The Three Types of School Counselors: Which One Are You?

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Ever meet another school counselor and realize halfway through the conversation…
you’re not doing the same job at all?

It’s not your imagination!
Right now, the title "school counselor" covers very different realities- and depending on which kind you’re seen as, your future in this profession could look very different, too.

In this episode, we’re uncovering what’s really happening inside our profession:

• The three types of school counselors showing up on campuses today- and the hidden risks each one faces
• The national shifts happening right now (from chaplains replacing counselors to SEL being banned in some states)
• Why your professional identity matters more than ever, and what happens if you don't define it for yourself
• How to start building skills that make you harder to replace, even when the system keeps changing

Because good intentions won’t protect your job.
Being the go-to for assemblies, spirit weeks, or “positive messaging” campaigns won’t protect your role either.

Only real skill, clarity, and strategic leadership will.

If you're ready to stop hoping the system fixes itself- and start protecting the work that actually matters- this episode is for you.

Sources Consulted:

• Selected legislative bills related to school counseling, accessed via LegiScan (including AL HB 583, TX SB 559 and HB 1122, PA HB 249, IN SB 523, MS HB 286, HB 566, HB 371, HB 1533, WV HB 3507, and NV AB 298), April 2025
• American School Counselor Association (ASCA) website, accessed April 2025
• Alabama School Counselor Association (ALSCA) website, accessed April 2025

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Chapters

• 0:00 The Changing Landscape of School Counseling
• 3:30 Quiz: Identifying Your Counselor Type
• 6:46 Three Types of School Counselors Explained
• 13:59 Alarming Legislative Trends Nationwide
• 18:01 Five Ways to Protect Your Role
• 24:34 Final Thoughts and Call to Action

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:07

Have you ever met another school counselor and realized halfway through the conversation, huh, we're not doing the same job at all. These days, y'all, school counselor can mean a lot of things, and the type of school counselor that you are could decide whether you survive in this profession or whether you get steamrolled by what's coming. We are standing at a crossroads right now in school counseling. In some places, schools are able to hire chaplains instead of trained school counselors. Some states are actively fighting right now to erase social-emotional learning outright, and the organization that we thought was supposed to advocate for us is so busy promoting themselves that they're not talking about how the ground is shifting right under our feet. One of our members recently flagged something for me. It was a concerning bit of proposed legislation and it was so outrageous I thought there is no way that this could actually be true. So I went digging and what I found was it was true. But then when I checked both the ASCA website and the Alabama School Counselor Association site to see if they were talking about it, not a word More on that later in the episode, but for now I want you to know I'm going to be breaking down the three types of school counselors you see today and the strengths of each, as well as the hidden risks. I'm also gonna talk about the major shifts happening right now that are already reshaping school counseling, and what you can do to protect your role and lead with clarity when this craziness starts to get louder. If you are serious about doing school counseling work that matters, if you want to remain a real school counselor within a system that's really trying to turn you into something else, you are going to want to stick around with me for this episode.

Speaker 1: 2:23

Hey, welcome back to the School for School Counselors podcast. I'm Steph Johnson, your host, a licensed professional counselor, full-time school counselor just like you, and the creator of School for School Counselors, which seeks to help bring confidence and clarity to your role in school counseling so that you can look forward to going to work each and every day. I am so glad you're here with me for this episode and I hope it really gives you some food for thought. Now let's jump back into the three types of school counselors, because we're not all doing the same work, and right now, those differences matter more than ever. Before I start describing the characteristics of the different types of school counselors, I see I want you to listen to this and think about where you fit in. No pressure, no judgment. Just notice which descriptions sound the most like you. Let's take a quick quiz, shall we All right? So this quick four-question quiz is going to help you better identify what type of school counselor you might actually be. Here we go.

Speaker 1: 3:38

Question number one In a typical week, where do you feel most in your element? A in classrooms, teaching SEL lessons or running school-wide programs? A in classrooms, teaching SEL lessons or running school-wide programs? B running behind the scenes, making schedules, managing 504s or organizing big campus events. C one-on-one with students in crisis, consulting with teachers or working on intervention plans. Now, there's no right or wrong answer here at all, but I want you to clarify which one really resonates with you in classrooms or running programs behind the scenes, or one-on-one with students in crisis? Do you have your answer? All right, let's move on to question number two.

Speaker 1: 4:32

What's your favorite kind of success story? A a student or a teacher mentioning something they learned from your lesson. B a massive event or project that's running smoothly because of your behind-the-scenes work. Or. C a breakthrough moment with a student who trusted you enough to ask for help. All right, do you have your answers for questions one and two. We've got two more questions to go.

Speaker 1: 5:07

Question number three when you're feeling frustrated at work. Question number three when you're feeling frustrated at work, is it usually because, a you're being asked to handle crises when you'd rather focus on prevention and proactive support? B you're so swamped with logistics and paperwork that you don't have time for real conversations with students. Or? C you're being asked to stay positive when you know a student needs serious help that's being overlooked or cannot be provided. All right, these questions are getting a little bit heavier as we go on. Right, we've got one more to go. Question four if your principal described your biggest strength in one sentence, they'd probably say A they build a positive school climate. B they keep everything organized and on track. Or C they really know how to make a difference when no one else seems to know what to do. All right, keep those answers in your mind and think about which letter you picked most often. That's going to give you a clue about where you naturally fit and where your greatest strengths and risks might be showing up in your school counseling work right now. Let's walk through each type and see what it's like in the real world All right. So if you picked mostly A's, you are the SEL teacher.

Speaker 1: 6:45

You believe that emotional literacy is the foundation of all learning and you feel most effective when you're providing proactive, preventative, tier one classroom supports or tier two small groups. You're probably committed to growth mindset, trauma-informed schools or restorative practices. You love lesson plans. You love curriculumsulums, classroom collaborations and tying things in with positive behavior interventions and supports. You love leading school-wide initiatives like red ribbon week and kindness week and you love seeing yourself as shaping the school culture because you have high visibility. You you have strong teacher relationships and you love the opportunity to preemptively reach students who might fly under the radar otherwise. On the other hand, sometimes you might feel sidelined when really serious crises hit and you might be feeling frustrated when you're told to just cover classes when teachers are absent or when there needs to be a shuffling of the schedule. And you might even feel frustrated when your administrator begins to see your role as just teaching lessons.

Speaker 1: 8:09

If you are an SEL teacher type, you risk over-identifying with the teaching staff instead of the counseling profession. You're not elevating yourself to the level of expert. You may have difficulty shifting into some deeper clinical work when it's needed and you become very vulnerable when SEL becomes politicized, like it is now. As an SEL teacher, you love being in classrooms and small groups with students and it shows. But you have to show that you have more to offer than just a good SEL lesson. Offer than just a good SEL lesson All right, mostly B's is the case manager or guidance counselor role.

Speaker 1: 9:01

You believe that keeping the school running smoothly helps students succeed. You see logistics and operations as essential student supports and you measure success by efficiency, accuracy and service delivery. You are the doer on the campus. You love organizing master schedules, coordinating testing, running college fairs. You know the graduation requirements of your campus like the back of your hand and you love being the go-to problem solver for your administration. You have an incredible knowledge of school policies and procedures and you are often deeply trusted by your leadership. Because of your problem-solving capabilities You're the first one to catch small details that could become big problems on down the line. But sometimes you end up feeling like you never really get to do real counseling. Sometimes you feel buried under paperwork and compliance tasks and you feel some frustration when you try to stick your neck out and advocate just a little bit and you're being told that you're not a team player or you're rocking the boat, because in your role it's easy to mistake operational success for counseling success and you risk becoming invisible as a mental health provider as well as feeling some burnout from being everybody's fixer. If you are this case manager slash guidance counselor, you're the one that makes the building run. But it's super important that you remember that you were hired to move hearts and not just move around student schedules. All right, type three. If you had mostly C's, you might be this school counselor type, the school counselor clinician.

Speaker 1: 11:08

School counselor clinicians see themselves first and foremost as mental health professionals. They believe in student autonomy, ethical boundaries and trauma-informed interventions, and these types of school counselors value the depth of the work over the breadth of visibility. We would much rather get intentional and deep with students to solve concerns than just be visible on the campus as, for example, a tier one intervention. School counselor clinicians love individual counseling sessions. This type of counselor also loves solution-focused CBT or DBT techniques that have been adapted for school use, and counselor clinicians love complex case consultations with parents and teachers because they have strong clinical instincts and a wealth of knowledge about interventions. These folks are masters at true triage. They know when to step in, they know what to provide and they know when to refer out, and they have some pretty powerful student transformation stories that they can tell.

Speaker 1: 12:27

But this school counselor type can also feel isolated when others in the building just don't get it. They just don't understand what you do all day. They may get pushback for not doing enough school spirit or visibility activities and they find it difficult to balance ethical practice with administrative pressures. These school counselors often underestimate the value of being visible and as a result of that they also run the risk of being misunderstood or people seeing them as aloof or too intense, and they forget that political skill is part of professional survival. School counselor clinicians know what real counseling looks like and they fight for it, even when it's not popular, all right. So which school counselor type did you most closely identify with? Did you most closely identify with? Because, depending on what type of school counselor you're seen as or you're operating as right now, you may be more vulnerable or more protected than you realize. Because when the school counseling landscape changes, it doesn't matter how good you are at your job, it matters what role you're playing. There have been some national shifts in school counseling that we've been seeing over the past few years Chaplains being hired as counselors with no mental health training. That's already been legislated in Texas.

Speaker 1: 14:13

Alabama currently is pushing to ban social emotional learning outright. And ASCA yeah, I'm just going to say it. They're more focused on their branding than fighting legislation or protecting your role on campus. And these are not isolated incidents. If we zoom out and we look at what's happening across the country, we start to see a much bigger and much scarier pattern. So let me give you a little bit closer look at what's actually happening and why it should have every single one of you paying attention. Alabama's House Bill 583 bans social emotional learning and it makes violations a fireable offense. This is what I mentioned earlier in this episode, when I was talking about looking at the ASCA website and the Alabama School Counseling Association website. There was no mention of this bill. And not only does this bill explicitly ban social-emotional learning, it forbids anything having to do with ASCA or with CASEL. Let me give you another example. Pennsylvania House Bill 249 limits counseling to academics only. So we're reverting back to the guidance counselor role under this bill. Texas Senate Bill 559 and House Bill 1122 lower the school counselor to student ratios but removes the certified requirement in front of the words school counselor every time it's mentioned. Indiana Senate Bill 523 is currently seeking to place chaplains in school counseling roles, and in Mississippi and Nevada multiple bills were proposed to try to expand school counseling supports and they failed.

Speaker 1: 16:19

Imagine being a counselor hired to lead social-emotional learning initiatives on your campus and then you find out overnight that your entire program has become illegal. And then imagine that you turn to your national organization for help and nobody's home, no matter where you live. Y'all the writing is on the wall. The idea of school counselors being real mental health leaders is under attack and in some places it's almost gone. And unlike ASCA and many of our state organizations who are remaining silent about these issues, we in our School for School Counselors, mastermind, are actively paying attention and talking about the potential blowback of issues just like these. So what do we do about it? Because it's so tempting just to throw up your hands and say this is so much bigger than me. If ASCA won't confront it, how can I, but y'all, we don't have to sit back and watch this happen.

Speaker 1: 17:27

I think there are some things that we can do in light of all of these proposed changes and remember, not all of them may come to fruition, but we need to get smart about how we're leading our programs, about the types of school counselors we are and the type of school counselor we want to be. In my opinion, here are the things that we can be doing now to protect our livelihoods and student outcomes. Number one it is imperative that you sharpen your clinical skills. Crisis intervention, triage, consultation these skills are going to be non-negotiables moving forward. And one thing I want to put on your radar, especially if you're starting to think you may need to be leaning more into this counselor-clinician role is that it might be worth pursuing your clinical license, even if you never plan on leaving the schools.

Speaker 1: 18:30

Here's why Because it's not about opening a private practice or working for some sort of clinical practice. It's about building clout and confidence. It tells your campus and yourself that you're not just there to run SEL lessons or organize file folders. You are a trained mental health professional. You know how to recognize real issues, you know how to intervene appropriately and you're not guessing or winging it. When you have that deeper training under your belt and I'm speaking from experience here it changes everything. It changes the way you advocate for your role, the way you walk into meetings with administration and the way that you trust yourself when a crisis hits hits Even if you never leave your school site. That license can make you harder to sideline, harder to replace and a whole lot harder to dismiss. So if you've been thinking about that, start leaning that direction. Look at the requirements in your state and what it would take to get your clinical license.

Speaker 1: 19:48

And if you're thinking about building that kind of professional confidence and sharpening your clinical edge, but you're not sure you're ready to jump into licensure just yet, or maybe it's going to take you a little bit of time to be able to afford it, I want you to know that's exactly what we focus on inside our School for School Counselors, mastermind, all right. So first, we've talked about sharpening your clinical skills. Second, protect your professional identity. You must get crystal clear. You are not a teacher, you are not an administrative assistant. You are a school counselor, a mental health professional and everywhere you go, you need to be advocating for your true role. Now, that doesn't mean being in people's faces and barking constantly about what you are and are not supposed to be doing on your campus. That is a terrible way to advocate and it makes me sad that my colleagues have been taught that through their national organization. There are more subtle ways to do it and again, it's something we talk about in the mastermind all the time. But at the end of the day, if you don't define your role, somebody else is going to define it for you and chances are you're not going to like what they come up with.

Speaker 1: 21:14

Be working to protect your professional identity. If you identify as an SEL teacher and providing those types of lessons are truly what brings content to your heart and you want nothing else, I mean you're all set, you're ready to go. But keep in mind, you may not be called a school counselor much longer, and that's okay if you love it. But if you don't, or you want to elevate the role of school counselors on your campus, you need to be critically analyzing your professional identity. Analyzing your professional identity Going along with that.

Speaker 1: 21:53

Number three don't tie yourself too closely to SEL. Use it smartly. Don't build your whole professional identity around social, emotional learning. It's a tool, but it's not your identity and with SEL under attack in so many areas, now more than ever, it is critical for you to be able to separate yourself from that tool. Number four stay politically aware. Know about the bills. The lawmakers watch the trends. You can't advocate if you don't know what's out on the battlefield. Use websites like Legiscan to look up bills in your state. You can do a keyword, search for school counselor and see everything that's been proposed or accepted in your state come right up on your screen. It is so easy and it continues to blow my mind why our state and national organizations are not doing more of this and informing people. Stay politically aware. Know what's on the horizon so that you can prepare yourself.

Speaker 1: 23:05

And five build or find strong professional networks. Surround yourself with colleagues who understand ethics, mental health and advocacy and who don't just want to talk about printable worksheets and themes of the month. That type of isolation keeps you playing small, but when you truly seek to collaborate and build your skills in real time with other professionals, it makes you sharp and pretty soon your skills become undeniable. Hey, this episode isn't about being scared, right? It's not about sounding the alarm for school counseling. It's over as we know it. That is not my intention, but it is about being ready.

Speaker 1: 24:00

In my opinion, the school counselors who will survive and lead in the next five years are not the ones who are going to play it safe and hope it just all blows over. They're going to be the ones that are actively sharpening their skills, speaking up and making themselves irreplaceable on their campuses. So now you just have to decide which direction do you want to go. Hey, if you're looking for a space where we actually talk through this stuff the ethics, the skills, the leadership, the bills being proposed in legislation, not just the themes of the month or the downloadable posters you need to come check out the School for School Counselors Mastermind, because in there we are building counselors who don't just survive the next chapter of school counseling, they're gonna dominate it. If you wanna be one of those people, if you wanna walk onto campus every day feeling like a boss and like you are competent and prepared for what's coming your way, you need to join us. We always have a chair available for you. You can find out more at schoolforschoolcounselorscom.

Speaker 1: 25:12

Slash mastermind. Hey, this might be the most important episode I've recorded all year and I am so glad that you joined me for this. Do me a favor and think through this critically. Don't get offended by your school counseling category. You can always seek to change that if you don't feel comfortable with it, but at the end of the day, my number one goal is to support you and empower you and prepare you for what's to come. I'll be back soon with another episode of the School for School Counselors podcast. In the meantime, I hope you have the best week. Take care.