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BCPS school psychologists report staffing cuts, worry about increased caseloads
Summary
School psychologists told the board that a shift from 12-month to 10-month positions and lower starting salaries have driven departures to neighboring districts, leaving many schools without local psychologists and increasing reliance on virtual or itinerant coverage.
A group of school psychologists and a BCPS psychologist who spoke at the Oct. 7 meeting said changes to contract months and pay have produced staffing losses that are already affecting services for students.
"Baltimore County psychologists are now 10 months with a whopping $71,000 starting salary," school psychologist Jenna Guglomini said in public comment. She said neighboring districts start psychologists at $85,000 to $100,000 for 12-month positions and that BCPS has lost roughly 20 percent of its psychologist staff; she estimated 27 schools lost a psychologist this summer, affecting more than 15,000 students. "If we don't fix this, we will continue to lose psychologists every year," Guglomini said.
Guglomini said virtual psychologists and itinerant models do not provide the same counseling and mental-health supports as full-time, school-based psychologists and that those changes will increase disproportionality in discipline, delay special-education identification and reduce access to mental-health initiatives.
Superintendent Dr. Miriam Rogers and HR representatives heard the concerns; board members asked for data on speech and language services, school psychologists, changes in virtual staffing, caseloads and recruitment/retention plans. HR staff later reported teacher vacancies have declined since 2022 and outlined recruitment partnerships, but board members requested comparable data specific to psychologists and related services.
Provenance: Topic intro: "Good evening. My name is Jenna Guglumini, and I'm a BCPS school psychologist..." (public comment, 00:39:57) Topic finish: "If we don't fix this, if we don't make ourselves competitive, we will not be able to recruit and retain highly qualified experts in this field." (public comment, 00:41:24)
