Practicing School Psychologist Interview: Rita Balaporia
Practicing School Psychologist Interview: Rita Balaporia
Why did you decide to go into the field of School Psychology?
Rita always knew she wanted to work with kids, but was not sure in what capacity. For a while she worked in business, but Rita eventually decided to go back to school to teach drama. While in graduate school, she had a part-time job as a behavior therapist where she fell in love with the work and began to pursue her masters in Child Psychology/School Psychology.
Throughout her nine years in School Psychology, she has been in a total of five districts mostly in the suburbs of Chicago, and she is now working in the city with Chicago Public Charter schools.
Rita talked about her typical school day being 75-80% running the special education program in the building, almost as a pseudo-administrator. Rita said that as a school psychologist you are often …show more content…
acting as an liaison between the administration and the teachers and other staff. Much of her job has been doing case management services by scheduling meetings and making sure all evaluations and reevaluations are completed on a timely basis. In her experience, school psychologists operate almost fully at the Tier 3 level of intervention, whereas school social workers and counselors are working to support Tier 1 and Tier 2 students. Rita stated that she enjoys the creativity of being a school psychologist and sharing her expertise with teachers and administrators since oftentimes she is the only psychologist in the building.
Why did you decide to get your EdD? What will an EdD allow you to do that cannot already do as a school psychologist with an EdS?
Rita stated that she wanted to teach and do action research on student discipline as well as have the option of obtaining a LCPC degree with her EdD. The EdD allows you to get your LPC as well as allows more flexibility in the long run if you want to do work outside of the schools. EdD allows for opportunities to do more things and demonstrate your knowledge and expertise in different ways. She said her goal is to eventually go to D.C. to do policy work.
What was most challenging for you when transitioning from a student studying school psychology to a practicing school psychologist? Rita stated that it was difficult transitioning into a school and realizing that the “best practices” are not always what is put into practice in a school setting.
She talked about having to grow up and dealing with people in a way that always advocates for the best interests of the student. Rita mentioned the need for having thick skin, being extremely organized, and having excellent time management skills to get everything done. She said that in many ways working as a school psychologist is similar to graduate school in that there are many deadlines and people relying on you for information. It is different in that people do not tend to care about your clinical background or the theory you learned in graduate school. Rather, relationships are extremely important and it is crucial that you establish rapport with staff in the building in order to have effective interventions. You will be constantly working with a team, and so you must adapt to the styles of various teachers and administrators. It is important that the child is always put first, then the parents, and then the other staff
members.
What has been your experience working in an urban setting?
Rita said she initially wanted to attend Loyola for her school psychology training. However, she ended up studying in Pennsylvania and did her practicum at a public school in Pittsburgh. Adding to our in-class discussions regarding state differences in credentialing, school psychologists who study in Pennsylvania get a masters of education and a school psychology certificate upon graduation.
Rita said her practicum experience in Pittsburgh was great. However, that experience did not prepare her for working in Chicago. She hinted at how segregated the city is by stating that often when working in a school, especially neighborhood schools on the South and West sides, you’re usually just working with just Black students or just Hispanic/Latinx students.
A major difference Rita noticed between Pennsylvania and Illinois was funding for special education. Pennsylvania, as a state, has great special education programs that are well funded — some people move to Pennsylvania because of the access to special education programs. Illinois consistently ranks at the bottom for state funding of education, especially special education.
Rita is in her second year of working for charter schools in Chicago. She currently works for a charter management organization and works at schools in the Englewood, Austin, Lower Westside, and West Garfield Park neighborhoods. Thus far, she likes working in charter schools. Rita said she thinks the staff in the charter schools at which she’s worked care more about the students compared to people she worked with in the suburbs who tended to be tenured teachers.
What Rita appreciates most about charter schools are their different curricular philosophies. For example, she worked at Namaste Charter School. She loved Namaste’s emphasis on wellness, the holistic education and the intentional time given for movement and yoga throughout the day.
When asked about some differences between CPS and charter schools, Rita focused on special education. Specifically, CPS has more mandates and laws that need to be adhered to and that causes special education to be administered somewhat differently in CPS. She also mentioned that charter schools, for the most part, don’t have unions. Although, there are a few charter schools that have unionized.
Before working in the city, Rita mostly worked in the suburbs. One of those suburbs was Cicero, which has a large population of students who are English Language Learners (ELLs) mostly speaking Spanish as their native language. At the time, she was considering a move to California to work in the Los Angeles Unified School District. She thought having ELL experience would look good on her resume. Although she ended up not moving to California, Rita believes that experience made her a better school psychologist and recommends that all training and practicing school psychologists work with ELL students as it will make one a more well-rounded professional.
After working in different suburbs for several years, Rita got burnt out. A major difference she notes between suburban schools and CPS is the amount of time spent doing paperwork (the amount of paperwork she did was why she felt burnt out). She readily admits that the profession is report and paper heavy. However, in her opinion, CPS’s case managers give school psychologists more freedom to do what they’ve been trained to do instead of mostly scheduling meetings and doing paperwork.
Given Rita’s experience burning out, she emphasized the importance of self-care. She noted that if you don’t take care of yourself, you won’t be able to adequately address the needs of your students. To that end, she recommends having fun and venting with coworkers.
A bigger theme that emerged during the interview related to self-care was advocating for yourself and enforcing boundaries both personally and professionally. Personally, there are many things that are going to happen, and you cannot take them personally. This is difficult. You’re also putting a lot of yourself into the job. Professionally you must collaborate with others and be adept at managing relationships with the adults who can give you access to the students. For example, Rita mentioned that a principal asked her to check students’ backpacks, which was clearly outside of her role. In that moment, self-care for her was clearly stating that that task was not part of her duties, and she would not do that.
What has been the most challenging piece of your practice thus far?
For Rita, the most difficult part of the job are the adults with whom you work. She said that hearing or experiencing the faculty and staff’s negative thoughts of the students for whom they’re responsible. Rita also mentioned several times during the interview that a difficulty for her was/is the managing relationships with coworkers is key, and you have to get good at it in order to be a successful school psychologist - this is something they don’t teach you how to do in grad school. Having productive relationships with faculty and staff is important. It is likely to determine how successful you are. This is difficult because you’ll often be dealing with administrators or rigid teachers whose philosophies don’t meet the children’s needs.
A major pet peeve of Rita’s is when a teacher asks for an evaluation but have no data to support that claim.
What has been the most rewarding piece of your practice thus far?
Rita finds the ability to advocate for the students to be the most rewarding part of practice. As a school psychologist she enjoys being able to stand up for children and make sure that their specific needs are met and getting to see the change in the student. She also enjoys helping families.
What are some challenges/issues in the field?
Currently there are a lot of issues regarding behavior and writing behavior plans as they are fundamental to our work with students. Additionally, the implementation of MTSS in schools is a hot topic. In Chicago specifically there is a lot of buzz surrounding restorative justice practices and retention rates.
If you could give us one piece of advice that you would’ve wanted to know before coming into the field what would it be? Is there something you would’ve done differently?
Rita said she wished she would have known that therapy is not a part of a school psychologist’s everyday duties — school social workers primarily run therapy and support groups. She said as school psychologists we benefit from administrators not being clear about what we do. So if these are things you want to be part of your practice you have to advocate for yourself and make it known that these are things that you want to do.
Rita also repeatedly mentioned throughout the interview how much she dislikes the case management aspect of the job, especially when she worked in the suburbs. However, she accepts that it is a part of the job.
Given Rita’s interest in policy, she wishes there was more focus on special education policy (e.g., more in-depth classes on special education law or additional certificates that emphasize policy analysis).
Why did you decide to go into the field of School Psychology?
Rita always knew she wanted to work with kids, but was not sure in what capacity. For a while she worked in business, but Rita eventually decided to go back to school to teach drama. While in graduate school, she had a part-time job as a behavior therapist where she fell in love with the work and began to pursue her masters in Child Psychology/School Psychology.
Throughout her nine years in School Psychology, she has been in a total of five districts mostly in the suburbs of Chicago, and she is now working in the city with Chicago Public Charter schools.
Rita talked about her typical school day being 75-80% running the special education program in the building, almost as a pseudo-administrator. Rita said that as a school psychologist you are often …show more content…
acting as an liaison between the administration and the teachers and other staff. Much of her job has been doing case management services by scheduling meetings and making sure all evaluations and reevaluations are completed on a timely basis. In her experience, school psychologists operate almost fully at the Tier 3 level of intervention, whereas school social workers and counselors are working to support Tier 1 and Tier 2 students. Rita stated that she enjoys the creativity of being a school psychologist and sharing her expertise with teachers and administrators since oftentimes she is the only psychologist in the building.
Why did you decide to get your EdD? What will an EdD allow you to do that cannot already do as a school psychologist with an EdS?
Rita stated that she wanted to teach and do action research on student discipline as well as have the option of obtaining a LCPC degree with her EdD. The EdD allows you to get your LPC as well as allows more flexibility in the long run if you want to do work outside of the schools. EdD allows for opportunities to do more things and demonstrate your knowledge and expertise in different ways. She said her goal is to eventually go to D.C. to do policy work.
What was most challenging for you when transitioning from a student studying school psychology to a practicing school psychologist? Rita stated that it was difficult transitioning into a school and realizing that the “best practices” are not always what is put into practice in a school setting.
She talked about having to grow up and dealing with people in a way that always advocates for the best interests of the student. Rita mentioned the need for having thick skin, being extremely organized, and having excellent time management skills to get everything done. She said that in many ways working as a school psychologist is similar to graduate school in that there are many deadlines and people relying on you for information. It is different in that people do not tend to care about your clinical background or the theory you learned in graduate school. Rather, relationships are extremely important and it is crucial that you establish rapport with staff in the building in order to have effective interventions. You will be constantly working with a team, and so you must adapt to the styles of various teachers and administrators. It is important that the child is always put first, then the parents, and then the other staff
members.
What has been your experience working in an urban setting?
Rita said she initially wanted to attend Loyola for her school psychology training. However, she ended up studying in Pennsylvania and did her practicum at a public school in Pittsburgh. Adding to our in-class discussions regarding state differences in credentialing, school psychologists who study in Pennsylvania get a masters of education and a school psychology certificate upon graduation.
Rita said her practicum experience in Pittsburgh was great. However, that experience did not prepare her for working in Chicago. She hinted at how segregated the city is by stating that often when working in a school, especially neighborhood schools on the South and West sides, you’re usually just working with just Black students or just Hispanic/Latinx students.
A major difference Rita noticed between Pennsylvania and Illinois was funding for special education. Pennsylvania, as a state, has great special education programs that are well funded — some people move to Pennsylvania because of the access to special education programs. Illinois consistently ranks at the bottom for state funding of education, especially special education.
Rita is in her second year of working for charter schools in Chicago. She currently works for a charter management organization and works at schools in the Englewood, Austin, Lower Westside, and West Garfield Park neighborhoods. Thus far, she likes working in charter schools. Rita said she thinks the staff in the charter schools at which she’s worked care more about the students compared to people she worked with in the suburbs who tended to be tenured teachers.
What Rita appreciates most about charter schools are their different curricular philosophies. For example, she worked at Namaste Charter School. She loved Namaste’s emphasis on wellness, the holistic education and the intentional time given for movement and yoga throughout the day.
When asked about some differences between CPS and charter schools, Rita focused on special education. Specifically, CPS has more mandates and laws that need to be adhered to and that causes special education to be administered somewhat differently in CPS. She also mentioned that charter schools, for the most part, don’t have unions. Although, there are a few charter schools that have unionized.
Before working in the city, Rita mostly worked in the suburbs. One of those suburbs was Cicero, which has a large population of students who are English Language Learners (ELLs) mostly speaking Spanish as their native language. At the time, she was considering a move to California to work in the Los Angeles Unified School District. She thought having ELL experience would look good on her resume. Although she ended up not moving to California, Rita believes that experience made her a better school psychologist and recommends that all training and practicing school psychologists work with ELL students as it will make one a more well-rounded professional.
After working in different suburbs for several years, Rita got burnt out. A major difference she notes between suburban schools and CPS is the amount of time spent doing paperwork (the amount of paperwork she did was why she felt burnt out). She readily admits that the profession is report and paper heavy. However, in her opinion, CPS’s case managers give school psychologists more freedom to do what they’ve been trained to do instead of mostly scheduling meetings and doing paperwork.
Given Rita’s experience burning out, she emphasized the importance of self-care. She noted that if you don’t take care of yourself, you won’t be able to adequately address the needs of your students. To that end, she recommends having fun and venting with coworkers.
A bigger theme that emerged during the interview related to self-care was advocating for yourself and enforcing boundaries both personally and professionally. Personally, there are many things that are going to happen, and you cannot take them personally. This is difficult. You’re also putting a lot of yourself into the job. Professionally you must collaborate with others and be adept at managing relationships with the adults who can give you access to the students. For example, Rita mentioned that a principal asked her to check students’ backpacks, which was clearly outside of her role. In that moment, self-care for her was clearly stating that that task was not part of her duties, and she would not do that.
What has been the most challenging piece of your practice thus far?
For Rita, the most difficult part of the job are the adults with whom you work. She said that hearing or experiencing the faculty and staff’s negative thoughts of the students for whom they’re responsible. Rita also mentioned several times during the interview that a difficulty for her was/is the managing relationships with coworkers is key, and you have to get good at it in order to be a successful school psychologist - this is something they don’t teach you how to do in grad school. Having productive relationships with faculty and staff is important. It is likely to determine how successful you are. This is difficult because you’ll often be dealing with administrators or rigid teachers whose philosophies don’t meet the children’s needs.
A major pet peeve of Rita’s is when a teacher asks for an evaluation but have no data to support that claim.
What has been the most rewarding piece of your practice thus far?
Rita finds the ability to advocate for the students to be the most rewarding part of practice. As a school psychologist she enjoys being able to stand up for children and make sure that their specific needs are met and getting to see the change in the student. She also enjoys helping families.
What are some challenges/issues in the field?
Currently there are a lot of issues regarding behavior and writing behavior plans as they are fundamental to our work with students. Additionally, the implementation of MTSS in schools is a hot topic. In Chicago specifically there is a lot of buzz surrounding restorative justice practices and retention rates.
If you could give us one piece of advice that you would’ve wanted to know before coming into the field what would it be? Is there something you would’ve done differently?
Rita said she wished she would have known that therapy is not a part of a school psychologist’s everyday duties — school social workers primarily run therapy and support groups. She said as school psychologists we benefit from administrators not being clear about what we do. So if these are things you want to be part of your practice you have to advocate for yourself and make it known that these are things that you want to do.
Rita also repeatedly mentioned throughout the interview how much she dislikes the case management aspect of the job, especially when she worked in the suburbs. However, she accepts that it is a part of the job.
Given Rita’s interest in policy, she wishes there was more focus on special education policy (e.g., more in-depth classes on special education law or additional certificates that emphasize policy analysis).