The American School Counseling Association (ASCA) published a list of appropriate and inappropriate school counseling duties to serve as a guide for PK–12 education related to the intended role and focus of the school counseling profession. School counseling practicum and internship students, as well as recent graduates, are often surprised and frustrated with what they experience as an incongruency between their training focused on an aspirational model and real-life counseling practice. The reality of school counseling practice is that contracts almost always include an “other duties as assigned” clause for both classroom teachers and professional school counselors that require activities that seem unrelated to the training or role of school counseling. This chapter will provide a framework for understanding how these “inappropriate duties” can be embraced by practicing school counselors (while at the same time advocating for change) in order to make connections with students, encourage collaboration, and demonstrate creative approaches to various duties.

As with any profession, the roles, responsibilities, and foci areas will evolve as the technological and societal needs change. This chapter begins by providing foundational knowledge about the school counseling profession and its historical pathway. Key events in the United States have shaped the profession in recent years, leading to identification of the current trends affecting school counselors. Advancements in technology, increasing responsibilities, and future directions will be discussed.

There are two key foci of the ASCA Student Standards. The first focus is the ASCA Student Standards: Mindsets & Behaviors for Student Success: K-12 College-, Career-, and Life-Readiness Standards for Every Student, which are standards used by school counselors to support students’ academic success, social and emotional learning, and college and career readiness. The second focus is the ASCA School Counselor Professional Standards and Competencies, which delineates standards for school counselors’ professional development and promotes the planning, delivery, and evaluation of comprehensive school counseling programs. Moreover, the authors provide examples of school counseling interventions and ways to overcome potential roadblocks for successful implementation, as well as recommendations for integrating social justice advocacy when using the ASCA Student Standards.

This chapter addresses gender and identity issues in PK–12 education, including gender fluidity, students who identify as transgender and the transitioning process, students who identify as LGBTQ+, and general school-based advocacy and safety issues. This chapter offers ways to create safe and affirming spaces for LGBTQ+ students in schools. It serves as a foundation for seeking more knowledge to best serve these affinity groups. Scholarly support and practitioner recommendations for school-based support including student-led groups, staff training, parent education, and safe school culture curriculum are presented.

Although culturally relevant interventions and social justice advocacy will be integrated throughout the text, this chapter focuses on marginalized communities, antiracism practices, and the Black Lives Matter movement as it relates to serving BIPOC students and discusses the impact of cultural mismatch and culturally incompetent school-based interventions. Resources for cultural awareness, knowledge, and skill development will be discussed, as well as the opportunities for addressing the school-to-prison pipeline, historically underserved populations, and the opportunity gap.

Classroom engagements and lessons are an important part of the role of school counselors. Classroom guidance allows for systemic change and collaboration with the teachers. Classroom guidance should be implemented in PK–12 settings and focus on academics, career, and personal/social domains consistent with a comprehensive school counseling program. This chapter will focus on developmentally appropriate and culturally relevant classroom guidance lessons/presentations for each level of school counseling. A discussion of relevance, scholarly support, best practice, classroom management strategies and practical application will be provided.

In this chapter, students will explore the concept of strengths-based counseling and related interventions as the various roles and specific interventions are applied through this lens as the very foundation to the work of school counselors. Research-based support for this perspective and practitioner guidance is included. Case studies and scenarios demonstrating the difference between a traditional “deficit-based” perspective where a clinician or counselors initial view of a student is considering a “what’s wrong” approach will be compared to a “what’s going well” approach where school counselors collaborate with school staff and partner with students to build on student strengths to ensure academic success and improvement.

We present the benefits of collaborations with school staff to support student success from research-based and applied perspectives. We make recommendations for staff engagement regarding presentation of data, professional development training opportunities, and school community-building strategies. We discuss school counselor self-advocacy, specifically regarding situations in which school policy may conflict with ethical guidelines.

This chapter focuses on the role of professional school counselors as related to the importance of collaborating with the school and local community to promote family engagement. Systems theory is applied, and research addressing the positive academic implications related to family engagement is presented. Specific strategies and useful tips are discussed. The American School Counselor Association (ASCA) National Model carefully outlines the role of school counselors in consultation and collaboration engagement with families and community stakeholders. Additionally, ASCA tasks school counselors with addressing barriers to these partnerships, such as communication and access (2016). Ideally, school counselors in training gain knowledge and skills in this area during their graduate training programs, but many gain most of their preservice experience in this area during their field experiences (i.e., practicum and internship). This is because, in large part, CACREP standards do not currently require a graduate-level course in family–school collaboration, although some programs instill this content into other courses. As PK–12 student needs increase and school counselors must partner with families and communities more than ever, it is advantageous for counselor educators to add specific family-community-school coursework into graduate training programs. The authors of this chapter will use the terms parent, family, and caregiver to describe a variety of constellations that include caregivers, guardians, home environments, and other words used in related research and broader conversations as it relates to systems in which our students live.