DeKalb, Ill. – The U.S. Department of Education has awarded a $5.1 million grant to Northern Illinois University to address the critical shortage of K-12 school psychologists in the state’s northern region.
Photo by Agence Olloweb on Unsplash.
NIU’s School Psychology Program will use the funding to launch an effort to enlist working educators into a three-year program to become school psychologists. Courses will be primarily online to meet the schedules of these working educators, who will pay no tuition or fees and receive laptop computers and stipends for certain expenses.
The “Preparing Educators as School Psychologists in Northern Illinois” (PESP-NI) project aims to produce at least 24 new school psychologists, with cohorts of eight beginning the program in each of the next three years. The first cohort is expected to start in June.
Those new psychologists will provide services to an estimated 12,000 students annually in the project’s partnering school districts: the DeKalb School District, Harlem School District (near Rockford) and Belvidere School District, as well as the Northwest Special Education Cooperative, which covers 11 rural districts in Jo Daviess, Stephenson and Carroll counties.
NIU Psychology Professors (left to right) Michelle Demaray, Christine Malecki and Julia Ogg are co-directing the PESP-NI project
“In Illinois and across the nation, there is a desperate need for school psychologists to address mental health needs of students,” said NIU Psychology Professor Christine Malecki, director of NIU’s School Psychology Program. Malecki said she regularly fields inquiries from school administrators who are seeking ways to meet the shortage of school psychologists.
“Our traditional school psychology program is nationally known, has been very successful and has a long history of engaging and being collaborative with partners,” Malecki added. “But we haven’t been able to grow our traditional program because of the required additional resources. This new project will take our efforts to the next level, in terms of responding to a dramatic need in our region.”
The grant funding was highly competitive, and the Department of Education indicated NIU had one of the highest scoring applications.
“I am so proud of our School Psychology faculty and students,” NIU College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Dean Robert Brinkmann said. “Our program in School Psychology is one of the best in the nation, and I am so pleased that their work is recognized through this impressive grant.”
Photo by Jeswin Thomas on Unsplash.
When NIU’s grant proposal was written last fall, Illinois school districts had nearly 150 unfilled positions for school psychologists, Malecki said.
“Even the best trained school psychologists are not able to employ best-practice approaches when they are experiencing excessively large caseloads,” said Professor Michelle Demaray, co-director of the PESP-NI project with Malecki and Professor Julia Ogg.
“Importantly, this lack of mental health services specifically affects underrepresented students in high-need districts more profoundly,” Demaray said. “Students living in poverty are less likely to have insurance making it more difficult to receive services outside of schools.”
Program participants must make a five-year, post-graduation commitment to fill shortages in their current district.
NIU’s traditional program conflicts with educator school-day working hours, so the project directors said it was important to build a new program around the schedules of working teachers, with classes offered remotely, during evenings, on weekends and during the summer.
“Our partner districts indicated that many of their educators are interested in training to become school psychologists,” Ogg said. “But they couldn’t afford to quit teaching to attend graduate school full-time. Our new program addresses these financial and time concerns.”
Recruitment will focus on the partner districts, with educators of color, bilingual teachers and men (all groups underrepresented in the profession) particularly encouraged to apply.
At the end of the three-year program, participants will earn the Specialist in School Psychology degree (an advanced graduate degree that is beyond a master’s) and Professional Educator License, with a school psychologist endorsement in Illinois.
The project directors will hire a PESP-NI coordinator and faculty for the program. Recruitment of additional professors for the project has already begun, including among the ranks of NIU alumni. Nearly two dozen alumni have already indicated strong interest in teaching.
“It’s incredible to see our alumni step up in this way,” Malecki said, adding that the partner school districts have stepped up as well.
During the second year of coursework, candidates will complete a school psychology practicum one day a week, with support from their school districts and the grant for covering substitute teacher expenses. During the third year, candidates will complete a full-time school psychology internship with their districts, with resources from the districts and grant used to cover an educator’s typical salary while serving the internship.
Educators from partner districts who are interested in the program are encouraged to visit the project website or email Christine Malecki at cmalecki@niu.edu for more information.
Media Contact: Tom Parisi
About NIU
Northern Illinois University is a student-centered, nationally recognized public research university, with expertise that benefits its region and spans the globe in a wide variety of fields, including the sciences, humanities, arts, business, engineering, education, health and law. Through its main campus in DeKalb, Illinois, and education centers for students and working professionals in Chicago, Naperville, Oregon and Rockford, NIU offers more than 100 areas of study while serving a diverse and international student body.
