ASCA Ethical Standards for School Counselors: A Comprehensive Guide

The American School Counselor Association (ASCA) provides ethical guidelines for school counselors to ensure integrity, leadership, and professionalism. These standards, periodically revised to reflect current best practices, outline the responsibilities of school counselors toward students, parents/guardians, colleagues, the school district, the community, and the profession.

Preamble: The Foundation of Ethical Practice

The ASCA is a professional organization that supports school counselors, school counseling students/interns, school counseling program directors/supervisors, and school counselor educators. The ASCA Ethical Standards for School Counselors are the ethical responsibility of all school counseling professionals. School counselors possess unique qualifications and skills to implement comprehensive programs addressing students’ academic, career, and social/emotional development from pre-K through grade 12. As leaders, advocates, collaborators, and consultants, they drive systemic change to ensure equitable educational outcomes.

School counselors believe in the ability of all students to learn and advocate for an education system that provides optimal learning environments. This commitment is reflected in the rights of all students:

Respect and Dignity: To be respected and treated with dignity.
Safe and Inclusive Environment: A physically and emotionally safe, inclusive, and healthy school environment, both in-person and through digital platforms, free from abuse, bullying, harassment, discrimination, and any other forms of violence.
Equitable Access: Equitable access to a school counseling program that promotes academic, career, and social/emotional development and improves student outcomes for all students, including students historically and currently marginalized by the education system.
Support for All Backgrounds: Equitable access to school counselors who support students from all backgrounds and circumstances and who advocate for and affirm all students regardless of but not limited to ethnic/racial identity; nationality; age; social class; economic status; abilities/disabilities; language; immigration status; sexual orientation; gender identity; gender expression; family type; religious/spiritual identity; and living situations, including emancipated minor status, wards of the state, homelessness or incarceration.
Self-Development and Affirmation: Information and support needed to enhance self-development and affirmation within one’s group identities.
Postsecondary Information: Critical, timely information, beginning with pre-K through grade 12, on how college/university, career and technical school, military, workforce and other postsecondary options can have an impact on their educational choices and future opportunities.
Privacy: Privacy that is honored to the greatest extent possible, which at times may be limited by school counselors’ balance of other competing interests (e.g., best interests of students, the safety of others, parental rights) and adherence to laws, policies and ethical standards pertaining to confidentiality and disclosure in the school setting.

Purpose: Guiding Principles and Ethical Practices

The ASCA Ethical Standards for School Counselors serve as a guide for ethical practices and provide support for self-assessment and performance appraisal. Developed in collaboration with school counselors, state school counselor associations, school counseling district and state leaders, and school counselor educators across the nation, these standards clarify the profession’s norms, values, and beliefs.

The purpose of these standards is to:

Serve as a guide for the ethical practices of all individuals serving in a school counseling capacity, including school counselors, school counseling students/interns, supervisors/directors of school counseling programs and school counselor educators regardless of grade level, geographic area, population served or ASCA membership.
Provide support and direction for self-assessment, peer consultation and performance appraisal regarding school counselors’ responsibilities to students, parents/guardians, colleagues and professional associates, school district and employees, communities and the school counseling profession.
Inform all educational stakeholders, including but not limited to students, parents/guardians, teachers/staff, administrators, community members, legal professionals and courts of justice, regarding the ethical practices, values and expected behaviors of the school counseling professional.

A. Responsibility to Students

A.1. Supporting Student Development

School counselors prioritize the well-being of students, treating them with dignity and respect as unique individuals. They foster and affirm all students and their identity and psychosocial development. They actively work to eliminate systemic barriers or bias impeding student development. School counselors provide culturally responsive instruction and appraisal and advisement to students. School counselors provide culturally responsive counseling to students in a brief context and support students and families/guardians in obtaining outside services if students need long-term clinical/mental health counseling.

While school counselors do not diagnose, they recognize how a student’s diagnosis and environment can potentially affect the student’s access, participation and ability to achieve academic, postsecondary and social/emotional success. They acknowledge the vital role and rights of parents/guardians, families, and tribal communities. School counselors respect students’ and families’ values, beliefs, and cultural backgrounds, as well as students’ sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression, and exercise great care to avoid imposing personal biases, beliefs or values rooted in one’s religion, culture or ethnicity.

School counselors are knowledgeable of local, state and federal laws, as well as school and district policies and procedures affecting students and families and strive to protect and inform students and families regarding their rights. They advocate for equitable, anti-oppressive and anti-bias policies and procedures, systems and practices, and provide effective, evidence-based and culturally sustaining interventions to address student needs. They involve diverse networks of support, including but not limited to educational teams, community and tribal agencies and partners, wraparound services and vocational rehabilitation services as needed to best serve students.

School counselors maintain appropriate boundaries and are aware that any sexual or romantic relationship with students (whether legal or illegal in the state of employment) is a grievous breach of ethics and is prohibited regardless of a student’s age or consent. This prohibition applies to both in-person and electronic interactions and relationships.

A.2. Confidentiality

Confidentiality is a cornerstone of the school counselor-student relationship. School counselors:

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Promote awareness of school counselors’ ethical standards and legal mandates regarding confidentiality and the appropriate rationale and procedures for disclosure of student data and information to school staff.
Inform students of the purposes, goals, techniques, rules and procedures under which they may receive counseling. Disclosure includes informed consent and clarification of the limits of confidentiality.
Recognize that informed consent requires competence, voluntariness and knowledge on students’ part to understand the limits of confidentiality and, therefore, can be difficult to obtain from students of certain developmental levels and special-needs populations. The school counselor should make attempts to gain assent appropriate to the individual student (e.g., in the student’s preferred language) prior to disclosure.
Are aware that even though attempts are made to obtain informed consent, it is not always possible. Serious and foreseeable harm is different for each minor in schools and is determined by a student’s developmental and chronological age, the setting, parental/guardian rights and the nature of the harm. School counselors consult with appropriate professionals when in doubt as to the validity of an exception.
Recognize their primary ethical obligation for confidentiality is to the students but balance that obligation with an understanding of parents’/guardians’ legal and inherent rights to be the guiding voice in their children’s lives. School counselors understand the need to balance students’ ethical rights to make choices, their capacity to give consent or assent, and parental or familial legal rights and responsibilities to make decisions on their child’s behalf.
Collaborate with and involve students to the extent possible and use the most appropriate and least intrusive method to breach confidentiality if such action is warranted. The child’s developmental age and the circumstances requiring the breach are considered and, as appropriate, students are engaged in a discussion about the method and timing of the breach.
Adhere to federal, state and local laws and school board policy when conveying sensitive information.
Advocate for appropriate safeguards and protocols so highly sensitive student information is not disclosed accidentally to individuals who do not have a need to know such information. Best practice suggests a very limited number of educators would have access to highly sensitive information on a need-to-know basis.
Advocate with appropriate school officials for acceptable encryption standards to be utilized for stored data and currently acceptable algorithms to be utilized for data in transit.
Avoid using software programs without the technological capabilities to protect student information based upon legal specifications and currently acceptable security standards.
Advocate for physical and virtual workspaces that are arranged to protect the confidentiality of students’ communications and records.

A.3. Comprehensive School Counseling Program

School counselors provide a culturally responsive school counseling program that promotes academic, career and social/emotional development and equitable opportunity and achievement outcomes for all students. They collaborate with administration, teachers, staff and stakeholders for equitable school improvement goals.

Data collection is a vital part of a comprehensive program, and school counselors use data-collection tools adhering to standards of confidentiality as expressed in A.2. They review and use school and student data to assess and address needs, including but not limited to data on strengths and disparities that may exist related to gender, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, disability and/or other relevant classifications.

School counselors deliver research-based interventions to help close achievement, attainment, information, attendance, discipline, resource and opportunity gaps. They collect and analyze participation, ASCA Mindsets & Behaviors and outcome data to determine the progress and effectiveness of the school counseling program and share data outcomes with stakeholders.

A.4. Academic, Career, and Social/Emotional Planning

School counselors collaborate with a community of stakeholders to create a culture of postsecondary readiness. They provide and advocate for all students’ pre-K-postsecondary career awareness, exploration, and postsecondary planning and decision-making to support students’ right to choose from the wide array of career and postsecondary options, including but not limited to college/university, career and technical school, military or workforce.

They identify and examine gaps in college and career access and address both intentional and unintentional biases in postsecondary and career counseling. School counselors provide opportunities for all students to develop a positive attitude toward learning, effective learning strategies, self-management and social skills and an understanding that lifelong learning is part of long-term career success.

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It is important for school counselors to address their personal biases related to students’ postsecondary choices and address any inequitable systemic policies and practices related to students’ postsecondary choices.

A.5. Technology

School counselors adhere to legal, ethical, district and school policies and guidelines when using technology with students and stakeholders.

A.6. Appropriate Collaboration, Advocacy, and Referrals for Counseling

When students need assistance, school counselors collaborate with all relevant stakeholders, including students, school faculty/staff and parents/guardians, including when early warning signs of student distress are identified. They provide a list of outside agencies and resources in their community, or the closest available, to students and parents/guardians when students need or request additional support. School counselors provide multiple referral options or the district-vetted list of referrals options and are careful not to indicate an endorsement or preference for one individual or practice. School counselors encourage parents/guardians to research outside professionals’ skills/experience to inform their personal decision regarding the best source of assistance for their student.

School counselors connect students with services provided through the local school district and community agencies and remain aware of state laws and local district policies related to students with special needs, including limits to confidentiality and notification to authorities as appropriate. They develop a plan for the transitioning of primary counseling services with minimal interruption of services. Students retain the right for the referred services to be conducted in coordination with the school counselor or to discontinue counseling services with the school counselor while maintaining an appropriate relationship that may include participation in other school support services.

School counselors refrain from referring students based solely on the school counselor’s personal beliefs or values rooted in one’s religion, culture, ethnicity or personal worldview. School counselors maintain the highest respect for student cultural identities and worldviews. School counselors pursue additional training and supervision when their values are discriminatory in nature (e.g., sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, reproductive rights, race, religion, ability status). School counselors do not impose their values on students and/or families when making referrals to outside resources for student and/or family support.

They attempt to establish a collaborative relationship with outside service providers to best serve students. School counselors request a release of information signed by the student and/or parents/guardians before attempting to collaborate with the student’s external provider. They provide internal and external service providers with accurate and meaningful data necessary to adequately assess, counsel and assist students.

School counselors ensure there is not a conflict of interest in providing referral resources. School counselors do not refer or accept a referral to counsel students from their school if they also work in a private counseling practice.

A.7. Group Work

School counselors offer culturally sustaining small-group counseling.

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