School Counselor

School Counselor

Reports to:

Principal and/or Counseling Supervisor

Purpose:

To help all students develop skills in the areas of personal-social growth, educational planning, and career and vocational development.

Duties and Responsibilities

1. Program Planning

The school counselor establishes the school-counseling program and develops activities and resources to implement and evaluate the program. The school counselor involves other school staff in making decisions about the school counseling program.

2. Counseling

The school counselor provides individual and group counseling services to meet the developmental, preventive, and remedial needs of students.

3. Consulting

The school counselor consults with students, parents, teachers, and other school and community personnel to assist in meeting the needs of students.

4. Coordinating

The school counselor coordinates all counseling services for students and assists with the coordination and implementation of student services in the school. The counselor also assists teachers with the Guidance Curriculum.

5. Student Appraisal

The school counselor accurately interprets test results and other student data. The counselor also assists teachers with the educational placement of students by using appropriate educational assessment strategies.

6. Professional Practices and Development

The school counselor adheres to ethical standards of the counseling profession, and abides by the laws, policies, and procedures that govern the schools. The school counselor also participates in professional associations and upgrades professional knowledge and skills when needed.

Minimum Training and Experience

Master's degree in school counseling or:

1. Enrollment in an accredited school counselor preparation program and completion of a minimum of 24 graduate semester hours of that program; OR

2. Completion of a master's degree in addiction; career; clinical mental health; clinical rehabilitation; college counseling and student affairs; marriage, couple, and family counseling; or rehabilitation counseling from a regionally accredited college or university and enrollment in an accredited school counselor preparation program to complete additional master's level courses needed to add school counseling specialization.

Both options require completion of remaining school counselor preparation program requirements within three years.

Special Requirements

Must be licensed by the State of North Carolina Department of Public Instruction in counseling or able to obtain licensure in this area.

Minimum Qualifications or Standards Required to Perform Essential Job Functions

Physical Requirements:

Must be physically able to operate a variety of equipment including computers, typewriters, copiers, calculators, etc.

Must be able to exert up to 10 pounds of force occasionally, and/or a negligible amount of force constantly to lift, carry, push, and pull or otherwise move objects, including the human body.

Light Work usually requires walking or standing to a significant degree.

Data Conception:

Requires the ability to compare and/or judge the readily observable, functional, structural or composite characteristics (whether similar or divergent from obvious standards) of data, people or things.

Interpersonal Communication:

Requires the ability to speak and/or signal people to convey or exchange information. Includes receiving instructions, assignments or directions.

Language Ability:

Requires the ability to read a variety of correspondence, reports, forms, press releases, etc.

Requires the ability to prepare correspondence, reports, forms, etc., using prescribed formats and conforming to all rules of punctuation, grammar, diction, and style.

Requires the ability to speak before groups of people with poise, voice control and confidence.

Intelligence:

Requires the ability to apply principles of logical or scientific thinking to define problems, collect data, establish facts, and draw valid conclusions; to interpret an extensive variety of technical instructions in mathematical or diagrammatic form; and to deal with several abstract and concrete variables.

Verbal Aptitude:

Requires the ability to record and deliver information, to…