As a school counselor, it is important to understand the scope of your roles and responsibilities. We are not disciplinarians, nor are we meant to be. Stop. Read that again. We. Are. Not. Disciplinarians.  Our role is to provide support to students in academic, social, and emotional areas. However, it is not uncommon for school counselors to be put in situations where they are asked to provide discipline to students.

1. Discipline from counselors creates a misunderstanding of the support that we provide. It is important for students, parents, and staff to understand that the role of the school counselor is to provide counseling services and support for students who are struggling with personal or academic issues. If we are put in a position to discipline students, it can change the perception of our role and confuse the support that we offer. It can ruin the counselor/student relationship as well.  It also confuses children.  When they need support from us, they may hesitate or decline to seek us out for fear of being judged or disciplined.

2.  Secondly, ASCA (American School Counselor Association) specifically lists in its “Appropriate vs Inappropriate Duties” document that school counselors should not be “performing disciplinary actions or assigning discipline consequences”. Therefore, if a school counselor is engaging in activities that constitute discipline,  it can jeopardize their professional ethics and standards. While the potential consequences of engaging in inappropriate duties can lead to reprimand from supervisors, the most important consequence is the loss of trust from your students.

3.  Lastly, you have likely not been trained to be a disciplinarian. If you have, you are not acting in the capacity of someone trained to discipline when you are a school counselor. If you are hired as a school counselor, your role is to provide school counseling-not discipline. Your education and training consist of theories and strategies that are focused on counseling and practice. If you are called upon to discipline students, you may harm the student by not knowing how to properly address the situation. Instead of providing adequate support, you may make the situation worse.  Speaking of theorists, I had a conversation with a fellow counselor at our state conference last week.  This counselor’s concern regarding discipline was that even though she does not discipline, it is not uncommon for her administrator to mete out discipline, then ask her to follow up. This has become such a common practice that she felt her students had been “Pavlov’d” into associating her with discipline. Heartbreaking.

I wanted to write a flowery conclusion to this blog post. But, I don’t feel flowery about this. Do. Not. Discipline. Your. Students. Don’t do it.

With Love,

Laura

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