Post-Crisis Counselor Count

In the wake of the tragedy in Littleton, Colo., public schools in Orange County and throughout California are taking a closer look at the shortage of counselors, who often face overwhelming caseloads.

Because of large student-to-counselor ratios, counselors say they don’t have time to identify and help some troubled students.

The state’s ratio is 1,056 students to 1 counselor, the worst in the nation, and Orange County has one of the worst ratios in the state, ranking 53rd out of 58 counties with 1,728 students per counselor.

Maura MacDonald, at University High in Irvine--one of the top-ranked schools in the county--said she works with 750 of the school’s 2,400 students.

“With my caseload, I may see a student in October for her senior interview and then the senior will come back in the spring and tell me what college accepted her,” MacDonald said. “I’m lucky if I can come up with a name.”

MacDonald and the three other counselors at the school have heavy academic duties. They plan four years of courses for freshmen, meet with the families of each sophomore, plan for colleges with juniors and then go through rigorous application processes and letters of recommendations for seniors.

When crises occur, however, the counseling team puts paperwork second, she said.

“You always have family issues, you always have pregnancy or kids with chronic depression,” she said. “But sometimes they need an empathetic listener and you just find a way to clear the schedule and put them in.”

Though the American School Counselor Assn. recommends a student-to-counselor ratio of 300 to 1, most counselors work with 500 to 600 high school and middle school students. And most elementary schools don’t have any counselors; those that do may have one per 1,000 children.

Alcene Looper, a guidance counselor for 30 years at Katella High School in Anaheim, began in 1969 with a caseload of about 350 students and today has 600.

“I could probably do a much more in-depth job in every aspect of counseling if I had a smaller caseload,” she said.

Students’ most basic needs still are met, many counselors say, but the extra attention that helps them through crises or to excel during troubled times is harder to provide.

Years ago, when counselors at University High had about 400 students each, they also ran group sessions for parents and students facing special difficulties. Those included bereavement groups for students who lost loved ones, meetings for those whose parents were divorcing and groups for eating disorders. Now almost all the groups are gone.

The number of school counselors began to decline in the early 1980s, after Proposition 13 rolled back property taxes in California. Counselors, along with nurses, librarians and art and music teachers, were the first targeted for budget cuts. Since then, growing demands for smaller class sizes, new textbooks and computers have prevented districts from restoring those cutbacks.

“The cutbacks occur because most administrators have other priorities,” said Milton Wilson, a consultant with the state Department of Education. The department itself has been part of the trend--it eliminated its pupil services branch in 1991.

But the continuing dearth of counselors is the result of increased enrollment rather than more staff reductions.

Over the past six years, the number of counselors at middle and high schools actually has risen by 8%, Wilson said, but enrollment has increased 10%.

At Corona del Mar High School, where three counselors work with about 1,700 students in grades seven through 12, parents and educators belonging to the school’s foundation paid to have a full-time college counselor brought on staff.

The other counselors also do college preparation work, but they now have more time to focus on crises that may arise, said Assistant Principal Mary Ann Archibold.

“A lot of what our counselors do isn’t school-related--it has to do with family tension, eating disorders, true deviant behavior,” she said.

Students today are not necessarily facing more problems than before, Archibold said, but they have fewer resources to help solve them.

“Kids have issues. They need someone to talk to, and often there’s no one there. In past years we used more of our churches and community resources for that, but the burden has shifted now to the schools,” she said.

“Do we need more counselors? Sure, we could always use more. But the larger issue is that kids need more [attention]. They need much more than they’re getting, but I’m not sure it has to necessarily be at the school.”

In the wake of last month’s Columbine High massacre in Littleton, however, educators and politicians are reevaluating the role of counselors and trying to increase funding for them. State legislators are pushing a bill to add counselors at the elementary level and reduce the ratio to 450 to 1.

Paul Gussman of the state Department of Education said that with fewer and fewer counselors, children suffer.

“More at-risk behavior is showing up at school, such as drugs, alcohol, neo-Nazism,” Gussman said. “Counselors can help parents and teachers and kids to reduce that behavior. If they are not there, who does it?”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Counselor Deficit

Orange County public schools have one of the worst student-to-counselor ratios in the state, ranking 53rd out of 58 counties.

Student-to-counselor ratios for selected counties, 1997-1998

*--*

County (rank) Student-to-Counselor Ratio Armador (1) 589-to-1 San Luis Obispo(10) 817-to-1 San Diego (11) 818-to-1 San Bernardino (20) 942-to-1 Los Angeles (22) 986-to-1 Riverside (23) 996-to-1 Ventura (26) 1064-to-1 Santa Barbara (45) 1,325-to-1 Orange (53) 1,728-to-1 STATEWIDE AVERAGE 1,056-to-1

*--*

Average percentage of counselor’s time spent on:

*--*

Middle school/Junior High High school Academic counseling 37% Career and vocational 13 21 Personal and social 46 25

*--*

Source: California State Board of Education