School psychologist: any other name not the same

June 2010 Voice

School psychologists are still school psychologists.

That might strike the eye as painfully obvious, but the simple declaration represents an arduously gained triumph for these essential education professionals.

After intense advocacy pressure from various organizations nationwide, the PSEA and NEA prominent among them, the American Psychological Association (APA) recently abandoned its intention to require school psychologists to hold doctoral degrees in order to hold their titles.

PSEA School Psychology Section President Rene Fetchkan spearheaded Pennsylvania’s multi-pronged efforts to defeat the APA proposal, which was a thinly veiled slap in the profession’s face.

“It was, absolutely,” Fetchkan said. “This spoke to the heart of our function, and to our identity as a whole. It was a really huge issue for us.”

For decades, the APA’s Model Licensure Act provided an exemption that allowed a school psychologist to be called a psychologist without possessing a Ph.D. In 2008, however, the APA began accepting commentary from stakeholders regarding its proposal to remove the exemption. Then, last fall, the APA formally proposed eliminating the exemption, setting into motion the more spirited and forceful national push to preserve school psychologists’ titles.

In Pennsylvania, the PSEA jumped into the fray to protect its members, galvanizing its resources with the state’s other psychological and school psychologists associations. In late February the APA formally reneged, recognizing that state institutions such as the PDE were the appropriate authorities to credential school psychologists.

“This was a great victory for our members, to be sure,” said PSEA

President Jim Testerman, who played a leading role in the collective fight. “But it was also great for all the students in our state and across the country who each day depend on school psychologists’ patience, knowledge, and compassion.”
Some may wonder: Why all the fuss? In this case, there’s much in a name.

“They would have had to come up with a different title to describe the services that we provide,” Fetchkan said. “For us, as school psychologists, that’s demeaning.

“Just because one person has no doctorate and now is called a ‘psychometrist,’ or something like that, doesn’t mean that she’s now providing a different service. There would have been no differentiation in services provided, but there would have been a differentiation of title.”