How Some California School Districts Invest in Counseling – and Achieve Results

Dozens of districts across California have invested in counseling in recent years, hiring more staff to guide students through the college and career process and help with their mental health needs. For many districts, the investment has paid off with higher graduation rates, a drop in absenteeism and more students submitting financial aid forms and completing the A-G courses required for admission to UC and CSU.

But while California schools have added more than 2,200 new counselors over the past eight years — a jump of more than 20 percent — student-to-counselor ratios remain high at most districts, and the state average of 609-to-1 is well above the national average and the 250-to-1 ratio recommended by the American School Counselor Association.

Numerous recent studies show that a well-staffed school counseling department can help boost students’ academic performance, decrease absenteeism and narrow the achievement gap between white students and their black and Latino peers. Counselors can also have an impact on suicide awareness on campus, and can help reduce behavior problems among younger children, studies have shown.California districts have hired 2,500 more counselors in the past five years, a jump of more than 30 percent in that time, according to the California Department of Education. But Loretta Whitson, executive director of the California Association of School Counselors, estimated the state would have to spend an additional $2 billion for California schools to meet the ratio recommended by the American School Counselor Association.Gov. Gavin Newsom’s budget proposal for next year does not include specific funds for hiring counselors, but it does include grants for anti-bullying initiatives and mental health training for teachers, among other proposals related to students’ mental health.Some districts have found ways to maximize their counseling services within the confines of their existing budgets. Stockton Unified and Hemet Unified, for example, have both hired more counselors through their Local Control and Accountability Plans, which districts use to chart their funding priorities and are required to submit under the state’s Local Control Funding Formula.

In San Francisco Unified, the counselor-to-student ratio is slightly higher than it was a few years ago, but it’s still well below the state average and has been supplemented by a big increase in the number of social workers and psychologists. The investments have paid off: The district’s graduation rate last year was 86 percent, a jump from 77 percent a decade ago. And the rate of students going on to college last year was 75 percent, compared to the state average of 66 percent.

School counselors are increasingly important as more students in California grapple with anxiety, depression and trauma, according to the 2020 California Children’s Report Card, released recently by the advocacy organization Children Now. The rise of social media and increasing poverty in California underlie much of the spike in students’ mental health needs, along with trauma associated with violence and parental substance abuse.

“School counselors do triage,” Whitson said. “Without adequate counseling, we can lose kids.”

Excerpted from “How some California school districts invest in counseling – and achieve results” in EdSource. Read the full article.

Source: EdSource | How some California school districts invest in counseling – and achieve results, https://edsource.org/2020/how-some-california-school-districts-invest-in-counseling-and-achieve-results | © 2020 EdSource

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