119. Smart Ways to Split a Counseling Caseload

Carol: You're listening to the Counselor Chat podcast, a show for school counselors looking for easy to implement strategies, how to tips, collaboration, and a little spark of joy.

I'm Carol Miller, your host. I'm a full time school counselor and the face behind counseling Essentials. I'm all about creating simplified systems, data driven practices, and using creative approaches to engage students.

If you're looking for a little inspiration to help help you make a big impact on student growth and success, you're in the right place because we're better together.

Carol: Ready to chat.

Carol: Let's dive in.

Carol: Hey there counselor friends.

Welcome back to another episode of Counselor Chat.

I'm your host, Carol Miller. I'm a school counselor, a content creator, and today I'm your co pilot in all things counseling related.

Today we are talking about something that comes up a lot,

especially in schools lucky enough to have two or more counselors on the team.

And that big question is how do we divide the caseload without dividing the program?

Whether you're starting fresh with a co counselor this year,

you're revisiting an old system,

or you're just curious about what others are doing this episode, it's for you.

So let's dive into the most common ways to split your caseload and I'm even going to share some of my personal pros, cons and tips for dividing all the other responsibilities that we counselors, that we juggle.

I think probably the most common split is by Alphabet, the A, L,

M, Z split.

It really is, I think, the most traditional model because dividing your caseload by students last names just seems to make sense. You can follow the families, follow the kids,

and you get to know them over a long period of time.

The pros is that it's really clean and easy to explain to staff and families.

Hey,

I have students with last names M through Z. That was actually what I used to do when I had the M through Z students when I was in the high school and my co counselor had A through L.

It really helped to make sure that we both had a very even ish. I say even ish because it wasn't always exactly split in the middle distribution of the students,

but it only works out if the Alphabet is kind of balanced.

And it really is nice to keep the same counselor regardless of the grade level from year to year.

The cons Some letters like S or M because as someone whose last name is M with the last name Miller,

there are a ton of Millers out there.

Letters like S or M or sometimes even V they can be Heavily weighted,

which throws off the balance of who gets the larger caseload or are they really going to be balanced?

You may actually even see uneven numbers of high need students,

depending how families fall alphabetically and the other.

And I think most important con in this type of scenario is that it doesn't always account for siblings being split between counselors.

Because I know that I personally once, like I said, I had letters M through Z,

but some of the kids that I had,

they had siblings with the last name of A through L. Then we were splitting families, and that sometimes made it kind of difficult for parents.

My tip for dividing caseloads this way is to really do a data run. Before you commit to this,

you need to really look at your student numbers per letter and the needs per family.

You might want to consider adjusting the cutoff, like maybe A through K,

L through Z,

or manually grouping families together.

So you need to really take a look at your data.

Another I think common split is to split by grade level.

Here one counselor takes certain grades in an elementary school.

What we're doing right now is my co counselor has grades K through 2 and I have grades 3 through 6.

And that works pretty well.

Before,

when I had a different CO counselor,

we actually did a little something different.

She had K2 and 4 and I had grades 1, 3, 5, and I actually took 6th grade as well with that.

It kind of helped us learn who the kids were because we were able to see them all before they graduated.

But it was a little.

It just evened it out just a little bit.

So you can split by grade level, and there's probably multiple ways that you can actually split by grade level.

This really allows counselors to specialize in the developmental needs for specific age groups.

At the high school,

we actually,

after we were splitting by grades level for a long time, we actually moved from splitting, or, excuse me, splitting by Alphabet to splitting by grade level. My final years at the high school, I actually had grades 11 and 12 and my co counselor had grades 9 and 10 at the high school level.

But for us, it really worked. I really felt like I got to really be an expert with that whole college admissions process.

Certainly it was a ton of work during admission season and PSATs and AP exam because that all seemed to fall on me.

But by having someone who was devoted to 9th and 10th graders,

it was great too,

because a Lot of times when you are even splitting the Alphabet or you know, doing something a little different with your grade levels,

maybe every other year,

you still have those tasks that are time consuming. Let's face it, sometimes freshmen and sophomores, they can be the classes most forgotten about. But if you have someone that's dedicated to just to them,

it can really be helpful. I mean, think about how many needs that freshman has.

They're coming into a new building,

they're learning a new set of rules.

There's things are very different than middle school.

They actually need a lot of support.

So having someone to help them can be a really great thing.

The pros for splitting by grade level,

it really allows counselors to once again specialize in those developmental needs for those specific age groups.

I think it also makes Planning your Tier 1 lessons easier because you know exactly which classrooms you're going to be covering.

And if you only have half the grades,

well, that's only half the lessons you really have to prep for.

And it also helps because teachers always work with the same counselor. You really get to build those relationships with the other people on your team because teachers, they're on our team.

One of the things that I really love about my caseload right now, and once again, I'm in elementary and I have third through sixth grade,

is I am working with the same teachers and I really do know them and we have made strong connections,

which really helps the kids in the long run.

Some of the cons though is that you do lose some long term relationships with students because now they're moving from grade level to grade level.

Another con is that one counselor might deal more with behavior and the other with anxiety, transition or scheduling issues in the upper grades.

As sixth grade counselor, I am responsible for a lot more stuff in terms of transition and getting the kids ready for the next year.

Also,

we have some very specific guidelines in New York with sixth graders in terms of doing an annual review with each one, which can be kind of time consuming.

There's a lot of work there.

However,

if you have worked with kindergarteners or first graders,

you can probably also understand that there's a lot of crying,

there is a lot of behaviors, and there's a lot of things that you have to respond to. A lot of the crisises happen sometimes in those early grades.

There can be a risk of imbalance depending on how the grades are sized or structured.

When I know,

like I said, K through 2 seems like it's smaller amount of students than 3 through 6.

But I can tell you in our School. That's not the case. We actually have some more sections in the lower grades than we do in the upper grades.

So it sounds like it's uneven, but it is actually even.

One tip is to really balance the division by needs and not just numbers.

So for example, if fifth grade is huge, you might do a K3 and a 46 instead of a straight split.

Another way to split is by MTSS tiers.

And I have done this model as well.

In this model, one counselor can handle the tier one supports and the other manages tier two and tier three.

I was lucky enough to work with three counselors in an elementary school and we split by tiers. One counselor did our tier one.

I was doing the tier two, a lot of the groups and our third handled tier three.

We did not have a social worker or a full time school psychologist.

Our tier three person, she handled all of the IEP counseling, all of the individual counseling,

and those individual interventions.

I will say though, As a Tier 2 counselor, I was responsible for second grade for lessons for second grade, just to make it a little bit more of a even division with our tier one counselor, because doing all those lessons was a lot of work.

The pros for this model is that each counselor really gets to focus and go deeper in their area.

I really love groups. I love that tier two interventions.

Being that counselor,

it was just,

it was a sweet spot for me. I loved also really helped our tier one counselor because she really built a very strong universal program for all students.

And our tier three counselor,

she was able to build some really deep relationships. She also handled a lot of the crisis calls.

So the way that we split things up worked real well for our school at the time.

The cons for this is that Sometimes your tier 2 or your tier 3 counselor,

they can experience burnout from having such a heavy caseload of emotional needs.

One counselor gets to kind of do all the fun stuff while the other counselor handles all the crises.

And it can also feel a little siloed. Students might not get to know both counselors and others do after a while.

If you're running just groups or just individuals and you're looking at what the other counselors are doing,

you might also feel a little bored or a little stifled with what you're doing as well.

So one way to maybe alleviate this too is to rotate responsibilities each year or semester or sometimes even carve out some shared duties to avoid that burnout imbalance.

And you also want to make sure that you keep all your counselors visible in classrooms and events because it Is really important that your students know all the counselors in the building,

not just your tier one.

Another way to split up a caseload and you might not have heard of this is a half year swap.

That's right, a half year swap. And I can tell you,

my one co counselor and I, we did this. Our principal was like, yep,

I want you guys to get to know all the kids.

Ashley, my co counselor, she had grades K,

one section of grades K through 6 for the first half of the year.

I had the second section of grades K through 6 for THE first half of the year. And then we got, when we got to the midpoint, we swapped,

we swapped classes.

The pros for that was that we really did get to know all students so that if something was were happening,

we could both respond if we needed to,

or if one of us was busy, the other person could respond.

If a kid just came down to the office and was crying and upset, they knew both of us already.

We had both developed that relationship with those kids so that no matter who walked through the door,

they felt comfortable with whoever they were looking at.

You really do get to know all the students in a half year switch model.

It also reduces that counselor student dependency,

especially in the upper grades when you're doing all the things with the kids.

And it can help build some whole school relationships and shared understanding of student needs.

The cons is that relationship building resets mid year transitions can sometimes be bumpy and it can be a little bit confusing for staff and families unless you really communicate really well what you're doing.

Another con is if you have a ton of students and then slop in mid year,

you just learned all their names and then you're starting with a new group of names that you have to remember.

And that can be kind of tricky.

I had been doing it for a couple years and I really knew the kids. But once again,

I would start the year, I would have all those names of all the kids memorized and then we'd switch and I'd have this new group in front of me and I was like, ah,

I forgot their names.

I don't want to just call them buddy.

So you can run into that kind of problem as well.

For that though, my little solution was I would always ask the teachers to put back the little name plates so that as I'm walking around the classroom, I could remember who's who and I could actually, if I forgot for a moment or two, I could just look at their desk and see their nameplate and call on them.

One tip I think that really makes this work is to only swap your general caseload.

You really should keep the same kids you had all year for individual or small group counseling because you want those groups to be consistent for the year,

for the time period that you have them so that you avoid disruption in those higher tiered services.

You really do want to keep your tier 2 and tier 3 kids the same.

Now here's one last way to I think split your caseload and that is to split by program role.

This is less common, but it really is worth mentioning.

This is where one counselor handles the academic and scheduling responsibilities while the other handles the social emotional support.

Now I personally have never done this model,

but I think I told you guys before that my co counselor that I simply adore and love has left. She had a baby. She has gone to a new school to be closer to to her family.

Now that she has a new baby and her school is splitting by this program role. She's currently in a middle school and her CO counselor, he, he does all the academic and the scheduling and she does all the social emotional support.

The pros is that each counselor can really develop once again that expertise in their domain.

And this can work really well in the middle and high school settings.

And families know exactly who to go to for what.

The cons for this is that one counselor may end up being the scheduled person and never really get to do any proactive programming.

And students,

they can fall through the cracks if they don't get to know both counselors.

But I think a tip to making this work is to still co deliver those Tier 1 lessons and share the visibility to avoid siloing the program.

Now if you are lucky enough to work with a co counselor, there's still other duties.

You have to think about how you can divide those other duties. Because no matter how you split the caseload, there's always those shared tasks that you need to think about.

So for classroom lessons,

you may want to rotate by grade level semester based on comfort zone.

Maybe one of you,

especially if you're sharing by Alphabet or something,

maybe have one of you do one grade level.

Like I'll do grades one, three and five this time and you do two,

four and six. And then let's share and swap so that you only have to do half. Because if you're, if you're scheduling and planning six different lessons each time,

it's going to be complete overload.

So make sure that you rotate by grade level or semester or something. You need to figure how you're going to split that out.

The other duties that you might have to divide are parent communication,

is your 910 counselor really required to be there?

Or if you are doing a welcome to high school night,

If you have 504s or IEPs, and I know a lot of you are lucky enough not to have those duties,

but some of us do.

And even at the middle school or the high school,

even if you don't service kids with IEPs, you're still really servicing them because you should be at their meetings because they have schedules,

they have certain things that are required of them to graduate and your expertise at that roundtable is needed.

So you need to think about how you're going to share all those duties,

committees and meetings.

Do both of you need to go to and be on the attendance committee and the MTSS committee and the school improvement plan committee?

Maybe you want to share this out as well.

So trade off or pick based on your expertise and interest or maybe yeah, definitely trade off. Like I'll do this one this year, you do it next year and the one I'm doing this year I'll give to you next year.

And then crisis response is another biggie to think about.

Maybe you want to create a rotating on call schedule or tag team when available.

So think about how you're going to handle all those crisises.

And it doesn't matter if it's do I only respond to my grade level or do we respond to the whole school and it's just based on who's available at the time.

So think about how that's going to be divided.

A pro tip for this is to really keep a shared Google Calendar or a living task list,

maybe in a Google Doc or some sort of to do list type of program.

This can really help you guys avoid duplicated efforts.

Drop balls. And that classic. Wait, I thought you were doing that moment.

One thing that my co counselor and I and this is no matter what co counselor I have worked with,

we have always kept like a Google Doc.

We've had a lot of shared resources where we have referral forms and we both get notified when a referral comes in. We take a look at it Together we decide which one of us is going to service that need,

that referral.

Having those things and deciding where you're going to store it, who's going to have access to it, if you're both going to maintain it,

you need to figure all that out as well.

Now that was an awful lot. There are a ton of ways to split things up.

And like I said, if you are lucky enough to work with a CO counselor,

or maybe this is the first time that you have that opportunity,

really think about what you want your program to look like.

I think no matter what model you choose to split the caseload up,

as long as you go into it with a plan,

you can make it work.

So think about what you want to accomplish first,

what you think will work best for you,

and how you can really put your expertise to work.

At the end of the day, my friends,

there really is no perfect way to split a caseload.

The goal,

it isn't just about fairness.

It's really about functionality and support.

And what matters most is that students know who to go to,

staff knows how to get help,

and that the counselors,

they support each other. And you collaborate consistently.

And remember,

it's okay to experiment.

If a system isn't working,

tweak it.

You're not locked in for life.

And I know in the program that I'm in right now,

we are at that grade level.

We've had three different models until we got to this one.

So remember, it's okay to switch.

So if you're navigating a caseload split this year,

I'd love to hear what's worked or what totally flopped.

So please DM me or send me an email at carolounselingessentials.org I'd really love to hear from you.

And if you're looking for some ready made resources,

group curriculums and lesson plans to support your half of the caseload or the whole school,

remember, check out Perks Counseling Content Club.

It's like a CO counselor in your pocket.

And until next time, friends,

let's keep things collaborative.

Keep it counselory and don't forget, we're better together.

Until next time.

I hope you have a great week.

Bye for now.

Carol: Thanks for listening to today's episode of Counselor Chat. All of the links I talked about can be found in the show notes and at counselingessentials.org podcast. Be sure to hit follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast player.

And if you would be so kind.

Carol: To leave a review, I'd really appreciate it. Want to connect?

Carol: Send me a DM on Facebook or Instagram at counselingessentials. Until next time. Can't wait till we chat. Bye for now.