SCHOOLS: Counselors critical to success

National School Counseling Week is being celebrated this week to focus attention on the unique contribution of professional school counselors. National School Counseling Week highlights the tremendous impact school counselors can have in helping students achieve academic success and plan for a career.

Recently, school counselors have been eliminated in Region 1, specifically Boundary County and Lake Pend Oreille School districts. School counselors are key in helping students and teachers to prevent and overcome barriers to learning, so that all students have the opportunity to learn and succeed.

Research documents that high-quality school counseling services:

• increase academic achievement and student well-being;

• improve student behavior;

• reduce bullying and other disruptive behavior;

• foster more productive school environments; and

• narrow the college-access gap between lower-income and higher-income student groups.

With education budgets and families reeling in the wake of the recession, schools need more, not fewer, school counselors to enable students to come to school ready to learn, to stay in school and to succeed. Nationally, the average student-to-counselor ratio is 457 to 1, nearly double the American Counseling Association's recommended ratio of 250 to 1. We must do better, now more than ever.

School counselors provide students with essential services, academic development, social/emotional development and college/career development. School counselors provide consultation, collaboration and coordination with teachers, principals, families and community-based professionals who provide services for students and families requiring more extensive support.

It is vital that you work with your local school boards to prevent and/or restore cuts to school counseling programs.

KELLI AIKEN

Coeur d'Alene