ANALYSIS OF DISTRICT COUNSELING SUPPORT PROGRAM Response to Questions & Feedback Shared

Transcription

1 ANALYSIS OF DISTRICT COUNSELING SUPPORT PROGRAM Response to Questions & Feedback Shared San Luis Coastal Unified School District Student Support Services Educational Services May 2014

2 Response to Counseling/Guidance Support Plan Concerns By, Rick Robinett, Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services Chris Dowler, Deputy Director of Student Support Services This analysis is intended to address some of the issues that were raised during the May 6, 2014, Board of Education meeting. This summary analysis is an effort to present a comprehensive argument on behalf of the plan as outlined in our proposed Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP). We have organized this into several sections: History (how did we arrive at this current allocation and recommendation) Details of the LCAP proposal, also addressing those queries raised by Trustee Ungar regarding differentiated allocations Response to specific concerns raised by the public and staff Typical duties and referral processes at each school level (Trustee Rodgers requested this specific level of detail to better understand the model) Comparison data in the State of California to give perspective on services and also to address Trustee Millar s request to properly identify an adequate level of service. History of Counseling in San Luis Coastal Rick Robinett San Luis Coastal has had a rich allocation of school counselors over the years. The entire counseling and guidance model here has been historically staffed by the school counselor, an individual holding a credential in Pupil Personnel Services. This credential is issued by the Commission on Teacher Credentialing and authorizes the holder (for grades 12 and below) to: provide school-wide academic intervention strategies; advocate for the social development of students; provide consultation to teachers regarding student needs; supervise advisory programs; and develop, plan, implement, and evaluate a school counseling and guidance program that includes academic, career, personal, and social development. The school counselor is not authorized to provide what we typically think of as counseling, e.g., providing a therapeutic relationship for students. In fact, most lawsuits involving school districts and school counselors arise when the lines between providing academic support and behavioral support blur with therapeutic and/or personal confidentiality issues. Beginning around 1979, and coinciding with the onerous budget cuts of Proposition 13, there has been a slow move away from the school counselor model in much of the state. I was quite surprised when I came to San Luis Coastal to find that we still had this robust counseling allocation. Coming from Orange County, I had worked in much larger middle schools with no school counselor, and at a high school of 2,900 with one school counselor, while other individuals in classified ranks provided additional services. It was the norm there. As the assistant principal of San Luis Obispo High School, I absolutely loved what we had here. I supervised three full-time counselors for about 1,700 students.

3 The ratio in 1995 was between 550 to 600 students per high school counselor. We had a similar ratio at the middle school level. In 2001, (the boon year for categorical programs), the State allocated funds, specifically to add secondary counselors into our schools. I remember talking to my former colleagues in Capistrano Unified, because they had to create new job descriptions and bring back a counseling model they had abandoned in order to receive these funds. San Luis Coastal added six additional secondary counselors to our schools. Our secondary counseling ratio went to 275:1. These state funds went away several years ago, but we kept our staffing ratio in place until last year s budget cut. Between the early 1990s and 2009, our elementary school counseling program was a sitebased decision. School Site Council (SSC) funds flowed to all of our elementary schools per ADA. Some sites used funds for part-time school counselors. No site chose to have more than a 50% counselor allocation. These were considered temporary positions, and the elementary counselors were terminated at the end of each year. The School Site Council would decide how much time/money to allocate for the following school year. As the existing counselors moved along the SLCTA salary schedule, it became quite expensive for the sites to afford this. Around 2005, we decided to augment elementary counseling with general fund dollars. Schools would pay half the cost, and the general fund would make up the rest. Schools still had the ability to decide the level of allocation. At this point, we had one elementary school (Pacheco) that decided to hire a full-time counselor. Most schools kept the 50% FTE model. A few (Hawthorne, Monarch Grove, Sinsheimer) hired less than 50% and put their site funds into intervention programs. As part of our Strategic Initiatives for Student Success, we made a major shift. We increased the district general fund contribution for elementary school counselors from 50% to 75% as part of our culture of care initiative. This enabled most sites to hire a full-time elementary counselor. At the same time, the Fresno Unified vs. CTA decision was handed down, which decreed that positions like these could no longer be deemed temporary. Soft funding that could go away each year was no longer a justification for keeping an individual from tenure rights. Most of our elementary counselors became permanent employees. Because of last year s budget cuts, we increased both our elementary and secondary counseling ratios considerably. We returned to a secondary allocation that was pre-2001, and returned to an elementary model that was pre-2011 (though funded entirely by the general fund). We also began a model of providing a tiered intervention of supports (which will be described later) by defining roles and responsibilities that could be carried out by other employees, and by contracting services for both therapeutic and group counseling to be provided by outside agencies with this level of expertise and specific training.

4 In my view, and in the view of our Student Support Services department and majority of site principals, this model has been highly successful. The use of both outside non-profit agencies, district bilingual family advocates, and increased community connections has provided better supports for student needs. If anything, we need to expand these augmented services (at a fraction of the cost of school counselors) and further refine the important roles the school counselor can and should play in a comprehensive counseling and guidance program. Proposal of our Refined Design in the LCAP Chris Dowler The elementary schools with the largest numbers of students qualifying for free or reduced lunch in San Luis Coastal are: Baywood, Del Mar, Hawthorne, and C.L. Smith. These schools should receive three days-per-week school counseling time and 1.5 days-per-week of a contracted therapist. This would still ensure Bishop s Peak, Los Ranchos, Monarch Grove, Pacheco, and Sinsheimer each receive two days a week of a school counselor. Teach will have a school counselor one day a week. Bishop s Peak, Monarch Grove, Pacheco, and Sinsheimer will all receive one day a week of contracted therapist support. At the secondary levels Morro Bay and San Luis Obispo high schools have comparable school counselor and support counseling positions. Shifting the.3 school counselor position from Pacific Beach to Los Osos Middle School will level the counselor-to-student ratios between Laguna and Los Osos Middle School. In addition, Laguna should receive 2.5 days a week of a contracted therapist to mirror the Prevention and Early Intervention (PEI) Student Assistance Program at Los Osos Middle School. Pacific Beach High School traditionally had a school counselor who was also a licensed mental health therapist. This past year the school counselor only has a standard school counselor Pupil Personnel Services (PPS) credential. This type of credentialing, with a focus on school guidance functions, is unnecessary at Pacific Beach due to the unique nature of teachers advisory roles with students. Given the concentration of risk factors among students at Pacific Beach, supporting their mental health issues is a greater priority. Mental health issues are better addressed by using a contracted therapist 2.5 days a week. Response to Issues Raised at May 6, 2014, Board of Education Meeting Chris Dowler Concerns expressed by school staff at the May 6, 2014 Board meeting fall into the following categories: 1. Student behaviors have become more extreme over the past several years 2. Student needs have become more intense over the past several years 3. Therapist interns are unqualified to replace school counselors 4. Student access is reduced because there are too few counselors to meet the needs of all the students

5 Responses to these concerns: 1. We record school suspensions as the uniform historical measurement of student behaviors. During the school year, there were 510 suspensions district-wide. The largest single category of suspensions district-wide was Ed Code 48900(k), defiance or disruption. Offenses under Ed Code (a)-(e), representing the most serious of suspendable incidents ranging from fighting to possession of weapons, accounted for 205 suspensions. During the school year, suspensions for defiance or disruption were reduced in half, and (a)-(e) suspensions were reduced by 10% to 185. This clearly shows a reduction in the quantity of serious disciplinary incidents, for which we do not implement in-school suspension or other means of correction. In response to the statement that our suspension numbers are skewed by not reporting in-school suspensions at elementary schools, our reports show that in-school suspensions are rarely used in the elementary setting. During the school year, in-school suspensions were implemented twice at one elementary school during the entire year for one student with ongoing classroom disruptions. So far this year in-school suspensions have only been used three times at the elementary level. This small number of in-school suspensions could not account for the overall reduction of reported disciplinary incidents. Overall, my analysis of District disciplinary data leads me to conclude that the number of behavioral incidents, as well as the severity of these incidents, is actually declining district-wide. 2. It is difficult to objectively account for student needs as we do not have a uniform measurement tool. The most available method of analyzing student needs would identify at-risk student demographics (Hispanic, EL, Homeless, and Socio- Economically Disadvantaged) and compare current demographic sizes to those in the past. I have collected these demographics since the school year. SLCUSD Statistics Hispanic EL Homeless SED 25% 14% 5% 33% SLCUSD Statistics Hispanic EL Homeless SED 27% 15% 7% 36% During this span a 1% difference in a student enrollment accounts for 71 students. When spread district wide, these differences ranging from 1% - 3% (71-213), do not represent a widespread demographic shift of significantly increased at-risk student enrollment in SLCUSD. This data does not support the claim that student needs have significantly increased over the past four years.

6 3. Two common themes emerged around the topic of contracted intern-therapist (prelicensed therapists): they are replacing school counselors; and they are not qualified to provide service to students. To address the first issue, I stated in my presentation that therapists are not school counselors and school counselors are not therapists. Their roles are distinct and different. School counselors are experts at working with students providing schoolbased supports for school-related issues. When these issues or concerns are more significant than the school counselor s scope of practice can address, support for this student is better provided by a therapist. School counselors are not mental health professionals; pre-licensed therapists are. Even the American School Counselors Association states it is inappropriate for school counselors to provide therapy or longterm counseling to address psychological disorders. Our contracted therapist interns have focused on individual and small-group counseling in areas such as stress management, coping and social skills, strategies to deal with grief and loss, anger management, conflict resolution, substance abuse, and behavioral awareness with over 400 elementary and secondary students this past school year. The utilization of therapist interns in schools is widespread across the country and even in San Luis Obispo County. The claim that pre-licensed or therapist interns are inappropriately qualified to serve the needs of students is an uninformed assertion. In order to qualify as a therapist intern one must first complete a two-year post-graduate level program and 400 hours of closely supervised training providing direct service to clients. Once completed, they are eligible to complete their 3,500 hours of a clinically supervised internship, again providing clients with direct service. These internships are frequently paid as these individuals are considered highly qualified. SLCUSD contracts for intern therapists through the Women s Shelter of San Luis Obispo and County Behavioral Health. Both programs provide a high level of clinical supervision, a wide range of experience working in schools throughout the County, and evidence-based results. These two service providers are also considered the best intern therapist programs in the county. 4. The assertion that students have insufficient access to school counselors is also incorrect. In the past year our high school counselors had individual contact with nearly 85% of students, mostly in the area of academic support. During this same period, middle school counselors worked individually with over 40% of their school populations. The difference can be accounted for by the distinct type of services provided to students at these two levels. High school counselors focus primarily on academic counseling, while middle school counselors provide more targeted and timeintensive services such as personal and at-risk counseling. Elementary counselors provide individual or small group support to 11% of students enrolled at each school site each month. In addition to direct student service,

7 elementary counselors spend a significant amount of time in consultation with teachers, parents, and site principals as well as delivering classroom lessons. Since this is the very first year counselors have collected this data, it would be impossible to say how this school year compares to years in the past. However, this baseline data demonstrates our school counselors ability to make individual contact with a significant number of students district-wide. We will use this information to improve our school counselors service delivery systems and overall efficiency. An example of this effort would address the issue of disparity in elementary school counselors functions. For instance, the duties of school counselors at Baywood and Hawthorne elementary schools are very different based on each counselor s preference. The functions of these positions should be more similar than distinct. Once we work with site principals to organize their counselors duties we will be able to maximize their ability to support students. Specific Detail as to How a Student Accesses Services at Each School Level Chris Dowler Elementary counselors primarily address social-emotional and behavioral issues. If a student is struggling in class, the teacher will consult with the school counselor to get ideas about how to better address this student s issues. If the situation continues, the teacher will refer the student to the school principal. The principal then will work with the teacher, school counselor, and possibly a Family Advocate from our Family Resource Center, to determine appropriate levels of service. If more intensive intervention is warranted, the school counselor will place the student into a support group or individual counseling appointments based on the student s issues. If the student is still not responding to this intervention, the student will be referred to an on-site therapist or a private therapist, if the family has the financial means. If the student s family needs additional supports to help provide stability, the family is referred to a Family Advocate who will meet with the family at the school site or the Family Resource Center to help coordinate supports. We have made it a priority to hire bilingual Family Advocates and to bring services to the school site as opposed to having families travel to one of our resource centers. Due to our small elementary schools, site-principals have the responsibility to ensure that timely and effective academic and behavioral interventions for our most needy students are in place. Middle school counselors work addressing academic and social-emotional issues. Students work with the school counselor on course scheduling, academic skills, peer interactions, conflict resolution, anger management, and other age-level-appropriate topics. Middle school counselors are essential in working with academically at-risk students. Students are typically referred by teachers due to class-related concerns, by site administration for discipline incidents, or by parents. The school counselor will refer students to an on-site therapist if the student needs are beyond their scope of practice relating to trauma, serious family issues, or just require longer and consistently scheduled appointments.

8 Currently at two elementary schools and both middle schools, site administration meets with the school counselors, the site s assigned Family Advocate or Melissa Musgrave (Family Services Resource Coordinator), and possibly the site s contracted therapist, twice a month to review the site s most at-risk students to coordinate and target interventions and services. These meetings are an attempt to not only help students at school, but also link their families with stabilizing supports through our Family Resource Center system. It is our goal to expand this process model to all of our elementary schools next school year. High school counselors work mostly addressing academic issues such as course scheduling, college or career preparation, and college admissions. They are an essential lifeline to students and parents navigating graduation requirements, post-graduation planning, and coordinating supports that the student may need with very important adolescent issues. They refer students to student assistance groups for substance abuse or other issues, and make medical and therapeutic referrals. They work directly with students on behavioral or social-emotional issues, but to a much lesser degree than elementary or middle school counselors. The high school counselor duties are those most associated with the actual Pupil Personnel Services credential description. How do we Compare? Rick Robinett I used data from the California Department of Education, DataQuest, and Ed-Data to analyze comparable unified districts using different benchmark measurements to see counselor to student ratios in elementary, middle, and high schools. I compared several data sets. There are about 6 million public school students in California in roughly 9,900 schools and 1,000 districts. Our district counseling to student ratio is: Elementary: 1:854 Middle 1:496 High 1:447 Data Set 1: Unified School Districts with Revenue per ADA +/- 2% of SLCUSD ($10,572) Rationale: We are a fairly well-off school district, but not as wealthy as some other basic aid districts. How does our counseling allocation look compared to other districts who receive about as much revenue per student as we do? San Luis Coastal has the lowest overall counselor to student ratio at all levels. The closest comparative district is Santa Monica-Malibu. Only at the high school level do they have a lower ratio. For example, Malibu High School has five counselors serving 1,170 students. The middle school ratio is higher than ours. They have no elementary counselors. All

9 other districts in this comparison had considerably higher rates. elementary counselors. No district had Data Set 2: Unified District Classroom Teacher Staffing +/- 10% of SLCUSD Rationale: We have some of the lowest overall student to teacher ratios in the state. Counting special education teachers, our teacher ratio is 19.3:1. We have heard from teachers indicating that students needing emotional help are impacting their classes. How do we compare with similarly-staffed school districts? Of all these comparison districts, San Luis Coastal has the highest per-pupil spending. This means that we not only have low class size ratios, but we have rich programs supporting those students. There is no school district close to us in counselor to student ratio. The closest example would be Milpitas Unified in Santa Clara County. They do not have elementary counselors in their district. They have a middle school ratio of 740:1 and a high school ratio of 600:1. Data Set 3: Unified Districts with Site-Administrator ratios +/- 10% of SLCUSD Rationale: We have small schools. What we know about small schools is that student safety is typically more assured, students are known, and the principal can take a larger role on campus than just managing the site. How do we compare with districts with small schools? The most striking statistic has to do with student success. We compare very favorably with regard to academic performance, attendance, graduation rates, completion of a-g requirements, etc. Carpinteria Unified School District is the only district in this comparison band which has a lower counselor to student ratio at both the middle and high school levels. For example, at Carpinteria Middle School, there are two counselors for 485 students. They do not have elementary school counselors. In fact, no district with this level of site principal ratio had elementary counselors. Data Set 4: Unified Districts with student enrollment +/- 5% of SLCUSD Rationale: Plain and simple, how does a district of our size compare? This is a fairly large data-set. There is only one district remotely close to San Luis Coastal with regard to counselor to student ratio. Moorpark Unified School District in Ventura County is strikingly similar to San Luis Coastal in many ways. Our demographics closely mirror theirs. They have almost exactly our enrollment. We are different with regard to size of school, however. Generally speaking, their schools have twice as many students as ours. They do have one elementary ratio that is at 650:1 and a middle and high school ratio that is close to 525:1, so they can be regarded as fairly similar.

10 Data Set 5: All Unified School districts with a counselor:student ratio that is lower than San Luis Coastal Rationale: How many districts have a richer school counselor ratio? What is that ratio? This query only returned six school districts. I am not sure I trust that small a number, so I wonder about some of the reporting accuracy. But, even if it is close to true, it shows that we are fairly remarkable and unique in the richness of our personnel allocation. Of the six districts, we can throw away three of them as un-comparable. Alpine County Unified is in the remotest forested area of California. They have 97 elementary students and have a school counselor. The revenue limit for the district is over $30,000 per ADA. Princeton Joint Unified in Markleeville also has only 207 students. They have a school counselor for their 7-12 school of 108 students. Emery Unified in the Oakland area is in one of the poorest regions in the state. They have 721 students, virtually all minority and socio-economically disadvantaged. They also have school counselors. Of the three that could possibly be compared to San Luis Coastal, Tahoe-Truckee and San Marcos Unified are the closest. (San Francisco Unified is the other district, and with nearly 57,000 students and an extremely wide range of types of schools, academy programs, district charters, etc., it is very hard to generalize their ratios --- they are different from site to site.) Tahoe-Truckee Unified has better ratios at the middle and high school district. They have elementary counselors also, at a similar ratio to SLCUSD. This is a district that has had huge district office and superintendent turnover over the last three years. San Marcos Unified in San Diego has an ADA of 19,000 students. The ratio at the high schools is very favorable --- they have put their efforts there, about 250:1. The middle school ratio is 875:1. They have no elementary counselors. Data Set 6: Two other districts that get talked about Carlsbad Unified in San Diego County is a school district we are often compared with because of the similar demographic in a coastal community. They have no elementary counselors. Palo Alto Unified is often used by SLCTA as a basic aid district that we should emulate because of their salary schedule. They are one of the richer unified basic aid districts. Palo Alto does not have elementary counselors. They instead contract out for mental health services, relying on mental health interns to service their elementary schools. According to their web-site, we offer free, comprehensive site-based counseling supports to students. These services are provided by licensed and pre-licensed mental health professionals and include assessments, ongoing counseling, crisis intervention and treatment, mental health education and consultation to children, families and school staff. This is exactly the model we have begun and want to expand under our LCAP plan.

11 CONCLUSION: We believe our counseling support program as proposed in the LCAP for is an appropriate and effective response to support students in our district. It is a far more substantial support system than virtually all school districts in the State of California. While it is still an evolving system, we feel confident that it will meet the needs of our students and families. Unless we believe that, among the 1,000 school districts in the state of California, we are uniquely beleaguered by emotionally charged students, or that our existing counselors are uniquely unable to manage their caseloads, or that our small schools are uniquely ill-suited to take care of the counseling and guidance needs of our children, then we should not be seriously considering a change to a school counselor model that is already one of the best. We should instead continue to refine more cost-effective, systemic, and community-based supports for our students and focus our energy on what research suggests is the best support to students: powerful classroom instruction.