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Teachers, parents and staff urge Corvallis School Board to restore counselor positions as consolidation adds student needs
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Summary
Multiple teachers, educational assistants and parents told the Corvallis School Board in public comment that consolidation and shifts in grade assignments will increase student-to-counselor caseloads and risk the district’s ability to meet mental-health needs; speakers asked the board to restore counselor FTE and prioritize staffing by student need.
An array of Garfield Elementary teachers, educational assistants and community members told the Corvallis School Board on April 7 that cuts to counselor full-time equivalents and school consolidation will worsen students’ access to mental-health support.
"Counselors at the elementary level have gone from an average of 310 student per FTE to a predicted average of 396 students per FTE," said Annalie Haberman, a first-grade teacher at Garfield, citing the American School Counselor Association standard and urging the board to "advocate undoing the cuts that were made to counselor FTE in our district." She told the board the elementary level’s increase in workload follows decisions to move sixth graders into elementary schools.
Other speakers detailed classroom-level impacts and specific incidents they said reflected mounting needs. Amelia Ingersoll, a third-grade teacher, described students she referred to counseling after panic attacks, expressions of suicidal ideation and severe anxiety, and said "one counselor is absolutely not sufficient for 430 students." Educational assistant Lizzie Warsh and Garcia-area speakers said reduced assistant staffing will leave teachers and EAs pulled in multiple directions and limit immediate crisis response.
Several public commenters also tied the issue to broader community stressors. Clarissa Cisneros and Joel Inman described immigrant families’ fears related to ICE activity and said language continuity with counselors is critical for equitable access. Will Roten Kolber urged the board to reconsider the consolidation timeline, arguing recent financial projections and enrollment trends merited more deliberation.
The public-comment period produced recurring requests: restore elementary counselor FTE, allocate support staff according to student need rather than a uniform per-building formula, and ensure counselors with relevant language skills for Spanish-speaking families remain accessible. Speakers asked the board to account for both immediate crisis response and long-term social-emotional learning when finalizing staffing and budget allocations tied to consolidation.
Board members thanked speakers and several asked staff for follow-up briefings. At least one board member asked staff to include mental-health staffing plans and monitoring as part of upcoming consolidation updates, indicating the board will receive additional information before final implementation steps.
The public comment block closed before the meeting moved on to the City tax-exemption presentations and other agenda items.
