"Change.... is good."
posted October 08, 2008

My fellow Americans. What this country needs is CHANGE!

For the past several months, we’ve all been hearing that phrase every time we turn on the television or radio and find ourselves pummeled with political advertising. Both of the major candidates for President are calling themselves agents of CHANGE. I, (insert name of Presidential Candidate here) am the only one who can take the awful way things have been done for years and change them for the better.

As school psychologists, we know about change. I’ve now worked in this field for 20 years, and I’ve been through two major changes in our field. When I graduated from my training program in 1988, the vast majority of my colleagues were card-carrying (or test-kit carrying) test and placers. I certainly spent a good many years in that role myself. However, I was still pretty wet behind the ears when I began hearing the phrase “expanded role.” There was a major movement within the field to move us from the ‘traditional role’ of hitting the students over the head (metaphorically speaking, of course) with WISC-R’s, WJ-R’s, and the occasional Leiter’s (that one REALLY hurt back then). We were being encouraged to actually TALK to students by filling the role of counselor as well as psychologist. The change was difficult. In my school district, the first pioneers that were granted school-based roles as both the school psychologist and the school counselor had to hold state certifications in both areas. As time passed, these restrictions were loosened to include any school psychologist who had a true interest in doing counseling as well as testing. As school psychologists, we were in the unique position of being able to fulfill all of the tasks required for a ‘traditional’ school psychologist, as well as those tasks usually assigned to school counselors. School counselors, on the other hand, were not able to take over our testing duties.

We are now, once again, in a period of CHANGE. The evaluations I now conduct bear little resemblance to those I did in the late 80’s and early 90’s. The assessment process may consist of documenting interventions, collecting and graphing progress monitoring scores obtained by others, and trying to fill out more and more complex eligibility forms. I suspect many of you are much spending more time with teachers and parents in intervention/SST meetings than you do with children. The time of administering standardized tests to every student that crosses our path appears to be a thing of the past.

As we work through the growing pains of this latest change within our profession, updating our skills becomes increasingly important. Attendance at professional conferences such as those put on by GASP and SSTAGE is essential in order to keep up with the changes and expand our knowledge to meet the requirements. Unfortunately, this need for significant professional development is occurring at the same time as a serious downturn in our state and national economy. Budgets that had previously been available for professional development have been cut or eliminated altogether. Attendance at our fall conference was down significantly this year as travel requests were denied by local school systems. We even heard from psychologists whose requests to attend the conference were initially approved, then later rescinded.

Until the state and national economy recovers (which we all hope is soon), school psychologists in Georgia and around the country need to find innovative ways to keep their skills current and expand their knowledge of educational interventions. Suggestions from the membership are always welcome, and can be given to your region representatives. You see, even school psychologists are not afraid of CHANGE.
 

Michael Johnson, MS. Ed., NCSP
GASP President, 2007-2008