"The opportunity was there!" A qualitative study of early-entrant school counselors - General Features

Professional School Counseling, Oct, 2002 by Tarrell Awe Agahe Portman

Our nation's schools are facing increased challenges--violence, drug abuse, eating disorders, behavior problems, and suicide. There is a shortage of highly qualified school counselors prepared to deal with a range of students, from those who are gifted to those who are in pain. (Schwab, 2001)

This excerpt clearly articulates how the perceived shortage of qualified school counselors may affect children in our nation's schools. In the 1960s, when faced with shortages of school counselors, paraprofessionals were introduced into school settings (Carlson & Pietrofesa, 1971). This role evolved into what the current American School Counselor Association (ASCA, 1999) statement for paraprofessionals suggests are clerical tasks in the school. Today, most state laws as well as ethical and professional mandates require school counselors to obtain and hold professional licensure or certification. This may require 48 to 60 semester hours in accredited programs. However, shortages may be addressed through state administrative codes for provisional licensure. The United Federation of Teachers (UFT, n.d.) in their publication, Focus on Certification and Licensure: A Guide for PPTS Teachers dedicates an entire section to temporary or provisional licensure issues among their membership. State boards of education may grant conditional or provisional licenses for school counseling students prior to completion of their coursework.

Provisional licensure opens the door for individuals with limited semester hours in their counselor education programs to enter the profession. Thus, students are hired as early-entrant school counselors. However, this hiring practice may have limitations (Stott, 1992). Early-entrant school counselors may lack the formal opportunity for pre-entry counseling experience through planned, supervised structured practica and internships.

In addition, early-entrant school counselors may lack the requisite knowledge, awareness, and skills necessary to fulfill their professional roles within the school system. An example might include large and small group facilitation skills necessary for implementing guidance curriculum or small group work. Early-entrant school counselors facing these challenges on a daily basis may simultaneously be attempting to complete degree requirements or state endorsements. In reality, it is difficult for these individuals, employed full-time, to make up the deficits and qualify for professional licensure or certification (Kraft, 1992).

Many new school counselors find the realities associated with their positions "disconcerting and/or disappointing" (Good, 1992, p. 85). This may be due to naivety or unrealistic expectations proportionate to the lack of orientation to the profession. Early-entrant school counselors may exhibit feelings of inadequacy due to this lack of induction. In addition, experiential limitations may create hardships (e.g., an underdeveloped concept of the school as a system) for the early-entrant school counselor (Kahn, 1999).

It has been the experience of this researcher that school counseling students are asked to accept positions prior to completing their graduate degrees. Therefore, students are confronted with the decision to enter the school counseling profession earlier than they had anticipated. Observations by the researcher indicate the decision-making process appears to be anxiety-laden. This may be due to student feelings of inadequacy, lack of confidence, or fears of early career goal attainment. Anxiety seems increased for these students when school district administrators, who are forced to choose between hiring early-entrants and denying children access to school counseling services, initiate the employment discussions.

Issues related to this decision-making process and the realities of employment for early-entrant school counselors have not been examined in the broader counseling literature and are absent from the literature on school counseling. As school counseling professionals, it is imperative to understand the phenomenon of early-entry into the profession and be able to provide assistance to these individuals.

The purpose of this qualitative investigation was to gain insight into the experiences of early-entrant school counselors who were a school counselor and a student simultaneously. The phenomenon of early entry into the profession was examined through school counselors' perceptions of their experiences as early-entrants to the field, the support they received, and supervision. Achieving understanding of the experiences of this potentially overlooked group within the school counseling profession may prove beneficial to future early-entrant school counselors, veteran school counselors, supervisors, and counselor education programs.

Method

Participants

Participants in this study were purposefully selected in accordance with the methods of naturalistic inquiry. Qualitative research in this case requires "purposefully selecting participants that can provide the best answers to phenomena being explored" (Creswell, 1994, p. 148). These selected individuals assist in "developing and verifying shared constructions" which allow for the "meaningful expansion of knowledge" (Erlandson, Harris, Skipper, & Allen, 1993, p. 20). Participants in this study were selected based on two criteria: (a) Each had accepted employment as a school counselor prior to completing their graduate degree in counselor education, and (b) each had similar state requirements for provisional licensure.