How big is the school counselor shortage? Big
A recent survey taken in California showed that a majority of voters there believe that the best approach to preventing violence in schools is through improving mental health services and emergency response training for school staff. But in the midst of a national debate about how to keeps kids in school safe, one thing we aren’t hearing much about is the serious shortage of school counselors.How big is it? It’s so big that President Obama’s new plan to provide 1,000 new school resource officers, school counselors and other mental health workers to schools around the country won’t even come close to meeting the need.
The American School Counselor Association recommends a ratio of 250 students to each counselor. But in the latest statistics available from around the country (the 20010-2011 school year), the average ratio is one counselor for every 471 students. That means that for the 49,484,181 public school students, there were 105,079 counselors — a sharp rise from