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Abstract
Examining whether principal-counselor collaboration and school climate were related, researchers sent 4,193 surveys to high school counselors in the United States and received 419 responses. As principal-counselor collaboration increased, there were increases in counselors viewing the principal as supportive, the teachers as regarding one another with respect, the school community as having high yet achievable standards, and decreases in schools being vulnerable to outside influences such as vocal parents and community groups. Principal-counselor collaboration was significantly correlated to four dimensions of school climate.
Today’s school counselors must provide proactive, data-driven programs addressing the career, academic, social, and emotional needs of all students in their schools. In addition, school counselors must identify and correct opportunity and achievement gaps and ensure equity in access to all educational opportunities in order to raise academic performance and help all students achieve success (Dahir & Stone, 2007). In 2002, the American School Counselor Association (ASCA) developed the ASCA National Model (Dahir & Stone, 2007), which emphasizes the importance of school counselors as members of the educational team using the skills of advocacy, leadership, and collaboration to promote systemic change. By applying these skills, school counselors promote student achievement and ensure all students have access to a rigorous education.
Managing a school is a job that is too complex for one person alone (Siccone, 2012). Members of the staff other than principals, such as school counselors, are a key resource and have unique experience and skills. The combination of the professional characteristics of principals and counselors can effectively serve students and lead to positive outcomes (McCarty, Wallin, & Boggan, 2014; Walker, 2006). When principals and school counselors work together, collaborating to combine their unique skills and abilities, teaching and learning are likely to improve (Brannan, 2012; Dahir, Burnham, Stone, & Cobb, 2010; Janson, Militello, & Kosine, 2008; McCarty et al., 2014; Militello & Janson, 2007; Niebuhr, Niebuhr, & Cleveland, 1999; Stone & Clark, 2001; Walker, 2006).
The No Child Left Behind Act (U.S. Department of Education, 2001) resulted in a focus on school reform and increased accountability for all students (McCarty et al., 2014). Together, principals and counselors can address meeting the needs of students academically, intellectually, physically, socially, and emotionally (McCarty et al., 2014; Stone & Clark, 2001). When principals and school counselors collaborate, they make informed decisions about needed interventions, understand the success of current interventions, and discover how to optimally serve students through gathering and analyzing student achievement data (Militello & Janson, 2007; Stone & Clark, 2001). The alliance of school counselors and principals with the knowledge and skills each brings to the table creates the most effective and comprehensive model for meeting students’ needs (McCarty et al., 2014). Collaboration of principals and school counselors supports students while simultaneously meeting the requirements of school reform and student accountability required by the law.
As a school’s needs continue to change over time, the relationship between school counselors and principals must be dynamic in response to those changes (Brannan, 2012). The desired effect of this collaborative relationship is to improve student achievement and ensure equity and access to educational opportunities for all students (Brannan, 2012). Principal-counselor collaboration not only benefits the students it also leads to an improved school climate.
School climate is the quality and character of school life (National School Climate Center, n.d.). School climate is constructed by the students’, teachers’, and parents’ perceptions of the school environment and reflects the values, norms, goals, instructional methods, administrative structure, and the relationships among the individuals in the environment (National School Climate Center, n.d.). School climate can boost or obstruct students’ academic success (Ray, Lambie, & Curry, 2007).
School counselors are in a unique position to affect school climate. School counselors have contact with all stakeholders in the school (Nassar-McMillan, Karvonen, Perez, & Abrams, 2009). School counselors can be social change agents in the school: promoting academic achievement, reducing dropout rates, increasing attendance rates, helping increase safety and security of students, and helping all students transition (Cobb, 2014). Through modalities of staff development, leadership, advocacy, individual counseling, small group counseling, classroom guidance, parent workshops, and collaboration, school counselors can positively affect the school climate. School counselors and principals may assess the school climate together, identifying threats to student safety and creating appropriate interventions (Niebuhr et al., 1999). School climate is an important factor in schools that can affect student outcomes; school counselors in collaboration with principals can work toward improving the school climate.
School counselors and principals have shared roles and responsibilities that include working with students, teachers, parents, and community members to improve student achievement and increase student success. When principals and counselors combine their knowledge, skills, and expertise, this combination can lead to increased student aspirations, changes in course enrollment patterns to meet student needs and increase student success, elimination of barriers to student achievement, and identification of staff development needs (Stone & Clark, 2001). Together school counselors and principals can aggregate and disaggregate data to improve instruction, identify needs within the school, establish school improvement goals, work to sustain those goals, and influence the school organization to work toward a positive environment and student achievement (Militello & Janson, 2007).
Previous research has demonstrated a lack of collaboration between principals and school counselors and has suggested that through collaboration, principals and counselors can establish priorities and create a shared vision (Dahir et al., 2010). When collaborating as leaders, principals and counselors are better positioned to improve the quality of life for the school community which in turn may create a more positive overall school climate (Militello & Janson, 2007). Currently, there is no research on principal-counselor collaboration and school climate although experts have suggested that this topic would be important to study (Dollarhide, Smith, & Lemberger, 2007). By examining principal-counselor collaboration and its effect on school climate, we can work toward creating more successful students and schools. The primary research question explored was whether principal-school counselor collaboration was positively associated with school climate.
Method
Participants
Participants were 419 high school counselors (356 women, 85%) who were members of ASCA. In race/ethnicity, 91% were White, 7% were Black or African American, 4% were Hispanic, and 3% reported other backgrounds. In terms of age groups, 19% were between the ages of 25 and 34 years, 30% between the ages of 35 and 44 years, 29% between the ages of 45 and 54 years, 19% between the ages of 55 and 64 years, and 4% aged 65 years or older. In experience, fewer than 1% of the respondents were in their first year as a school counselor, 17% had 2 to 5 years of experience, 32% had 6 to 10 years of experience, 24% had 11 to 15 years of experience, and 26% had more than 15 years of experience. In training, 61% graduated from Council for Accreditation of Counseling & Related Educational Programs–accredited programs. In teaching experience, 44% had teaching experience prior to entering the counseling profession.
As reported by these counselors, 15% of principals were in their position for the first year, almost half (49%) held their position between 2 and 5 years, 22% had been in their position between 6 and 10 years, and 14% had been in their position for more than 10 years.
Almost three fourths of the counselors surveyed (74%) worked in schools with enrollments up to 1,500 students and most participants worked in schools that employed 1 to 4 counselors (72%). In addition, participants were asked to indicate the ratio of counselors to students at their school; 80% reported the counselor to student ratio in their school was between 1:200 and 1:450.
Instrumentation
The Principal-Counselor Relationship Survey (College Board, 2011) measures counselors’ views on presence and importance of 10 elements: open communication and opportunities for decision making, opportunities to share ideas on teaching and learning, sharing ideas about needs within the school and community, school counselor participation on leadership teams, joint responsibility on the development of goals, mutual trust, a shared vision of student success, mutual respect, shared decision making on initiatives affecting student success, and a collective commitment to equity and opportunity. The participants rated these elements on a Likert-type scale of 1 (not present) to 5 (extremely present). The individual score for each element was added together for an overall principal-counselor relationship (PCR) score.
Experts at the College Board designed these questions to assess principal-counselor collaboration; however, they did not provide reliability and validity information for this survey. As a result, we administered the survey to 18 students in a master’s level counseling course in spring 2015 on two separate occasions 2 weeks apart. Test-retest reliability was .98, and Cronbach’s alpha was .80, demonstrating consistency. In addition, high school counselors in this study rated the presence of the 10 elements of principal-counselor collaboration. Cronbach’s alpha was calculated at .97 demonstrating high internal consistency.
The Organizational Climate Index for High Schools (Hoy, 2003) measures organizational climate of high schools on four dimensions: collegial leadership (the relationship between the principal and the teachers), professional teacher behavior (the relationship among teachers), achievement press (teacher, principal, and parental pressure for student achievement), and institutional vulnerability (the relationship between the school and community). The Organizational Climate Index includes 30 questions with responses on a 4-point Likert-type scale (1 = rarely, 2 = sometimes, 3 = often, 4 = very frequently); a high score indicates a very frequent occurrence. Using a formula available on the website (http://www.waynekhoy.com/oci.html), scores on the four dimensions are converted to standard scores with a mean of 500 and a standard deviation of 100. When completed by the faculty members at 97 Ohio high schools alpha coefficients on the four dimensions were .87, .94, .88, and .92, respectively (Hoy, Smith, & Sweetland, 2002). Factor analysis provided strong support for construct validity for the concept of school climate; additionally, relationships were as expected, providing strong predictive validity (Hoy et al., 2002). Cronbach’s alpha was calculated at .908 on the 30-item survey based on the responses from the high school counselors who participated in this study demonstrating high internal consistency.
Procedure
Surveys were e-mailed to 4,193 high school counselors who were members of ASCA, and 419 responded (response rate = 9.99%). Due to the variation in roles and responsibilities of school counselors at different levels of education, we surveyed only high school counselors. The e-mail addresses were entered into a generic electronic mailing program, which allowed responses to be anonymous. After 2 weeks, we sent a reminder to all those who did not respond the first time. As an incentive, respondents had a chance to enter a drawing for 1 year of paid ASCA membership dues.
Results
As shown in Table 1, on principal-counselor collaboration the average score was 35.32 (SD = 11.29). In comparison, counselors surveyed by the College Board obtained an average score of 35.16 (no SD reported). Principal-counselor collaboration was significantly positively correlated with all four dimensions of school climate: collegial leadership, r = .84, p = .001; professional teacher behavior, r = .58, p = .001; and, achievement press, r = .40, p = .001; and significantly negatively correlated with institutional vulnerability, r = −.35, p = .001 (see Table 2). Further analysis of the data demonstrated that each element of the PCR was also significantly positively correlated with the collegial leadership, professional teacher behavior, and achievement press dimensions of school climate; and significantly negatively correlated with the institutional vulnerability dimension of school climate (see Table 3).
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Table 1. Descriptive Statistics.
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Table 2. Correlation of the Four Dimensions of School Climate with Overall Principal-Counselor Relationship (PCR) Score.
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Table 3. Correlation of the Four Dimensions of School Climate with Each Dimension of the Principal-Counselor Relationship (PCR).
On the organizational climate measures, as shown in Table 1, collegial leadership averaged 474.73 (SD = 192.29); professional teacher behavior averaged 491.16 (SD = 270.64); achievement press averaged 567.10 (SD = 189.28); and institutional vulnerability averaged 464.32 (SD = 193.97). Thus, as compared with Ohio faculty, the respondents in this study viewed collegial leadership and professional teacher behavior more negatively, and they viewed their schools’ achievement press and institutional vulnerability more positively.
Discussion
Among present high school counselors, principal-counselor collaboration was associated with all four dimensions of school climate. Though no one has studied principal-counselor collaboration and school climate in the past, it makes sense that when principals and counselors collaborate, there is a healthier overall school climate. In previous studies, principal-counselor collaboration was related to school improvement (Janson et al., 2008), implementation of comprehensive school counseling programs (Clemens, Milsom, & Cashwell, 2009), and school counselor job satisfaction (Clemens et al., 2009). Based on the correlations between the PCR, both overall results as well as each individual characteristic of the PCR with the four dimensions of school climate, the results of this study add that principal-counselor collaboration is related to school climate as well.
School counselors in this study reported collaborating with principals to a slightly more positive than negative degree. Although a score of 35 on a scale from 10 to 50 is slightly above average, however, there is room for improvement. Also, this amount of collaboration is about the same degree as school counselors surveyed by the College Board.
Though they were similar in their results on collaboration with the national group who completed the College Board survey, the counselors in this study were different from the Ohio teachers on all four dimensions of school climate. The school counselors in this study were more negative than the Ohio teachers on collegial leadership and professional teacher behavior, but they were more positive on achievement press and institutional vulnerability. The school counselors in this study experienced above average collaboration, achievement press, and below average institutional vulnerability. These findings indicated the high school counselors who participated in this study worked in schools where they collaborated well with their principal. These counselors also felt that students experienced high, achievable academic standards. In addition, the high school counselors in this study felt students persevered, mutual respect occurred among students and teachers, and the school was not vulnerable to outside influences like vocal parents and community groups. However, despite these positives, there were some negatives. These school counselor respondents also reported below average collegial leadership and professional teacher behavior meaning they worked in schools where they experienced a lack of professionalism from the principal toward the teachers as well as among teachers.
When interpreting the results of this study, several limitations should be considered. Not all school counselors are members of ASCA thereby potentially creating coverage error. Adding to this problem was the fact that school counselors in this study reported higher than average achievement press. Both ASCA membership and achievement press could be proxies for more affluent schools. In addition, because the survey was electronic, school counselors who are more comfortable with technology may have been more inclined to participate, creating some selection bias.
The counselors in this study were all at the high school level; counselors at other levels may answer differently. Another aspect of homogeneity was that these counselors were mostly women (85%). However, ASCA membership is 84% women (S. Wicks, personal communication, April 19, 2016). Additionally, the counselors in this study were mostly White (91%) and non-Hispanic (96%). Thus, at least in gender, homogeneity among the participants in this study parallels ASCA membership. With a 10% response rate, there may be a nonresponse bias where the group that responded may not be truly representative of high school counselors. Finally, counselors in this study were in schools with higher than average socioeconomic status which means this was a select group.
The Principal-Counselor Relationship Survey (College Board, 2011) did not have reliability or validity data. As a result, the instrument was administered to master’s level students to collect reliability and validity. This method of administration was not consistent with the way the College Board administered the original survey or the way the survey was used in this study which was with practitioners in both cases. It cannot be assumed that master’s students would respond similarly to practitioners. Cronbach’s alpha was calculated at .97 on the 10-item survey based on responses from school counselors that participated in the study.
As a follow-up to this study, future research could explore the perspective of principals and/or the principals compared with counselors at the same school. Additionally, it would be interesting to repeat the study at the middle school and elementary levels to see if the results are repeated. The role of the school counselor can be very different at the elementary level and may generate different results. Another suggestion for future research would be to measure school climate more globally, such as by having students, faculty, and parents report their perceptions of school climate to determine whether their perceptions relate to principal-counselor collaboration. Finally, a qualitative or mixed methods study might delve deeper into the quality of principal-counselor collaboration and provide another perspective.
The results of this study demonstrate that when collaboration exists between school counselors and principals, there is also a more positive school climate, and vice versa. School climate can hinder or promote academic success among students (Ray et al., 2007). Principals create the school climate by providing leadership and direction, and holding high standards for all students. School counselors use their skills to help sustain the school climate by helping students make appropriate, rigorous course choices while preparing for life after high school (College Board’s National Office for School Counselor, the ASCA, and the National Association of Secondary School Principals, 2009). By working together as leadership teams, principals and counselors can combine their skill sets, influencing the overall school climate in all schools. By improving the school climate, the principal-counselor team can affect the overall rate of student achievement in the school. School boards should consider these results when hiring school counselors, providing opportunities for leadership and teaming with principals in schools and developing and implementing programs that ensure collaboration between counselors and principals in an effort to produce more successful students and schools. Policy makers and school leaders should also consider the results of this study in school reform efforts. These results demonstrate that when there is a collaborative relationship between the principal and school counselor, schools have a more positive overall school climate; therefore, principal-counselor collaboration may be the answer to improved academic outcomes of students.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
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Author Biographies
Wendy D. Rock, PhD, is a school counselor at Hahnville High School in Boutte, Louisiana and adjunct assistant professor at Xavier University of Louisiana. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Holy Cross in New Orleans, Louisiana. She is a Louisiana Licensed Professional Counselor and board approved supervisor (LPC-S), past president of the Louisiana School Counselor Association, member of the Louisiana ACT Council, and editorial board member of The Professional Counselor.
Theodore P. Remley, Jr., PhD, is a professor of Counseling at the University of Holy Cross in New Orleans, Louisiana. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Florida and a law degree from Catholic University. He has authored textbooks and numerous journal articles in the areas of law and ethics in counseling.
Lillian M. Range, PhD, is professor of Psychology at University of Holy Cross, associate editor of Death Studies, and editorial board member of Journal of Loss and Trauma and Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior. She is licensed in psychology in Louisiana and a fellow of the American Psychological Association.