Shortage of psychologists leaves rural pupils at risk

Southern Ohio is among the states that desperately need school psychologists.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Ken Smith often spends hours a day on the road, sometimes skips lunch, and works at home in the evening to catch up with paperwork.
He's a school psychologist who serves 30 elementary and secondary schools in two rural counties around the southern Ohio city of Portsmouth.
"There has been a shortage of school psychologists in southern Ohio," said Smith, 43, of nearby Lucasville. "We definitely need more. Day to day -- that's what we're dealing with."
Academic standards
A shortage of school psychologists in rural areas is making it tougher for districts to meet federal academic standards, experts say. They say school psychologists are instrumental in helping students with learning disabilities or who need different teaching styles or techniques.
"One of the main jobs of school psychologists is to find ways to help students not able to achieve academically," said Sawyer Hunley, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Dayton. "Without that assistance, teachers are pretty much left on their own."
Kathy Cowan, spokeswoman for the National Association of School Psychologists, said there is a serious shortage of school psychologists nationwide, but especially in rural areas.
Survey results
An association survey done in 2000 estimated there were between 25,000 and 30,000 school psychologists. And the group estimated in 2002 that only about one-third of U.S. school districts had at least one psychologist for every 1,000 students, the minimum the association recommends.
Peter Currer, an assistant superintendent for Modoc County in rural northern California, is looking for a school psychologist to help the other two who travel the county's 5,000 square miles. One drives three hours a day to spend five hours with students.
"I started looking for a credentialed psychologist and I will be lucky to find a student intern," Currer said. "It's hard to make a match with someone who wants a rural, remote lifestyle. We're 100 miles from a Wal-Mart. We're 100 miles from a McDonalds."
Currer said the schools have gone to doing the "bare minimum," providing less support to children and their families.
"Where we see the impact is in our inability to support kids who are at risk and who are really kind of struggling academically," he said.
No Child Left Behind act
Last year, 54 percent of California schools failed to make "adequate yearly progress" toward the federal No Child Left Behind act's goal of having 100 percent of children be proficient in math and English.
States are required to report their progress toward that goal each year by measuring if enough students scored as proficient on standardized tests.
Ruth Fodness spent 14 years working as a school psychologist in rural South Dakota, driving up to 200 miles a day to meet with students in the spread-out schools. She said psychologists are instrumental in helping improve the academic performance of some students.
"When you're dealing with a child with significant behavior problems and their behavior is interfering with their ability to make progress, the school psychologist is the best resource," said Fodness, of Castlewood, S.D.
Elaine Quesinberry, spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Education, said each state must deal with the issue of school psychologists in rural districts at the local level depending on the needs of individual schools.
Ohio schools
J.C. Benton, spokesman for the Ohio Department of Education, said school psychologists play an important role in the school environment.
"However, the role of the school psychologist varies greatly among Ohio's 612 school districts," he said.
Attracting and retaining school psychologists became such a problem in northwest Ohio's rural Mercer County that officials came up with a creative fix three years ago.
"We weren't finding good people that wanted to be in rural Ohio," said Superintendent Eugene Linton.
So officials identified people with local roots who were working in the schools and interested in becoming school psychologists. The school district paid a portion of their tuition at the University of Dayton in exchange for their agreement to intern at Mercer County schools and then work there for at least five years.
"Most of them want to stay here anyway, so the five-year commitment is no problem," Linton said.
The shortage in southeast Ohio has prompted three universities to join forces to establish a training center there. Marshall University, the University of Dayton and Shawnee State University will begin offering a psychology program in Portsmouth next year to train school psychologists.
Would be welcome
Smith said he would welcome a fresh supply of school psychologists to boost his five-person staff. And he's sure teachers would too.
"There is no one else out there that has the training we do as far as testing and assessment," he said. "And I do very little counseling because the testing requirements of the job do not give me any time."
XOn the Net: National Association of School Psychologists: http://www.nasponline.org/