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Psychologists say 94 vacancies and heavy admin work are shrinking school mental-health capacity
Summary
Department officials and the psychologists' guild told senators the school psychology program has 857 authorized career positions, 763 filled and 94 vacancies; witnesses said administrative burden, dual program assignments and poor retention hinder service delivery and risk further resignations.
Senators heard detailed testimony on June 5 about the staffing model for school psychologists and the strain on their daily work.
The Department of Education reported 857 career positions for school psychologists with 763 hires to date and 94 vacancies. "Al presente contamos con noventa y cuatro plazas disponibles," Dr. Noelia CortE9s said. Department staff said those positions are funded out of the special education program budget (FY23-24 allocation about $51 million) and noted a starting psychologist salary of approximately $4,490 that rose 10% to $4,939 on July 1, 2022.
Representatives from the psychologists' guild testified that administrative tasks take up a large share of time and that duties assigned by school directors or by merged program responsibilities limit psychologists' ability to conduct therapy and evaluations. "La carga en tE9rminos administrativos representa un ochenta por ciento de nuestras labores," said a regional psychologist representative.
Department speakers described steps to reduce administrative burden: supervisors make technical assistance visits, the PCS portal centralizes reporting and the department is working to extrapolate MIPE data into PCS to avoid duplicate entries. The department also described a proposed "coordinator" role--a certified special education teacher attached to schools to reduce administrative tasks and digitalization work for psychologists; that recruitment and posting are underway but the appointments were not yet finalized at the time of the hearing.
Union survey figures presented to the committee highlighted workforce stress: in a December 2023 guild survey, 92% of responding psychologists reported anxiety; 88% reported frustration with working conditions and 59% said they had considered resigning. Committee members urged the department to present a retention strategy and to clarify how many certified special-education teachers could be assigned as administrative coordinators by August.
The committee directed the department to provide additional workforce breakdowns (how many psychologists assigned by school, how many are corporate/remedio provisional providers, and current counts of certified special-education teachers available for coordinator roles) as part of the 10-day document packet.
