I subscribe to a listserv for counselor educators and supervisors called CESNET and this thread came up posted by Wes Irwin:

I was surprised to learn that the school district that I recently moved into, Mounds View School District, MN has replaced school counselors with "Deans." If you are interested you can read more about this on their website via a link to their electronic newsletter http://www.moundsviewschools.org/ from the Spring of 2010.  This school district is pretty highly rated. I do not yet know the background as to what brought this about. Is this a trend nationwide?

I am not sure that this is a trend nationwide, particularly since states like Michigan have written into the administrative rules that only school counselors may do the work of school counselors.  However, situations like the one described by Wes Irwin give us a moment to reflect on the role of the school counselor. 

When I read the article that briefly described the rationale for replacing the school counselor with a dean, I was not convinced that student needs were being met.  In sum, the rationale provided was that by replacing the school counselor the district could reduce the caseload of students to 1:250 as they expanded the role from guidance and counseling to include the following four duties: (1) guidance and counseling, (2) behavior and discipline, (3) adminsitration, and (4) supervision.  Each of these roles are described in detail in the article.

The following was also taken from the article:

Although the dean model is geared toward greater personalization, not all students are comfortable with the dual role that deans play. Some students would like to see deans demonstrate greater separation between support and discipline, while giving more attention to mental health and emotional issues. "I know some students find it awkward when the same person they're encouraged to see when they have a personal problem is the same person who hands out discipline," says Mounds View dean Angela VanHee. "But knowing more about my students' lives greatly affects how I treat discipline matters. If you have to separate discipline from supporting, you don't know the whole story of the student. Now we can take into account the whole student, and with that information, we can help them make better choices."

I appreicated the following response made by CESNET member Kailla Edger:

I kept thinking that it would be powerful to have a flood of detailed letters from blooming school counselors and other professionals come through the appropriate channels. This is just one idea among many, but an advocacy learning project could really help this issue.

Read through the article in its entirety and share your thoughts on the topic.