Addressing Workforce Capacity Issues: A Case Example of Massachusetts

Abstract

Faculty and graduate students from two university training programs in Massachusetts conducted this study to better understand the workforce capacity of their region of the state. Through our study, we found large discrepancies in the school psychologist to student ratio in Massachusetts. We also discovered that about one third of the school districts in our study had available school psychologist positions that could not be filled by a school psychologist due to a lack of school psychologists to take these positions. The reasons why school psychologists elect not to accept positions in some of these districts was explored. We conclude this paper with an exploration of what this means for school psychology trainers and directions for future research.