Every year, Berkeley County School District’s special services department offers internships to local graduate students studying school psychology. This year, BCSD had the assistance of four interns rotating between its schools. Two of them, Carly Rarick and Ashley Burton, answered a few quick questions about why they want to be school psychologists and about their experience at BCSD.
Responses were edited and paraphrased for length and clarity.
Why did you decide to be a school psychologist?
CR: It all started when I was little. My neighbor was a school psychologist and I job shadowed her in middle school and high school. In high school, it started to get more serious. She started talking about it to me more, and that’s when I decided that I wanted my major to be psychology.
AB: I worked as a counselor in summer programs, so I knew I loved being around children, but I knew I wasn’t cut out to be a teacher. So, another route, I love psychology and once I heard about school psychology I thought it would be a perfect bridge between the two. Also, you don’t see a lot of black females in this field and I think it’s important to have representation. When I’m working with a young black female, or even a young black male student, their eyes light up.
How do you help the special services department?
CR: We do a lot of testing, writing reports and we help with a lot of Child Finds. Child Find screenings are usually done around the ages of three or four if the parents suspect their student has a disability. If so, we’re going to try and get them into early special education programs.
AB: The bulk of my day is doing assessments and making sure reports are written for that student. As school psychologists, what we do is mostly look at cognitive and academic behavior, but you have speech pathologists, occupational therapists and physical therapists if a student needs any of those services. We’re really just different service providers, and we work hand-in-hand to try to get that student evaluated in a comprehensive way.
How has the district helped support you during your internship?
CR: We have a lot of professional developmental days where we get together as psychologists and talk about new best practices and laws that have been updated. They include us on everything with them so that we feel like we’re employees just like them.
AB: I love the fact that this school district has so many touchpoints. The district is divided up into regions and each school psychology region meets once a month to talk about cases, challenges, and accomplishments. We also have quarterly meetings where all the school psychologists come together. Some of these ladies have been working here for years, so it’s great to have that insight.
What is something you’re going to take away from your time here?
CR: I’ve had nothing but good interactions with the employees, students and parents here. I’ve really enjoyed working with all my co-workers and fellow school psychologists. I just hope wherever I go it’ll be the same.
AB: I was able to work in different capacities and more one-on-one with students, especially those on the autism spectrum. I didn’t get a lot of that beforehand, so now I’m more comfortable working with students who are on the spectrum than I ever was before.