Background: School counselors develop and lead comprehensive guidance and counseling programs that focus on the academic, career, personal, and social needs of all students.  Along with school psychologists and school social workers, school counselors are involved in multitiered systems of support for academic and behavioral skills.  Together, this group also focuses on student mental health, works with at-risk and marginalized students, performs risk assessments, and collaborates with mental health professionals to promote student achievement and create a safe learning environment.  State law encourages, where possible, responsibilities such as data input and tracking, to be handled by non-licensed, non-certified staff to provide time for counselors to prioritize activities requiring direct student contact.

Summary of Bill: Each school district must develop and implement a written plan for a comprehensive school counseling program by the beginning of the 2022-23 school year.  The school counseling program must be based on regularly updated standards developed by a national organization representing school counselors.

Written Plan.  The written plan must:

• define school counselor competencies, student mindset and behavior standards for learning, and school counselor ethics standards;
• establish a comprehensive school counseling program that uses state and nationally recognized counselor frameworks and is systemically aligned to state learning standards;
• provide a process for identifying student needs through a multilevel school data review and analysis that includes, at a minimum, use-of-time data; program results data; and data regarding communication with administrators, parents, students, and stakeholders;
• explain how direct and indirect services will be delivered through the comprehensive school counseling program; and
• establish an annual review and assessment process for the comprehensive school counseling program that includes building administrators and stakeholders.

Plan Implementation.  The written plan must be implemented by school counselors, who must spend at least 80 percent of their work time providing direct and indirect services to benefit students.  The remainder of work time must be spent on school counseling program support consisting of professional development, lesson plan development, and data analysis.

Direct services are in-person interactions between school counselors and students that help students improve achievement, attendance, and discipline.  Examples include instruction, appraisal, advisement, and counseling.  Indirect services are provided on behalf of students as a result of the school counselor's interactions with others.  Examples include collaboration, consultation, and referrals.

Guidance and Transition.  By December 1, 2021, the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, in collaboration with a nonprofit organization representing school directors, must develop and distribute policy guidance for school districts developing and implementing a written plan.

Prior to the 2022-23 school year, each school district board of directors must, within existing funds, develop a transition plan for developing and implementing the comprehensive school counseling program plan.