Senate Honors School Counselors

On January 31, the Senate approved, by voice vote, a resolution (S. Res. 360) designating the week of February 6 through February 10, 2006, as “National School Counseling Week.” The resolution applauds school counselors for guiding students academically and socially, but warns that the school counselor position “is often among the first to be eliminated in order to meet budgetary constraints.”

Sponsored by Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), the resolution contains a number of findings, including:

• The Senate has recognized the importance of school counseling through the inclusion of elementary and secondary school counseling programs in the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965;
• School counselors are usually the only professionals in a school building who are trained in both education and mental health matters;
• School counselors have been instrumental in helping students, teachers, and parents deal with the trauma that was inflicted upon them by Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma; and
• The national average ratio of students to school counselors of 478-to-1 is more than double the 250 to 1 ratio recommended by the American School Counselor Association, the American Counseling Association, the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, and other organizations.Describing the resolution as “merely the beginning of what we need to be doing to support school counselors,” Sen. Murray stated, “We need to reduce the ratio of students to counselors to, at the most, 250 to 1. We need to help schools maintain their funding so that school counselors are not cut from school budgets. And we need to support our school counselors so that they can continue to be integral in the fabric of our schools and help our students achieve success in high school and beyond.”