22,074 U.S. public schools — 23.6% of the 93,704 that report counselor staffing — reported zero school counselors on staff in the federal Civil Rights Data Collection, SY 2021-22. 6,828,706 students attend them. This page reports school staffing as filed with the U.S. Department of Education — it describes school resourcing, not school quality, and not the neighborhoods around any school.
A counselor ratio is a staffing fact. The useful question depends on who is reading it, but the source and limits stay the same.
Use the ratio to prepare questions for a school: How are appointments scheduled? Does one counselor work across several campuses? Which other student-support staff are available? The federal number cannot answer those local questions.
The ratio shows how reported counselor staffing relates to enrollment. It does not tell you whether help is available today. Ask the school office how to reach a counselor or another trusted student-support professional.
Keep the denominator and vintage attached. Reported zero and missing data are different. Use the state table to find a question, then verify local staffing and reporting practices before drawing conclusions.
Present the field as a cited administrative fact, never a school rating or a reason to choose a neighborhood. The value is the audit trail: source, year, definition, missing-value treatment and downloadable rows.
Share of reporting schools with zero counselor FTE, by state — the fifteen highest. In four jurisdictions, more than half of reporting schools reported zero counselors.
Sorted by the share of reporting schools with zero counselor FTE. Median ratio is students per counselor among schools reporting at least one counselor FTE.
| State | Reporting | % zero | Median ratio |
|---|---|---|---|
| RI | 301 | 53.8% | 262 : 1 |
| MI | 3,346 | 52.3% | 332 : 1 |
| IL | 4,149 | 51.6% | 279 : 1 |
| PR | 840 | 51.4% | 276 : 1 |
| MN | 2,255 | 49.7% | 328 : 1 |
| AZ | 2,045 | 45.0% | 384 : 1 |
| DC | 236 | 41.5% | 284 : 1 |
| AK | 491 | 41.3% | 280 : 1 |
| CT | 986 | 40.7% | 225 : 1 |
| CA | 10,001 | 37.7% | 382 : 1 |
| CO | 1,853 | 35.4% | 302 : 1 |
| ME | 557 | 28.7% | 252 : 1 |
| IN | 1,818 | 28.4% | 358 : 1 |
| OR | 1,262 | 28.1% | 297 : 1 |
| WI | 2,164 | 27.5% | 316 : 1 |
| WY | 353 | 26.3% | 225 : 1 |
| ID | 767 | 25.8% | 331 : 1 |
| OH | 3,473 | 25.2% | 370 : 1 |
| NY | 3,173 | 25.1% | 247 : 1 |
| NM | 857 | 24.7% | 288 : 1 |
| UT | 1,050 | 24.7% | 397 : 1 |
| WA | 2,372 | 24.3% | 360 : 1 |
| SD | 679 | 22.8% | 216 : 1 |
| LA | 1,288 | 22.0% | 368 : 1 |
| FL | 3,931 | 21.3% | 434 : 1 |
| IA | 1,295 | 20.8% | 325 : 1 |
| MT | 822 | 19.1% | 200 : 1 |
| MA | 1,802 | 17.9% | 207 : 1 |
| KY | 1,379 | 16.2% | 382 : 1 |
| KS | 1,330 | 15.4% | 291 : 1 |
| NV | 715 | 15.2% | 424 : 1 |
| NJ | 2,497 | 14.6% | 311 : 1 |
| NE | 1,034 | 13.6% | 270 : 1 |
| TX | 8,739 | 13.4% | 391 : 1 |
| DE | 224 | 12.9% | 336 : 1 |
| TN | 1,794 | 12.2% | 369 : 1 |
| MO | 2,325 | 10.3% | 283 : 1 |
| MS | 882 | 9.3% | 356 : 1 |
| ND | 486 | 8.8% | 210 : 1 |
| NH | 488 | 8.0% | 193 : 1 |
| HI | 294 | 7.8% | 259 : 1 |
| OK | 1,751 | 7.6% | 327 : 1 |
| VT | 287 | 7.3% | 170 : 1 |
| MD | 1,376 | 6.9% | 355 : 1 |
| PA | 2,847 | 6.1% | 333 : 1 |
| WV | 651 | 6.0% | 281 : 1 |
| VA | 1,957 | 5.0% | 306 : 1 |
| NC | 2,653 | 4.6% | 340 : 1 |
| GA | 2,284 | 3.5% | 431 : 1 |
| AR | 1,023 | 3.4% | 345 : 1 |
| SC | 1,166 | 3.4% | 342 : 1 |
| AL | 1,356 | 2.7% | 409 : 1 |
These ten pilot pages add five large-district examples and a clear paid API path. Full district and school rows stay gated. We will expand only after search and indexation data show that the pages help readers.
Counselor staffing is the school counselor FTE field (counselors_fte) from the U.S. Department of Education Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC), SY 2021-22 — the latest published collection of this biennial survey. It is joined to current-year school profiles in K12 Atlas release v2026.07.
The universe is 102,176 current-year U.S. public schools. 93,704 of them report counselor FTE; the 8,472 schools that did not report are excluded from every denominator on this page. A school that is silent is not a school with zero counselors — but a reported zero is a reported value, and we count it as one.
The American School Counselor Association (ASCA) recommends a ratio of at most 250 students per school counselor. Ratios here are total enrollment divided by reported counselor FTE, computed for the 70,967 schools that report both a nonzero counselor FTE and enrollment.
How to read school counselor ratio data explains FTE, denominators, and the ASCA reference line.
This page states what schools reported to a federal collection. It makes no ranking, score, staff-performance claim, or housing recommendation. Cite it as K12 Atlas, release v2026.07, k12atlas.us/data/counselor-deserts.
Related: how to read school counselor ratios · CRDC definition · full K12 Atlas methodology.
It is school enrollment divided by reported counselor full-time-equivalent staffing. It describes a staffing relationship, not counseling quality or student access.
It means a school reported 0.0 counselor FTE in CRDC SY 2021–22. Missing data is kept separate and is not counted as a reported zero.
No. The American School Counselor Association recommends 250 students per counselor. K12 Atlas uses it only as a reference line, never as a school score or housing recommendation.
K12 Atlas provides a free state-level aggregate CSV on this page. Selected state pages show five district examples. Full district and school records require a paid data pack or API license.
The public page proves the source and method. Full counselor FTE rows and related cited fields require a paid data pack or key-gated API license.