BUILDING HIGH-QUALITY SCHOOL COUNSELING PROGRAMS TO ENSURE STUDENT SUCCESS - Brief No. 21 - Key Insights

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Connor

Evidence brief on how schools and districts can ensure student success through high-quality K-12 counseling programs, especially during and after the novel coronavirus pandemic. It explains what school counselors do across academic, social-emotional, and postsecondary domains and summarizes research linking counselor access to improved outcomes. It highlights inequitable access, COVID-19 related constraints, and widening student needs, then outlines strategies to consider and avoid for designing effective, targeted counseling support.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages7

Reading Time18 min

AccessFree to download

Central Question

Key Insights

Breaking Down the Issue

Strategies to Consider

Strategies to Avoid

EdResearch For Recovery January 2022 BUILDING HIGH-QUALITY SCHOOL COUNSELING PROGRAMS TO ENSURE STUDENT SUCCESS Mandy Savitz-Romer & Tara P. Nicola | Harvard Graduate School of Education Brief No. 21 This brief is one in a series aimed at providing K-12 education decision makers and advocates with an evidence base to ground discussions about how to best serve students during and following the novel coronavirus pandemic. Click here to learn more about the EdResearch for Recovery Project and view the set of COVID-19 response-andrecovery topic areas and practitioner-generated questions. ~~ ~~CENTRAL~~ ~~QUESTION~~ ~~ How can schools and districts ensure that all students benefit from school counseling programs? KEY INSIGHTS Breaking Down the Issue Access to school counselors improves academic outcomes, social-emotional development, and postsecondary enrollment. The students who could benefit the most from counselors typically have the least access to them. During COVID-19, virtual work and added noncounseling duties have further limited students’access to school counselors while student needs have accumulated. Strategies to Consider Strategies to Avoid The most effective counseling Supplemental college programs focus comprehensively access programs run by on academic, social-emotional, community organizations and postsecondary domains in can actually increase addition to being preventative inequities in access when and using data to better target they are not well student needs. integrated into school- When designing a based programs. comprehensive counseling Assigning counselors program, schools can rely on non-counseling tasks existing, validated, counselor-led deprives students of interventions in all three critical counseling [counseling domains. support](counseling domains. support). Lowering student-to-counselor Simply hiring more ratios improves student counselors without outcomes and promotes clarifying their counselor efficacy. professional roles is When school and district leaders insufficient. understand the scope of the counselor role, build strong relationships with counselors, and support their professional growth, counselors are better positioned to fulfill their jobs. EdResearch for Recovery-January 2022 1 EdResearch For Recovery ~~ ~~BREAKING~~ ~~DOWN~~ ~~THE~~ ~~ISSUE~~ ~~ Access to school counselors improves academic outcomes, social-emotional development, and postsecondary enrollment. School counselors’ work centers on promoting student academic, social-emotional, and postsecondary development. Counselors foster academic success through hosting study skills workshops, identifying and supporting struggling students, and reducing barriers to accessing rigorous coursework. Counselors promote students’ social-emotional development through conducting individual and group counseling as well as offering classroom lessons and school-wide programming concerning suicide prevention, substance abuse, consent and healthy relationships, and racial/ethnic identity development. Counselors also shape the postsecondary trajectories of students through building college-going cultures, strengthening students’ college aspirations, and providing assistance with all facets of the college application process. What counselors do varies by grade level. Counselors in high schools tend to devote more time to postsecondary preparation whereas elementary and middle school counselors tend to focus on socialemotional development. Research has consistently linked access to school counselors and the programs they offer with positive outcomes across these three domains. Numerous studies demonstrate that the social-emotional learning programming counselors implement can lead to improvements in both students’ wellbeing and their academic performance. Students who engage with a counselor are more likely to consider college as a possibility, complete the Free Appl

FAQs

What central issue does the brief address about school counseling programs?

It focuses on how schools and districts can ensure that all students benefit from school counseling programs.

Which outcomes are linked to access to school counselors?

Access to school counselors is associated with improved academic outcomes, social-emotional development, and postsecondary enrollment.

How did COVID-19 affect students’ access to counseling?

Virtual work and added non-counseling duties further limited students’ access to school counselors as student needs increased across the academic, social-emotional, and postsecondary domains.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Connor