Professional Reflections of a School Psychologist 2001-Present
Graduate Student in School Psychology
College of William and Mary
In August of 2001, I made the move to Williamsburg, VA to begin
my graduate studies in school psychology. The program focused on
coursework including assessment, play therapy, counseling techniques,
learning disabilities, emotional disorders, and preschool assessment.
During the two years I was in Williamsburg, I served as a
graduate assistant and as a graduate teaching assistant for the
assessment course. I also worked as a reading tutor for America
Reads with a second grade class at an elementary school. For the
2002-2003 school year, I was placed in a school psychology practicum
with Hampton City Public Schools. While completing the practicum
I was given the opportunity to assess culturally-diverse students,
provide individual counseling to a high school student, participate as
part of the child study and eligibility processes, run a counseling
group for K-2 students in a self-contained EMR classroom, and to assess
students in grades Pre-K through 12.
In the summer of 2002, I was hired as the Inclusion Specialist for the
Fairfax County Park Authority camp program. This job gave me the
opportunity to look at combining educational and recreational needs of
students. I wrote inclusion plans for students with disabilities,
supervised and trained staff, assisted with behavior management, and
met with parents. I also became more familiar with the Americans
with Disabilities Act and it's similarities and differences with IDEA.
School Psychology Intern
PACE East Program/Independent Hill School
Nokesville Elementary School
Prince William County, VA
The third year of my graduate study consisted of a one year,
full-time internship that I completed with Prince William County
Schools. I interviewed for and was accepted to work with the
separate day school for children with emotional disturbance and with
the Independent Hill School, a program for students with severe
disabilities and behavioral issues. To round out the experience,
I was assigned one day a week to a typical elementary school for
students K-5. On internship, I gained many new skills, such as
helping to develop a school wide behavior incentive program, writing a
questionnaire to be given county-wide to the parents of students
suspected of having autism, running counseling groups for middle and
high school students with emotional disturbance, crisis counseling,
individual counseling, and learning assessment procedures for students
with low-incidence disabilities. In addition, I was able to
attend several conferences and work weekly with my internship
supervisor. Although my internship was a challenging year, it
enabled me to stretch my comfort limits and learn new techniques for
working with children with significant and sometimes life-threatening
emotional challenges.
School Psychologist
Nokesville Elementary School
Ellis Elementary School
Sudley Elementary School (2004-2005 only)
Prince William County Schools
For the past four years, I have been employed as a school
psychologist at the elementary school level with Prince William County
Schools. This position has allowed me to gain extensive
experience working as a member of a team in several different schools.
I have worked closely with students with autism, learning
disabilities, and emotional difficulties and have learned much new
information regarding the special education process. I have also
focused on establishing fair and accurate evaluation methods for
students who are second language learners and have been involved on
steering committees for staff development and response-to-intervention
implementation. I have been certified in the Handle with Care
behavior system and in CPR and first aid. Please refer to the Professional Development Course List for additional information regarding additional training that I have completed.
Doctoral Intern
Teaching for Change
Washington, D. C.
Summer 2007
Over the summer of 2007, I had the opportunity to complete my
Advanced Internship at Teaching For Change in Washington, D.C. I
was placed with the Roving Readers project, which is an
intergenerational family literacy program in D.C. public schools.
Parents and other community members, often with reading
difficulties themselves, are trained to go into classrooms as guest
oral readers or storytellers. The program works as a bridge to
connect teachers, parents, and community members with schools.
The internship was self-paced, however I was given a mentor and
other staff members helped me with any questions I had while developing
a training manual for establishing new Roving Reading readers programs
across the city. In addition to this, I developed a short
lesson-plan for parents to use with a number of the books found in the
D. C. office. One of the most difficult times during the internship
occured when I brought in a few of the multicultural books I use with
students and the director of TFC said that it was not a
culturally-respectful book. This was hard for me because I had
spent much time and money building up a library of diverse books for
children and I was unhappy when some of the books I had were targeted
as not being culturally-responsive. Looking back, I have used
this experience to become more mindful of the many ways that culture
can be represented in picture books, particularly in illustrations and
dialogue. The internship overall was enlightening to hear about
the challenges of starting a family literacy program and to learn from
professionals who have been able to keep the program running for the
last five years. I hope to be able to continue to work with TFC
to collect data for my dissertation research.