Why I'm Leaving School Counseling (And What the Broken System Has to Do With It)

After years inside the school counseling system, I have something to say that I have been sitting with for a while.

At the end of this school year I am leaving school counseling. For good.

Not because I stopped caring about students. Not because anything catastrophically wrong happened. Because something has shifted — in me, in the work I am building, in what I know I am meant to be doing — and staying would mean choosing comfort over truth.

Today I am sharing the real story. The school I helped open and thought I would never leave. The toxic environment that forced a decision I was not ready to make. The year I spent at a new school — with people I genuinely love — testing whether the problem was the environment or me.

And what that year confirmed about the system itself.

In this episode I talk about:

The reality of school counseling that most families never see — caseloads of 400 students, the recommended ratio of 250 to one, and what happens to college guidance when the system does not give counselors the capacity to do the job right

Why the families who most need real guidance — first generation students, multilingual learners, families navigating a process nobody ever taught them — are often the ones who get the least

The two things that made leaving feel not just right but necessary — a business that has outgrown my ability to run it part time, and a son who is about to be a senior

What I learned about loyalty, grief, and choosing yourself even when nothing is forcing you to

Why outgrowing a dream is not failure — and what that has to do with the students sitting across from me right now trying to figure out if their plan is still the right one

The Turning Point Scholarship — and how the generosity of the families I work with is making it possible to bring full one-on-one college counseling to eight first generation and multilingual students completely free of charge

This one is different from every other episode I have recorded. It needed to be.

If you’re a parent navigating high school, college admissions, or the many transitions that come with raising teens, you’re in the right place.

I’m Lindsay, a college counselor and parent who believes thoughtful guidance matters—especially for the awesomely average kid. The student who isn’t chasing prestige, but still deserves smart planning, clear strategy, and a path that truly fits.

You can explore ways to work with me, learn about upcoming programs, or find additional resources at www.thecollegecounselingmom.com and sign up for my weekly newsletter here. 

If this episode was helpful, I’d be so grateful if you’d follow the show, leave a review, or share it with another parent who could use steady, grounded support.

Thanks for being here. I’m honored to walk this season with you.
Lindsay | The College Counseling Mom

Transcript

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I've been sitting with something for a while now, and I think it is time to just say it out loud. At the end of this school year, the 2026 school year, I am leaving school counseling. Not taking a break, not stepping back a little, leaving for good. It's a hard thing to say out loud. It has been such a part of my identity for a long time. And I want to talk about why. Not the polished version, but the real version. Because I think the real version might actually matter to your family in ways you would not expect. So stick around. This one is a little different. Hey there. Welcome to the College Counseling Mom Podcast. I'm Lindsay, school counselor, college counselor, and mom who's been right where you are. The high school years don't have to be filled with stress and second guessing. So whether you're a freshman parent just trying to figure out where to start, or seeing your mom refreshing the portal every five minutes, you're in the right place. So grab a coffee or a glass of wine, no judgment here. Let's take a deep breath, laugh a little, and remember, it's fine, you're fine. Your kid's just in high school. So let me start at the beginning because there are actually two chapters to this story, and you need to hear both of them to really understand where I am landing. Chapter one started, oh gosh, five years ago at a brand new high school. I helped open that school. Part of the reason my family moved to this town was because of that school. It was my dream to be the counselor there, to open it, to have my children go there, and to watch them graduate, graduate from there. I was there at the beginning, one of the first people hired. We were building something from the ground up. It was exciting. It was a way that I could create something that I was proud of, the way that I thought it should be run. I genuinely believed that I would be there for the rest of my career, at least until Josh graduated. That was the plan, and that was what felt right, and that was the dream. I have always been heavily invested in the schools that I have worked at, wanting to go to all the things: the sporting events, the dance recitals, the plays, the band concerts. And before working at this school, I felt tugged in too many directions. Do I support the school that I work at, or do I support the school that my kids go to? And this was a way to do both. And it felt really right for a long time until it didn't. And then it became really toxic. I'm not gonna go into the details of what that looked like because that really is not the point of today's episode. But I will say this. I had to leave. I didn't really have a choice. For my health and for my family's well-being, it was a decision that I had to make. But I will tell you, leaving was one of the hardest decisions I have ever made. Not because I wanted to stay, but because of the families that I had grown to love. The families I had walked through freshman orientation with, the families who lost members of their family and I was in attendance at their funerals, families that I had poured my heart into, families that trusted me. These were students whose college lists I knew by heart, whose parents had trusted me with the most important process of their teenager's life. Even leaving something that had become genuinely unhealthy felt really complicated because the people were never the problem. I did not talk about the switch publicly for a long time after I left. Longer than most people probably realized. For a lot of families, they thought I had left school counseling, not knowing that I had taken another job a few counties over. Like I was walking away from something I owed more to. And if I just quietly moved on without saying anything, then maybe it was less real. That is a really strange feeling to sit with, but it was honest. And I am telling you now because I think it matters for what comes next. Chapter two is this year. I did move to another school, a new environment, new colleagues. And honestly, I love the people I work with. I love the kids on my caseload. Nothing about this year has been bad in the way that the other school became bad. But I knew going into this year that I was unsure and I was testing something. I needed to know whether what I was feeling, this pull towards something different, this sense that my time in school counseling needed to come to a close was about the environment or about me. And I needed one more year to be sure. And this year confirmed it. Well, the environment for me needed to change. It had become toxic. The problem was never just that. The problem is the system. Here is the reality of school counseling that most families do not know. The average school counselor in this country carries a caseload of approximately 400 students. The American School Counselor Association recommends a ratio of 250 students to one counselor. Most schools are nowhere near that, and that is at their best when they are fully staffed, which, if you know anything about public education, you know that that rarely happens. Some caseloads are significantly worse. And here is what that caseload actually means in practice. The majority of a school counselor's time, the real day-to-day reality of the job is not spent on college counseling. It is spent on scheduling, on administrative tasks, on crisis intervention, on behavior interventions, on the hundred things that fall to the counseling office because there is nowhere else for them to go. The college guidance piece, the thing families assume is happening, the thing that they count on, the reason they feel like their student is being taken care of, well, that gets whatever time is left over, which is often very little to none. And it is never as much as the families deserve. So the students who most need real guidance, the first generation students who are navigating a system their parents never navigated, the families who are doing everything right, but don't know what they don't know, the kids whose parents are working two jobs and trusting that the school has this covered. Those are the families who get the least. Not because their counselor doesn't care, because the system does not give counselors the capacity to do this job the way it deserves to be done. I have been inside that system for years. I have cared deeply inside a structure that makes deep care structurally almost impossible. And at some point, you have to get honest with yourself about the gap between the impact you want to have and the impact the system allows you to have. That is where I have been living. And this year made it clear that I am not going to close that gap by staying. Now, two other things happened this year that made the decision feel not just right, but necessary. The first is my business. Real conversations, real strategy, someone who gets to know their students specifically and can look at their list, their scores, their financial picture, and tell them exactly what to do and why. That is the work I am built for. And it is growing because it works. And I just can't do it the way it deserves to be done while also carrying a full school caseload. Physically, I cannot do both anymore. The second is Josh, my youngest, soon to be a senior. I have spent years walking other families through this exact process with my full attention and genuine care. I have been present for other people's kids in ways that my job has never quite let me be present for my own. I want to be there for Josh's senior year. Really there, not distracted, not depleted, not giving him the version of me that is left over after a full day of being everything to everyone else. That matters. It matters enough to be part of this decision. So those two things together, the business that has outgrown outgrown my capacity to run it part-time, and a senior year, I do not want to miss, made staying feel like the wrong choice. Even though leaving isn't still a little scary, even though I will miss the kids, even though there is grief in closing a chapter that has been part of my identity for a long time. Okay, I want to talk about why I think this story matters to you because I do not think it is just about me. The senior who got into the school, they always said they wanted and feels nothing, not excited, not relieved, just numb. And they cannot figure out if that is normal nerves or a signal they should listen to. The junior who has been talking about a certain major or a certain path since ninth grade because it sounded impressive or because it made sense at the time. But now something has shifted. And admitting that the plan might need to change feels like admitting something went wrong. Or the student who's afraid to say out loud that the thing they planned for is not the thing they actually want anymore. Because the plan has been the plan for so long and everyone knows about it, and changing it now feels like letting people down. Here is what I want to say to all of them and to their parents. Outgrowing a dream is not failure. It is evidence that you grew. The person you were when you made the plan was supposed to make that plan. That version of you had exactly the information and the self-awareness available to them at the time. And they did the best they could with it. The person you are now gets to make a new plan with new information, with a clearer sense of who you actually are and what you actually want. You are not betraying your past self by choosing something different. You are honoring the growth that has happened between then and now. That is true for a 17-year-old standing at a fork in the road trying to figure out which school to choose. And it is true for a school counselor who has spent years inside a broken system and is finally ready to build something better outside of it. You are allowed to choose the thing that fits who you are becoming. Not the person you were when you made the original decision, not the version of yourself that other people are expecting. The person you actually are right now. So here is where I land. I do not have all the answers for what comes next. I know the business is ready, I know the timing is right, and I know that this decision has been a long time coming. Heck, a lot of you thought I made it last year. But I have been honest with myself about it in a way I am proud of. I am grateful for every student I got to walk alongside in this work. The ones at both schools who I still think about and who I will genuinely miss.

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The work was real. And it mattered even when the system made it harder than it should have been.

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Because of the generosity of some of the families I have had the privilege of working with. I am able to offer my one-on-one college counseling program completely free of charge. I had a small group last year, and this year I have been able to expand it to eight students through what I am calling the Turning Point Scholarship. Some of these students are first-generation college students, multilingual learners, students who are carrying responsibilities at an age far younger than they should. Students who are navigating this process without a roadmap and without the resources that so many families take for granted. These are exactly the students the system was supposed to serve. The ones who deserved a counselor with the time and capacity to actually know them. And now I get to be that for eight of them. Not squeezed in between 400 other kids and a stack of paperwork, but fully present and fully invested in their specific story and their specific path. That is what leaving makes possible. Not just for me, but for them. I have spent years watching the system fail the students who need it most. Not just in college admissions. The system is broken in so many areas. And I am not just walking away. I am building something that can actually reach them. It's bittersweet, but I am excited. Genuinely excited. For the first time in a long time about what a school year ending means. Not relief, not survival, but excitement for what is on the other side. I have been doing both jobs for a while now. I have been putting in very long hours, and I'm excited to rediscover some me time as well. I am excited for what is on the other side. So thank you for being here for this one. And to all the families that I have worked with in the school system and in this private capacity, I am so thankful for you. Truly. Being a part of your students' life and journey has created so much joy in my heart. So thank you for being here, for being there, and for continuing to support me. This one was a little different, but I think it needed to be.

SPEAKER_01 19:45

I will see you next week.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

Thanks for listening to the College Counseling Mom podcast. If this episode helped you feel a little calmer or a little more confident, please follow or subscribe wherever you're listening. And share it with another mom who could use a reminder that it's all going to be okay. Head over to the blog at the College CounselingMom.com for full show notes, links, and resources from today's episode. You can also find me on Instagram and Facebook at the College Counseling Mom. And remember, it's fine, you're fine. Your kid's just in high school.