District counselors say caseloads exceed national guidance, ask board for multilingual counselor and more high‑school support

District school counselors told the Teton County District Board that current staffing leaves them unable to meet students’ mental‑health and special‑education needs and urged the board to approve new counselor positions, including a multilingual counselor to serve students whose first language is not English.

The counselors said they are operating well above the American School Counselor Association’s recommended ratio and described increasing incidents of severe student needs — including suicide ideation, violence and child‑welfare cases — that they said require certified counseling capacity to address. “We are really putting out a public plea. We need help, and we need a Spanish or a multilingual speaking counselor for our district,” the district counselors said during a presentation to the board.

Why it matters: Counselors argued that when students’ basic safety and mental‑health needs are unmet, academic learning cannot proceed. They asked for staffing changes targeted at Teton High School — a permanent academic dean plus additional certified counselors — and for a district‑level multilingual counselor who could serve multiple schools.

What the counselors presented - Caseloads and capacity: Counselors said Teton High School currently has roughly 667 students on the high‑school counselors’ combined caseload and that that building’s counselor staffing is roughly two‑thirds over the ASCA recommendation of 1 counselor per 250 students. They said the district has “zero multilingual counselors” to serve about 360 students whose first language is not English. - Examples and risks: Counselors cited rising reports of suicide ideation and hospitalizations, a tripling of child‑protective‑services reporting, substance abuse and severe behavioral incidents. They described students who have experienced trauma while migrating and families that are homeless or living with severe mental illness. - Recommended staffing scenarios: The counselors offered two options: an ‘‘ideal’’ staffing plan that would give the high school three certified counselors plus a permanent academic dean and two multilingual counselors districtwide; and a scaled, nearer‑term option that the counselors said would be minimally acceptable: add one multilingual counselor, restore two high‑school counselor slots (bringing the building to two certified counselors plus the academic dean) and make the academic dean position permanent.

Board response and next steps Board members asked for the staffing requests to be prioritized against other district needs and for the finance committee to assess budget impacts. District administrators said they will fold the counselors’ requests into the district’s staffing proposals and present a ranked list for the board to consider when more budget details are available.

Ending: Counselors framed the request as student‑safety and learning prerequisites rather than program expansion. They asked the board to view the multilingual counselor and the additional high‑school role as urgent steps to reduce risk and support student success.