School Counselor and Administrators Agree: Time and Testing are Barriers

School leaders continuously state their concerns about rising mental health issues in schools. This study looks at the perceptions of the roles of school counselors as mental health professionals in schools from the perspectives of school counselors and principals. The purpose of this study is to explore how administrators and school counselors describe the role of school counselors, and the perceived barriers to school counselors spending the recommended 80 percent of their time in the delivery of services to students. This study uses deductive qualitative content analysis to review written responses from the 518 participants who identified as either a licensed or certified school counselor or a school administrator. The results show that school administrators and school counselors have very different perceptions of school counselors as mental health professionals; however, they agree that time and testing are barriers to providing direct services to students.