Medical Lake School District earns $3.5 million federal grant for more school psychologists

Medical Lake School District received a $3.5 million federal grant to train and hire more school psychologists for the region.

The grant covers the tuition and pay for four school psychology graduate students from the University of Washington each year for four years. Two of these students each year will work in Medical Lake schools while another two per year will be stationed in other “high-need” rural schools in Northeast Washington.

All told, the program will place 16 graduate students in schools across the region. After a year of interning and upon certification, the students will commit to working another two years in a rural school.

“Our rural schools really struggle in finding folks who can serve as school psychologists as well as mental health professionals just because of their location and their size, it’s difficult to attract and retain,” said Medical Lake Superintendent Kimberly Headrick. “This is an opportunity to provide that resource.”

Medical Lake employs two psychologists to service its four schools. Headrick said they play an essential role for students, equipped with the skill set necessary to diagnose kids with learning disabilities and recommend instruction, prevent and intervene in mental health issues, and whatever else a student may need mental health support for.

“They really do have a large skill set in order to really affect and prevent kids from struggling,” Headrick said.

The district spent some of their one-time emergency COVID-19 relief funding on hiring a third school psychologist. But the role was cut after the funding ended. Headrick is eager for the extra hands under the grant, when the district will have one school psychologist per school building.

The federal Department of Education in part selected Medical Lake as one of the 39 grant recipients because the district has established itself as a mental health training “hub” in the region, according to a district news release. Though the partnership with UW will be the district’s first paid internship, they maintain relationships with Gonzaga, Whitworth and Eastern Washington universities, which have supplied Medical Lake with interns in school counseling, marriage and family therapy and school psychology, Headrick said.

The federal grant has existed since at least 2022, and has doled out millions to school districts, universities and state education agencies to train and hire school mental health support.

The Medical Lake School District, which enrolled fewer than 1,900 students last school year, was one of the smaller entities to receive a grant.

“It’s rather unusual. We’ve applied for federal grants in the past and we haven’t been successful because we don’t have a large reach,” Headrick said.

Another Washington district to get a piece of the funding is Grandview School District in Yakima County. Awarded $4 million, the district leads the Yakima Valley School Psychology Consortium and will partner with Eastern Washington University and Central Washington University in a similar endeavor as Medical Lake.

Headrick said she expects to welcome grad students by January at the earliest and August at the latest. She’s excited for her kids, she said.

“This opportunity for them to really be able to have access is huge,” Headrick said. “It’s really huge.”