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Stacy Swartz: What Makes for a Good School Psychologist?

Stacy Swartz has found the formula for being a successful school psychologist: be an open-minded listener, express empathy, and have a good sense of humor. All of these qualities are those she shares with and loves about the students she works with at North Haven Middle School (NHMS), where she has worked for 17 years.

Being open-minded and figuring out what makes students joyful can help out a lot, and it can even come down to the little things.

“[I like] trying to figure out what they’re grateful for, even the small things. Or something little that can help them get through, or help them figure out who they feel connected to that they can reach out to, and make sure they have someone in their life that they feel like gets them, and they can express how they’re feeling,” Stacy says.

“Seeing the world from their perspective, it’s fun and interesting, so every day is different,” she says.

Stacy found her open-mindedness to be a strength while pursuing an undergraduate major in journalism at the University of Maryland, College Park. But it wasn't until she began attending graduate school at Florida State University that her interests shifted towards a counseling-oriented role, developed through an assistantship she took on during her second higher education stint, working with her alma mater’s psychology professors.

“They made the field seem really interesting," Stacy says. "I got to do research with them and work in a clinic at my grad school where we did evaluations for college students who had suspected learning disabilities or ADHD. That’s what motivated me to go into the field.”

Stacy does however find a crossover between the fields of psychology and journalism, particularly that important quality of being open-minded, as well as having a strong curiosity in understanding and connecting with people and their situations better.

“Definitely asking people questions and getting to know things from their perspective, that’s universal in journalism and my field too,” Stacy says. “The writing comes in handy a lot too. I’ve always liked to write, and [I] do a lot of writing for my job. Because when I evaluate kids, I have to write up a report about it and I really want to figure out what are this kid’s learning strengths, what is getting into his or her way. Being able to articulate that comes in handy.”

A typical day for Stacy can consist of working with students in multiple capacities, one which includes evaluation and observation, working with all students, including those with special needs and intellectual disabilities. This partly involves testing students' cognitive and behavioral states, which is meant to assist in keeping their minds sharp, according to Stacy, who prefers to look beyond the analytical dimension of these kinds of tests and focus, instead, on the whole of the student.

“Some people put a lot of value on numbers, and just being able to see past that and focus on what is this kid’s strengths and what might they need help with, but not look at them like they’re an average or below-average kid. That pigeonholes somebody, when you focus on just test results and not seeing it as part of a big picture of who this person is.”

Additionally, she engages with special needs students on building self-esteem and how they can grow as individuals socially, emotionally, and academically, depending on individual situations.

“Right now, my workload mainly consists of students who have IEP [Individualized Educational Plan] counseling hours. A lot of times kids who have a learning disability, autism, or ADHD, they might have certain behaviors or mental health stuff that they might want to work on in school,” Stacy says. “For example, working on their social skills, how to make friends easier, or how to start feeling better about themselves so they can work harder in school or put themselves out there socially.”

In the past two years, Stacy saw her role and its responsibilities change in practice due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the student body at NHMS. While she continued to provide counseling virtually, holding sessions devoted online was discovered to be a challenge when trying to connect closely with students.

“I think it’s really hard for kids to engage online. Being in person for kids, you just feel so much more engaged. I think the kids do, and I think the teachers do too. For me, we play games a lot, like a self-esteem game, so I had to be creative in finding things to do online, because some kids don’t want to just talk. You need a fun way to make a point. They don’t necessarily open up so easily. I had a lot of compassion for my colleagues,” Stacy says.

She views that there are numerous stressors for many young adolescents today, including the mental health of students impacted in one way or another by COVID, the ubiquity of social media in their daily lives, and financial issues that may have impacted their families. Stacy sees that these stressors have deeply affected NHMS students who do not have a mental or intellectual disability and are unfortunately becoming worse.

“The knowledge of all the things that are happening that the kids are aware of, I think it puts everybody under a lot of stress,” she says.

These stressors, especially the impact of COVID, have forced many students to re-learn how to interact with one another socially, a combination having been in isolation for extended periods of time and the social hindrance of a mask that can cause for someone to feel uncomfortable approaching another person, with only half of their face revealed, according to Stacy. Nonetheless, she believes in the student body and that social and mental conditions are reaching a stronger state.

“I feel like it’s improving now that we’re back to what a normal school looks like. The kids can sit with who they want for lunch, versus being at certain desks apart from one another,” she says. “At the same, I do think that [COVID] helped them build some resilience. Some of them have experienced a lot of tough times, if they had family members affected by COVID, or if they got sick. I think that the silver lining of going through a hard time is that you know you can get through it and bounce back.”

Overall, Stacy finds the relationship-building she has with students as the most rewarding aspect of her role, and again praises their strength and persistence during difficult times as people who are barely teenagers and are beginning to make sense of the world around them.

“A lot of them have gone through tough stuff and they’re so young. It’s hard to listen to it sometimes. But I try to help them see that they are amazing and they have a choice about how they can live their life in the future.”