Indiana School Counselor Survey warns of high student ratios, testing duties
Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe Now
An annual state school survey highlights how mental health continues to be a major issue for students in all grade levels as many counselors feel they don’t have enough time to work with their students.
The Indiana School Counselor Survey, which received responses from over 270 K-12 school counselors, found that the amount of time spent directly or indirectly with students saw a small increase this year, but “non-counseling” tasks like testing and program management continues to take up about a third of their time.
“Testing must come off the counselor’s plate,” one survey respondent said, adding that testing has accounted for 270 hours of her time this school year.
The number of counselors who feel they have enough time to meet with students has dropped for the 13th straight year since the study’s inception in 2010. The counselor-to-student ratio was steady, but the state is well above the ratio recommended by the American School Counselor Association at 250 to 1. Indiana’s ratio lands at 694 to 1; the national average is 408 to 1.
“Finding enough time to work with every student in a counselors’ caseload is one of the highest goals of a school counselor, but an increasingly difficult one to reach,” Inspire Success Executive Director Matt Fleck said in a news release.
The study was conducted by Westfield-based not-for-profit Inspire Success in collaboration with the Indiana Department of Education and Indiana School Counselor Association. The study covered about 10% of the state’s counselors.