School counselors play important roles in school districts, allowing students to resolve issues they face at home or in the classroom. Given the challenges students have encountered the last few years, their role is even more essential.
National School Counseling Week, sponsored by ASCA, focuses on how counselors contribute to and impact U.S. school systems. Below, you can learn more about this week, including ways to celebrate and show appreciation with your students.
When is National School Counseling Week in 2025?
In 2025, National School Counseling Week will be February 3–7. It's celebrated each year during the first full week of February.
What is National School Counseling Week, and why do we celebrate it?
The ASCA website explains that National School Counseling Week “highlights the tremendous impact school counselors can have in helping students achieve school success and plan for a career.”
Why should we show appreciation for school counselors?
School counselors play a vital role in helping students set goals and overcome obstacles to achieving them. Carmen Larson, the American School Counselor Association’s 2025 School Counselor of the Year, lead a data-driven approach to counseling that became a model in Sarasota County Schools where she works. The Herald-Tribune writes: “The counseling team at Sarasota Middle tracks each student’s grades, attendance, test scores and other data points to identify the students most at-risk of falling behind. They work with those students and their parents, teachers and other professionals if necessary to create a plan and set goals for the end of the year.” Larson also advocates for decreasing the student-to-counselor ratio and taking extraneous duties off school counselors' plates.
What does a school counselor do?
Counselors are licensed educators who address students’ academic, career, and social and emotional development needs by implementing and executing a counseling program that aims for student success, according to ASCA. They can work in elementary, middle, or high schools or in district supervisory roles.
In particular, school counselors can benefit students of color and low-income students. Research links high student-to-counselor ratios in low-income schools with better outcomes, including improved attendance, fewer disciplinary incidents, and higher graduation rates. Per ASCA:
Students of color and students from low-income families have been overlooked and underserved for far too long. If anything, they deserve more access to school counselors than their peers—not the same, and certainly not less. And yet, the schools serving the most students of color or the most students from low-income families are shortchanged when it comes to school counselors.
The following resources can help you learn more about school counselors' role and why they're so needed.
- “Who Are School Counselors?” (ASCA)
- Empowering Adolescents: The Role of a School Counselor (George Washington University Graduate School of Education and Human Development)
- Why I'm Becoming a School Counselor (Harvard University Graduate School of Education)
According to ASCA, a 250-to-1 student-to-counselor ratio is ideal, though the average in many states is currently significantly higher.
What are some counselor appreciation ideas for school?
You can encourage your students to thank their school counselors, whether it's upon seeing them in the hallway, visiting their office, or just sending them a nice email. Teachers can also decorate their doors with signs expressing gratitude for the work school counselors do and the difference they make in students’ lives.
On its website, ASCA offers a wide range of resources to celebrate National School Counseling Week with your students. There, you can find certificates of appreciation that students can give to school counselors, sample morning announcements to acknowledge this week, posters for students, and more.
This blog, originally published in 2019, has been updated for 2025.
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