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Psychologist: YSU degree would benefit area schools
By Denise Dick
YOUNGSTOWN
A proposed new master’s of education in intervention services degree at Youngstown State University would help serve school districts that are having difficulty attracting people to those positions.
The program is significant because it would serve a need among schools in the region, said Audrey Ellenwood, a psychologist and coordinator of the proposed school-psychology program at YSU.
“By law, there must be one school psychologist for every 2,500 students, ages birth to 21,” she said.
The program aims to primarily serve schools in Northeast and Southeast Ohio.
Because of a shortage of universities that offer the program, it’s difficult for schools to recruit and retain people to serve as educational specialists in school psychology. It’s a position that provides assessments of students, behavioral analysis and intervention at schools.
At the same time, the number of children determined to be disabled has increased during the past 10 years, Ellenwood said.
For example, the diagnosis of autism has increased 900 percent, she said.
The “Youngstown [area] has more children in disability programs and higher poverty than the state average,” Ellenwood said. “There are more issues and children at risk than any other area.”
School districts in the area are searching for school psychologists.
“A number of school districts in these areas are experiencing difficulties in their ability to hire school psychologists,” according to information provided to trustee committee members.
YSU trustees approved the new degree, and it must be approved by the Ohio Board of Regents.
Several Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana school districts as well as districts in other parts of eastern Ohio wrote letters supporting YSU’s efforts to begin the program.
One of those is Anna Marie Vaughn, superintendent of the Columbiana County Educational Service Center.
“It is a field that is certainly looking for people to consider going into it,” Vaughn said.
The master’s of education in intervention services program closest to the ESC right now is Kent State University, but those students usually have a job upon graduation. Because of its rural setting, it’s difficult to recruit interns to the Columbiana County ESC.
“We have nine school psychologists on staff here, and as time progresses, we will be losing some of those folks to retirement, and it will be necessary to recruit,” she said.
Those employed also have high case loads, Vaughn said.
Struthers Superintendent Robert Rostan also wrote a letter supporting YSU’s effort to secure the program.
“Our schools reflect our society,” he said. “Our kids are coming from situations that are a lot more difficult than what we grew up with. The schools’ job is still reading, writing and arithmetic.Meanwhile, you’re trying to deal with all of the other issues that are really important that get brought in to school. We need to have someone able to work with our young people in that way.”