MESA, Ariz. — It's no secret Arizona schools are struggling to hire teachers, but there's other essential positions outside of the classroom that are just as badly needed.
“Look at our job postings and you can see that there are vacancies right now that we are unable to fill," Mesa Public Schools Director of Opportunity and Achievement Michael Garcia said.
Mesa Public Schools and other districts around the Valley are looking to hire more school counselors.
Garcia said there aren't enough certified school counselors to fill the need.
“Really a call from our community that as they were showing up to our schools they were just having and expressing needs that are best suited by school counselors to address," Garcia said.
The American School Counselor Association recommends a student-to-counselor ratio of 250 to 1.
Arizona's ratio during the 2021-2022 school year was 651 to 1.
“School counselors have a very unique perspective on holistic care for students and holistic wellness in terms of attendance and academics and behavior that might contribute to a student’s academic success," Garcia said.
Mesa Public Schools was awarded funding for 21 school counseling positions from the state's School Safety Grant.
The district opened the new positions, but can't fill them all.
"The supply really hasn't been able to keep up with the demand," Garcia said.
That's why Garcia turned to Arizona State University.
“At the beginning of last school year, I wrote a letter of request to them you know asking them to explore the opportunity," Garcia said.
An opportunity for ASU to make it easier for graduates to obtain a school counseling certificate.
“There was just a greater need to have more professionals with the certifications necessary to fill in the jobs that we needed," Garcia said.
ASU listened.
“Considering the need, everything was sped up for this approval process," said Ayşe Çiftçi, director of ASU’s School of Counseling and Counseling Psychology.
In the last year, ASU's College of Integrative Sciences and Arts expanded its current counseling master's program to allow students to choose a concentration in school counseling.
“We have a couple of students right now who are current students who have opted to begin the school counseling track which is actually really exciting so they’ll be our first, very small cohort and then we’ll be accepting applications for the fall," ASU Master's Counseling Program Training Director Jen Pereira said.
Pereira said the students who opt to take the school counseling track will take elective courses written with the help of current school counselors and the Arizona Department of Education.
“The thing that’s really exciting about it is when they graduate, they are eligible for both licensure as a licensed professional counselor and certification as a school counselor. So, it really provides them with a lot of career opportunities both in the schools and in the community," Pereira said.
Those students will also complete internships with Mesa Public Schools, where Garcia hopes some students will stick around after graduation.
“We have seen vacancies go very long term as unfilled positions and that’s something that we’re trying to address here with increasing the pipeline of potential candidates for such a position," Garcia said.
ASU students can now enroll in the program for the Fall 2024 semester.
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