who say they aren’t part of a crisis planning team, teams either don’t exist or school counselors aren’t included. “All school counselors are asked for input for certain areas, but not officially on the team,” a respondent comments.
Issues Related to Racism and Bias
The ASCA study gathered details about school counselors’ efforts in addressing racism and bias in their school counseling program, as well as how their schools are addressing racism and bias. Although 17% of responding school counselors indicate they have taken no specific actions to address racism and bias in their program, 42% point to monitoring student behavior (in person) and chats (virtual) to identify racist behavior or speech; 38%, providing individual counseling; 35%, providing classroom lessons; 22%, identifying and advocating to revise or remove policies that disproportionately affect students of color, such as “looking at data across higher level classes to make sure all populations are represented,” “decreasing punitive response to behaviors,” “prioritizing students of color for support and intervention, reaching out for checkins and referral to racial affinity groups,” “formed a districtwide team to systematically tackle equity work across our district … point out practices that affect students of color in negative ways…” and other practices.
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