Expanding Mental Health Services at No Cost: Rethinking the Role of School Psychologists
Why playing to their strengths leads to healthier students and happier psychologists
Although students’ behavioral and mental health appears to be turning around according to a recent study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, 2024), these challenges continue to be significant (American Psychological Association, 2024) in schools. This adds strain to the hearts and minds of school staff as they grapple with two significant realities:
inability to afford additional counseling staff, and
difficulty in finding qualified professionals, even when resources are available.
The confluence of continued student behavior and mental health needs, limited funding for counseling staff, and challenges in hiring qualified professionals requires districts to rethink how existing staff are utilized, particularly their school psychologists. The good news is that there is a solution to this growing problem, and it already exists within your school walls. As part of their graduate program, all school psychologists with an advanced degree from a NASP accredited school psychology program (National Association of School Psychologists, 2024) have extensive training in mental and behavioral health services and interventions, family and school collaboration, and research-based practices—skills that fall far beyond the student evaluation tasks that dominate their schedules. These professionals are equipped with skills in mental health and behavior management—expertise that are underutilized due to the current structure of their roles.
School psychologists’ expertise is often underutilized
School psychologists currently spend a substantial portion of their week navigating the legalistic intricacies of IEP processes through student evaluations, with limited time left to work directly with students or staff beyond the IEP process. Indeed, the average school psychologist reports spending nearly 90% of their work time on “evaluation tasks” for students, according to a national survey (Affrunti, 2021). Of course, student evaluation is important, but a better balance between IEPs and mental health and behavior support is crucial for districts that want to bolster their corps of school professionals supporting the needs of students with social, emotional, and behavioral (SEB) challenges.
Adding to this concern, working within a narrow scope not only limits school psychologists’ potential but can lead to low job satisfaction and high turnover from extraordinarily high burnout (Schilling & Randolph, 2021).
So, when school psychologists are positioned to play to their strengths, two great things happen:
They better use their skills and expertise to help students thrive socially, emotionally and behaviorally, and
They become happier professionals, which leads to higher rates of job satisfaction and retention.
To successfully position school psychologists to play too their strengths district leaders need to plan and implement system-wide changes with intentionality.
Rethinking the role of school psychologists
As a former school psychologist myself, I know firsthand that the formal school psychology training in nearly all U.S. colleges and universities is multi-faceted—it must be to be accredited! Therefore, there’s no doubt that school psychologists possess a variety of skills that extend far beyond student evaluation tasks despite being primarily thrust into those roles.
School psychologists’ areas of expertise include:
Student Evaluation for Special Education Eligibility: As discussed, they assess students to determine eligibility for special education services, ensuring compliance with IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) and state laws. School psychologists are also uniquely authorized to conduct cognitive assessments, which is a common assessment tool used for students whose learning or behavioral struggles are impacted by their cognitive functioning.
Prevention Initiatives: These efforts involve designing and implementing programs that create a positive school climate, support student mental health awareness and wellness, and reduce risk factors such as bullying, anxiety-reducing programs or substance abuse, to name a few.
Remediation of Student Behaviors and Mental Health: School psychologists respond to crises and provide direct support to students struggling with significant SEB challenges through counseling as well as creating and implementing behavior intervention plans.
Professional Consultation, Coaching and Guidance: Through collaboration, school psychologists are trained to help teachers with strategies to manage Tier 1 and 2 behavioral challenges for all students with or without disabilities. They can be incredibly resourceful for parents in this manner too.
These often hidden and clearly underutilized skills of school psychologists provide districts with the opportunity to rethink their roles and allow them to play to their strengths.
A caveat: Despite similar training, not all school psychologists are equally skilled at or interested in all four areas.
It’s important to acknowledge that no two school psychologists are the same, despite having similar training backgrounds. Some have skills and interests in, say, student evaluation and professional consultation, while others enjoy and have the skills, interests, and demeanor for providing direct counseling for students and responding to behavioral crises. Others may have vision, energy, and expertise for supporting school-wide prevention programs that address SEB while also being great at writing and implementing behavioral plans for Tier 2 and 3 students.
The point is that it is crucial for districts to recognize and utilize their school psychologists’ strengths and passions for maximum benefit for students and staff, not to mention happier school psychologists.
What steps should districts take to allow school psychologists to play to their strengths?
Ask them! The key to aligning school psychologists’ roles with their strengths starts with assessing/surveying their specific skills and interests as it relates to the four areas of expertise mentioned above. If required, conduct interviews to gain a thorough understanding of each psychologist's skills and areas of passion.
Free up their time. If the goal is to unlock their potential, adding to their full plates will help no one. Therefore, portions on their plate either must be reduced or removed altogether. Here’s how:
Automate Routine Tasks: Allow the use of software or AI solutions that automate data entry and generate reports, freeing up time for psychologists to work more directly with students and staff.
Rethink IEP Meeting Structures: In many cases, school psychologists attend all IEP meetings but don’t need to—and almost all of them stay for the entire meeting. Instead, allow them to be selective in reducing the number and/or time spent in IEP meetings unless their participation is essential. Also, consider allowing them to use asynchronous communication methods for routine meeting updates they provide (e.g., presenting evaluation findings), especially if they are split between two or more schools.
Delegate Administrative Duties: Carve out time for administrative assistants or paraprofessionals to handle the logistics and preparation that often fall on psychologists, such as scheduling meetings with staff and parents, securing meeting locations, ordering evaluation and behavioral materials, making copies, and organizing files.
Streamline Testing Practices: Some school psychologists continue to administer cognitive assessments as a “standard” tool for all students, regardless of the special education referral reason. This approach is not only unnecessary but also highly time-consuming. Administering a single cognitive assessment, including its analysis and written report, can require 3-5 hours or more to complete. For, say, 80 students to evaluate, that results in 240 – 400 work hours per year. This amounts to 30 – 50 full days per year conducting IQ assessments! If one were to, say, cut the number of cognitive assessments in half (40) by assessing only those that needed this type of evaluation, it would mean that 15 – 25 extra workdays would be freed up to directly work with students or bolster teachers’ skills. Giving school psychologists permission to carefully consider the students who truly need these assessments avoids “evaluation overload” and allows them to focus instead on more intervention.
Develop flexible role assignments. From the information gathered, districts can create flexible role assignments that match staff strengths to student needs. This leads to psychologists who are skilled at providing direct mental health support spending a greater portion of their day working with students while others spend more time on, say, the student evaluation and IEP processes.
Assign school psychologists based on their strengths and demand, not just FTE. Adopt a staffing model that distributes responsibilities equitably in a manner that best supports students and staff needs, not just FTE. For example, a school with a sudden influx of brand-new teachers may have a greater need to improve their Tier 1 and 2 skills through consultative and coaching work from a school psychologist who is great at professional consultation and prevention initiatives, rather than needing a school psychologist who prefers managing student crises and/or addressing serious behavioral challenges, for example.
Provide professional development and coaching. Some psychologists are interested in working directly with students but lack the necessary training or experience to do so, and vice versa. That does not mean that psychologists are out of luck. If they have earned the credibility and respect of their peers, they can choose to build skills for colleagues and staff by pivoting toward high quality professional development and coaching for multiple schools or even districtwide.
Allowing school psychologists to play to their strengths: District case study examples
As in all things in the educational field, there is never a one-size-fits-all approach. That is also true when it comes to allowing school psychologists to play to their strengths. Each district’s unique context adds a different flavor or nuance to how these best practices are implemented based on their own needs, staff skills and resources.
Here are a few examples:
Adopting a balanced role framework
One district ensured that school psychologists’ responsibilities are balanced across prevention, remediation, evaluation, and consultation. Doing this well required the district to reallocate existing resources to reduce the evaluation burden. It did so by implementing a tiered role-assignment model, assigning a portion of school psychologists’ time to universal prevention programs, another portion to targeted interventions, and the remainder to evaluations. This balance allowed psychologists to address issues proactively while still meeting evaluation needs.
Utilizing school psychologists to support prevention and early intervention initiatives
Benjamin Franklin once said, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” which emphasizes the importance of addressing problems early before they escalate and become costly down the road. Indeed, well-implemented prevention programs can reduce the need for Tier 3 interventions or special education evaluations, and some school psychologists play a big part in achieving this.
For example, a district had a higher-than-average rate of preschool students being referred to special education due to behavioral concerns. To address this, district officials asked interested school psychologists, social workers, counselors and school-based community mental health professionals, to first implement a school-wide and age-appropriate behavioral health screening tool used to identify students in need of early intervention. Many school psychologists (and other colleagues) who were especially skilled in working directly with preschool-age children led a two-week rotated small group social-skills session at each preschool across the district. Doing so, along with preschool teacher consultation and follow ups, showed a 30% average reduction in disciplinary and preschool special education referrals for three years running.
Improving school culture through collaboration and teamwork
Building a non-siloed, collaborative culture helps school psychologists feel essential, boosting their sense of belonging, effectiveness, and job satisfaction, which supports job retention. This involves addressing partnerships between school psychologists, other behavioral health experts, teachers, administrators, and families in a safe space to address students holistically, not just from a special education or an evaluative lens. For example, a district created a consultation framework for school psychologists to schedule time with teachers to discuss Tier 1 and 2 classroom strategies for students with challenging social, emotional, and behavioral needs as well as scheduled calls with parents. This proactive approach not only prevented teacher frustration by reducing student outbursts but also enhanced parent-school relationships.
Looking at staffing sources differently
As resources are reallocated, innovative staffing approaches—like hiring contracted employees or part-time retired personnel—are a must for school psychologists to utilize their skills effectively and play to their strengths. In one such instance, through attrition of less-crucial positions over spring and summer, one district hired a centralized evaluation team, including a school psychologist, to support tasks related to student evaluations across the district, freeing up school-based school psychologists to focus on prevention, consultation and direct counseling services with students. Some members of the centralized evaluation team were part-time retired school psychologists. At a focus group interview, one school psychologist mentioned, “(The district) didn’t need to recruit me. I actively chose this district because word got around that (this district) uses psychologists beyond just testing kids but actually working with them.”
A way to expand services without increasing costs
School psychologists have the potential to collaborate with staff and help transform schools by addressing the mental health and behavior needs of all students regardless of whether they have an IEP. However, when districts limit their roles to just conducting special education evaluations, they miss out on school psychologists’ potential to make a broader impact, particularly in these current times of high SEB needs among students. By being intentional about allowing existing school psychologists to play to their strengths, whether through prevention, remediation, consultation and/or evaluation practices, districts can naturally create more proactive and supportive school environments—without increasing costs—and improve both student success and overall professional satisfaction.
Sources
Affrunti, N. (2021). School psychology: A national perspective from the 2020 membership survey. NASP PowerPoint of Findings.
American Psychological Association. (2023). Kids’ mental health is in crisis. Here’s what psychologists are doing to help. 2023 Trends Report. https://www.apa.org/monitor/2023/01/trends-improving-youth-mental-health
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2024). CDC data show improvements in youth mental health but need for safer and more supportive schools. CDC Newsroom. https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2024/p0806-youth-mental-health.html
National Association of School Psychologists. (2024). Policies and procedures for the review and accreditation of graduate programs in school psychology.
Schilling, E. J., & Randolph, M. (2021). Voices from the field: Addressing job burnout in school psychology training programs. Contemporary School Psychology, 25, 572–581. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40688-020-00283-z
Dr. Steve Sandoval is a senior consultant at New Solutions K12. He brings to his work more than 25 years of experience in school-based mental health and district leadership roles in which he successfully led district-wide improvement and implementation efforts. Prior to joining New Solutions K12, Steve served as executive director of special services for Westminster Public Schools in Colorado. Under his leadership, the district’s Special Education program improved dramatically, moving from a state designation of “Needs Significant Intervention” to “Meets Requirements.” Before joining Westminster Public Schools, he served as director of special programs for Weld County School District RE-4 in Windsor, Colorado. Steve is a nationally recognized thought leader and has served as an adjunct professor. Steve received his Ph.D. in School Psychology and his M.A. in Educational Psychology from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. As a consultant, he has helped dozens of school districts and departments of education to make dramatic differences in the outcomes of students who struggle, with and without disabilities.