With one counselor Mrs. Elizabeth Adams on temporary maternity leave, the high school counseling office is currently operating with two counselors managing responsibilities normally divided among three, including academic advising, scheduling, college planning and student mental health support.

National recommendations from the American School Counselor Association suggest a ratio of one counselor for every 250 students. Even under normal staffing, the school exceeds that benchmark. With two counselors temporarily covering the full caseload, that ratio has increased further during one of the busiest points of the academic year.

School principal Scott Hinton said maintaining counseling services during the temporary leave has required redistributing responsibilities that normally fall within each counselor’s specialized area.

“Mrs. Adams did a great job of leaving us with a list of items and duties that she does,” Hinton said. “All the counselors obviously meet with students and have their caseload, but each one of the counselors has separate workings that they specialize in.”

He explained that beyond student meetings, each counselor also manages programs that extend across the school.

“Mr. Masters works with the NCAA. He submits all documents of every student, no matter what their caseload is, for eligibility,” Hinton said. “Mrs. Cosgrove works with exchange students, and Mrs. Adams works with all of our College Credit Plus.”

Hinton said the counselor workload has also been shaped by growing state requirements placed on schools in recent years.

“There’s been a lot of things added to what schools have to do, particularly with House Bill 123, which added several new mandates that we do here at the school,” Hinton said.

House Bill 123, also known as Ohio’s SAVE Students Act, requires schools serving grades 6 through 12 to provide annual instruction in suicide prevention, violence prevention and social inclusion, adding mandated mental health and safety programming to counselors’ responsibilities.

He said administrators are already considering adjustments for next year to help counselors spend more time directly with students.

“We are making some adjustments next year to alleviate some of those mandated items so that our counselors feel like they have more time to meet one-on-one with students, because I do believe that leads to a great deal,” Hinton said.

Masters said the work of a school counselor shifts constantly depending on student needs, seasonal deadlines and unexpected situations, especially during spring scheduling when counselors are balancing current students, incoming eighth graders and expanded course offerings.

“We’re offering a bunch of different, cool new options, but with the cool new options come lots of questions and logistical issues,” Masters said. “So from an academic or from a scheduling standpoint, there’s a lot more to manage.”

He said the temporary absence of a third counselor has added another challenge, particularly because both remaining counselors have taken on roughly half of the absent counselor’s caseload.

“The unfortunate thing, too, is we’re often just answering questions, and we’re trying to help students that we don’t have a relationship with,” Masters said. “Mrs. Adams works tirelessly to develop relationships with her students, and all of a sudden, we have a senior who has someone they are relying on, and now they’re working with us, and they don’t really know us.”

Cosgrove said that in addition to existing responsibilities, each counselor has effectively absorbed about 150 additional students and families during the leave.

“We split her caseload, so approximately 150 kids each,” Cosgrove said.

Cosgrove explained that even carefully planned days can shift quickly because of the unpredictable nature of student needs.

“So there is no typical day,” Cosgrove said. “Every day you walk in, and you have a plan, but that plan can go sideways upside down and outside in and all the things, because we’re dealing with humans, right? We’re dealing with people, and with people, it’s gonna be squiggly, because everybody’s different.”

She said the temporary staffing shortage also highlights how specialized school counseling work can be.

“Mrs. Adams is allowed to have a baby, right? She’s allowed to be on maternity leave,” Cosgrove said. “It is hard to get a sub for school counseling because it’s something that you need further training for. It’s not just like a substitute teacher.”

Alongside scheduling and academic advising, counselors continue responding to urgent mental health situations throughout the day.

“We have to constantly shift gears, and that can take an emotional toll when you shift gears constantly,” Cosgrove said. “There’s a lot of mental health stuff that we have to prioritize over answering emails around schedule questions. Even though we want to answer questions, we also want to be present for crisis situations.”

Both counselors said many student concerns currently center around scheduling, especially as students try to finalize next year’s course requests.

“I think a lot of students are panicking because of course requests,” Masters said. “We understand things can and will change. Nothing is set in stone right now. Parents and students, especially the younger students, are panicking, thinking they have to decide the next four years of their lives right now, and that’s just not the case.”

Cosgrove added that one long-term goal is improving access to information for students who may hesitate to ask for help directly.

“I am trying to push a program that I think could potentially help reach more kids so that those shy kids, the anxious kids, the kids that aren’t always fully paying attention when we’re in class but still want the information, have access to all the information,” Cosgrove said. “I want them to have access so they can make the best decisions for themselves, too.”

Both counselors emphasized that, despite the current demands, supporting students remains the center of the job.

“We care about you, and we wouldn’t be in this profession if we didn’t care,” Cosgrove said. “We care about your future, we care about your wellbeing.”

Adams is expected to return to Granville High School after spring break.