National School Psychologist Week Highlights Efforts Made For Student Success

National School Psychologist Week aims to highlight the work school psychologists do to help students thrive.

White County Schools Psychologist Drew Cook said that in his line of work, there has been a growing emphasis on intervention when it comes to the learning processes of students. He said that his job is to make sure each child can reach their full learning potential.

“Every child is different, they learn differently, we all have our different strengths and weaknesses,” Cook said. “And through our evaluations, we identify how that individual learns best, and that way we can redirect how we approach that learning style towards that one child.”

Cook said that the work of a school psychologist is a team effort. He said that each week he works with parents, teachers, and any other necessary personnel to find out what kind of tools will best help students find success in the classroom.

Cook said that one of the biggest misconceptions in his line of work is when it comes to special needs. He said that many times it gives parents more concern than necessary because the phrase has evolved since what it meant in the past.

“When we talk about the RTI, the intervention, Tier 1 is every gen-ed teacher in the school. Children that fall below the benchmark cutoff and need RTI intervention that teacher is Tier 2 and Tier 3. We kind of consider special education to be more of like a Tier 4. It just has more research-based interventions, more smaller group work. I just don’t want parents to be worried if they hear the term ‘special education’ because they think their child may be labeled or thought of differently and that’s not it. It’s just a way to get that child the help they need to be successful.”