Dear Counselor: How Do I Balance Student Needs With Accountability Metrics?

As counselors navigate another busy school year, the demands continue to grow. Rising caseloads, increasing accountability requirements, evolving graduation pathways, and the nonstop flow of student needs make the work more complex each year.

In our recent webinar, Dear Counselor: How Do I Balance Student Needs with Accountability Metrics?, Education Advanced’s Mia Finch sat down with Lauren Nelson, School Counseling Department Chair at Portage High School, to talk about real-world strategies counselors can use to protect their time, meet the demands of accountability, and stay centered on what matters most: students.

How Can Counselors Balance Human Needs with Growing Accountability Demands?

Nelson: So much of what we do is rooted in data. We have graduation rates, credit checks, attendance rates, missing classes, and pathways. There are just so many numbers to track. The data shows patterns, shows where gaps are, and identifies red or yellow flag students, but everything we do has to be centered on humans, on the student, and their benefit.

When you start using numbers to motivate how you prioritize your day and how you meet with kids, that’s where balance really happens. I have 250 or so students. There is no way I would even know who to talk to if I didn’t use data to prioritize my meetings.  

I would love to meet with the smiling kid who is always respectful, but it’s important to find the kids riding under the radar, the kids who need to be sought out. Who is not showing up every day to period 3? Who is late every single day? Who is avoiding lunch? Those kids aren’t always going to seek you out.

Why Is Structure Essential for Counselors?

Nelson: Going from being a teacher, where your day is very scheduled, to being a counselor was weird. You can go to the bathroom whenever you want… but you can also lose hours of the day without realizing it.

I’ve learned that if it’s not on my calendar, it won’t get done. I schedule:

• Email time
• Student meetings
• Transcript checks
• Announcements
• Even time to sit and focus

Otherwise, it gets swallowed by unexpected conversations, student crises, or hallway detours. Google Calendar and Google Tasks keep me on track, and I shut off my school calendar on weekends, so the notifications don’t steal my personal time. During the school day, I want those alerts. I want my wrist to buzz when I’m supposed to be somewhere in five minutes.

How Can Counselors Use Systems to Work Smarter, Not Harder?

Nelson: Pathways is truly my lifesaver. Before Pathways, we were printing transcripts, using rulers, manually color-coding, and each counselor had their own way of tracking credits. If someone was out, nobody could follow their system.

I still apply my human judgment, but now, with the data, any student can walk in and within five minutes, I have a complete academic picture: credits, requirements, diploma type, pathway progress. And beyond Pathways, I’ve learned to tap into systems our district already had.  

This year I realized IT could upload CSV files into PowerSchool, so we weren’t entering the same Work-Based Learning data in three different places. We track it in Pathways, export the CSV, and someone else can manipulate it for whatever codes they need. It gets reimported, and it’s done in minutes instead of hours. That has given me hours back to meet face-to-face with kids.

Why Is “No” an Important Part of the Counselor Toolkit?

Nelson: This year, we're down two counselors. I’ve had to turn to my admin team and be like, no, we can’t do that. Saying no is a complete sentence, but it’s really uncomfortable when you’re a counselor. You want to help other people. But I only have seven and a half hours in this building, and I’m not going to be here until 7 o’clock at night every night.  

I’m not saying no because I don’t want to do things. I’m saying no because I’ve only seen five kids all week, when I should be seeing 30. I spent all of this time on data, clerical stuff, files, lunch duty, and things that are not counseling duties.  

When I started saying no, it opened up the door for compromise, for collaboration, and conversations. People didn’t even realize we were responsible for that or where the time was going.

How Can New Counselors Establish Healthy Routines?

Nelson: Start small.

• Set aside 15 minutes every morning for emails.
• Stick to it. Don’t check emails during the day unless it’s your scheduled time.
• Use your calendar for every task.
• Build accountability into your workflow.

Some days are unpredictable. A crisis can bleed into a peer issue, which bleeds into a teacher meeting or an admin meeting, and suddenly you’ve forgotten a deadline from five hours ago.  

But if you have things on your calendar, you can move them instead of losing them. It’s a muscle you build over time. You get stronger, better, and more efficient.

Final Thoughts

Nelson: The kids are the reason why I have a job. I’m blessed to get to go to work every day because they exist. If they didn’t come here and need help with graduation, college, attendance, or anything else, I wouldn’t be here. It’s a reality check that keeps me grounded, especially on the hard days.

Finch: Seeing that purpose helps counselors stay centered. When your systems support you, you can spend more time with students and less time buried in tasks. Systems like Pathways keep you from drowning in data and focus on real connection.

If you missed the live session, you can watch the full webinar here to hear the complete conversation and access strategies for connecting evaluations to meaningful professional growth.

If your school is interested in new ways to improve the learning experience for children, you may also be interested in automating tasks and streamlining processes so that your teachers have more time to teach. Education Advanced offers a large suite of tools that may be able to help:

• Evaluation: A staff evaluation solution for documenting every step of the staff evaluation process, including walk-throughs, self-evaluations, supporting evidence, reporting, and performance analytics.
• Pathways: A graduation tracking tool that enables administrators and counselors to create, track, and analyze graduation pathways, ensuring secondary students stay on track to graduate.
• TestHound: Our test accommodation software helps schools coordinate thousands of students across all state and local K-12 assessments while considering various accommodations, such as for reading disabilities, physical disabilities, and translations.