Idaho School Counselor
Idaho school counselors serve grades K-12, and the median wage as of May 2025 is $60,320. The standard route is a state-approved school counseling program with 700 supervised hours that leads to a School Counselor endorsement from the Idaho Department of Education. Qualifying licensed counselors and social workers may instead apply for a School Counselor (Basic) endorsement. Idaho has three CACREP-accredited programs.
Idaho Links
Idaho offers career changers more than one path into school counseling, and with three accredited programs in the state, the traditional route is easy to find. Here’s what the work looks like, what it pays, and where you can train.
What School Counselors Do in Idaho
A high schooler in Boise is quietly failing two classes after a rough fall semester. His grades slipped, he stopped showing up to clubs, and his teachers aren’t sure what changed. The school counselor connects the dots: a family situation at home, a schedule that isn’t working, a student who needs a plan more than he needs a lecture. By the end of the week, she’s coordinated with his teachers, adjusted his course load, and set up a weekly check-in. That’s a typical week.
Idaho school counselors work across all grade levels and cover three broad areas: academic support, college and career planning, and social-emotional development. At the elementary level, that often means helping kids build the skills to handle conflict or manage anxiety. At the middle and high school level, the focus shifts to academic advising, postsecondary planning, and crisis response.
Idaho’s school counseling programs draw on the ASCA National Model, which organizes a counselor’s work around direct student services and indirect services, things like consulting with teachers and parents, making referrals to outside agencies, and coordinating with community supports. In rural parts of the state, that community-coordination role is especially pronounced. In smaller districts, counselors often serve as the main connection between families and social services.
School counselor certification runs through the Idaho Department of Education, not the state’s counseling licensure board. The standard School Counselor endorsement requires a recommendation from a state-approved program and 700 hours of practicum and internship, at least 525 of them in K-12 schools at the elementary, middle, and high school levels, or a year of certificated K-12 school counseling experience in place of those hours. If you hold an Idaho LPC, LCPC, or qualifying social work license, you may be eligible for the School Counselor (Basic) endorsement instead, but the license alone doesn’t authorize you to work as a school counselor. You still apply to the department and meet its educator certification requirements, as outlined on the Idaho school counselor certification requirements page.
Job Outlook in Idaho
About 1,990 people worked in Idaho in May 2025 in the federal job category that includes school counselors, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Roughly 900 of those jobs are in the Boise metro area. Nationally, BLS projects about 27,800 openings a year for this occupation from 2025 to 2035. Most of those come from counselors retiring or changing careers, not from new positions.
Idaho school counseling vacancies may be advertised through school district websites and IdahoWorks. The postings we reviewed ask for the Pupil Service Staff Certificate with a school counselor endorsement or, in some cases, a certified social worker license. Some districts still use the older name, Pupil Personnel Services Certificate.
Idaho averaged 391 students per school counselor in 2023-24, although individual caseloads vary by school and district. That was the biggest improvement of any state that year, down from 481 the year before, but it’s still well above the 250:1 ratio ASCA recommends.
School Counselor Salary in Idaho
Idaho’s median wage for school counselors was $60,320 in May 2025, about $4,000 below the national median of $64,330, according to BLS. These figures cover the broader BLS category of educational, guidance, and career counselors and advisors, so they include college and career advisors as well as school counselors. Pay doesn’t vary much by region: all six areas fall between $58,950 and $60,990.
| Percentile | Annual Salary |
|---|---|
| 10th | $46,710 |
| 25th | $51,060 |
| Median (50th) | $60,320 |
| 75th | $72,680 |
| 90th | $79,620 |
| Metro Area | Median Salary |
|---|---|
| Boise City, ID | $60,990 |
| Coeur d’Alene, ID | $60,980 |
| Southeast-Central Idaho nonmetropolitan area | $60,820 |
| Twin Falls, ID | $59,540 |
| Lewiston, ID-WA | $59,530 |
| Idaho Falls, ID | $58,950 |
CACREP-Accredited School Counseling Programs in Idaho
Three Idaho programs hold CACREP accreditation in school counseling. They’re listed by the number of master’s graduates each university reported, which reflects size, not quality.
| Institution | City | Degree | Accredited Through | Master’s Graduates (2023) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Boise State University | Boise | M.A. | October 31, 2033 | 23 |
| Northwest Nazarene University | Nampa | M.S. | October 31, 2033 | 6 |
| Idaho State University | Pocatello | M. Coun. | October 31, 2027 | 4 |
Northwest Nazarene University’s CACREP status is Accredited (Progress Report Required), through October 31, 2033. Idaho State University’s status is Accredited (Reaffirmation in Process), and its current accreditation cycle ends October 31, 2027.
How this table was built. CACREP accredits every program here as a School Counseling program, verified against the CACREP register on September 30, 2026. Any program whose CACREP status shows a teach-out, closure, show-cause, or withdrawal is excluded, because a reader cannot reliably enroll in it. Programs are ordered by the number of master’s graduates each university reported to the federal IPEDS survey for 2023 under CIP code 13.1101, which measures size, not quality. That count covers the whole university, so a school running more than one school counseling master’s program reports them together, and a low count can mean some graduates are reported under a different code. Treat the order as a rough guide to size rather than a ranking. CACREP accreditation is not the same as state approval: check the Idaho requirements for school counselor certification before you enroll.
Idaho opened the school counselor role to licensed counselors in 2022
Idaho Code 33-1212 defines who can serve as a school counselor in the state’s public schools. A 2022 amendment added licensed professional counselors and licensed clinical professional counselors to a list that already included graduates of an approved school counseling program and certified social workers. That’s why the Idaho Department of Education offers a separate School Counselor (Basic) endorsement for these license holders, who still have to apply and meet the department’s certification requirements.
- Pay sits below the national median: Idaho’s May 2025 median of $60,320 trails the national $64,330, and the major metro areas all land between $58,950 and $60,990.
- Openings mostly come from turnover: About 1,990 Idaho jobs fall in this BLS category, and nationally most of the 27,800 projected annual openings (2025-2035) replace counselors who leave.
- Caseloads are heavy but improving: Idaho averaged 391 students per counselor in 2023-24, still well above ASCA’s recommended 250:1.
- Two endorsement routes: The standard School Counselor endorsement requires a state-approved program and 700 supervised hours. Qualifying LPCs, LCPCs, and social workers may apply to the Idaho Department of Education for the School Counselor (Basic) endorsement, but a license alone doesn’t authorize school counseling work.
- Three accredited programs: Boise State, Northwest Nazarene, and Idaho State all hold CACREP accreditation in school counseling.
If one of Idaho’s three programs looks like a fit, the next step is mapping the full path from degree to certificate.
