Presidential Perspective Happy Summer, Friends and Colleagues! Most, if not all of you, should be done with the 24-25 School Year!! You did it! Good job, to all of my fellow school psychologists, school psychology trainers, educators, and school psychologists in training! You made it to the final hour and final bell! It has been a long school year with so many attributes, pitfalls, successes, and dreary moments. But through it all, we stuck together and collaborated. When we felt little left in us, we could turn to each other for support, sharing frustration, gaining ideas on how to move forward, and planned for what we could do differently to improve matters. It takes a special type of person to become a school psychologist and then another one completely that can continue to be there, day in, day out, managing to be the beacon of hope and light for ourselves, our fellow educators, colleagues, children, and families. I see that in all of you. This level of dedication requires repeated check-ins with ourselves that requires a level of self-awareness that is unmatched. As ISPA’s year of Collaborating for Advocacy is coming to a close, I want to take this time to thank you, friends and colleagues, for putting your faith in me to serve as your ISPA 24-25 President. It has been a great honor to serve all of you. Our ISPA leaders on the Governing Board continued to work tirelessly this year to bring all of us together again, not once, but three times: at our Fall Virtual Conference, In-Person Winter Convention, and In-Person Job Fair. All four of our Governing Boards have returned to be in-person so that we may better collaborate our advocacy efforts and do the work in service of ISPA’s Vision and Mission! ISPA’s Mission is to strive to empower school psychologists to promote the learning, behavior, and mental health of all students with visions for: -All students access the learning, behavior, and mental health support needed to build capacity to thrive in school, at home, and throughout life. The brilliance of ISPA’s intentional purpose through research and education, is to encourage and provide top-notch professional growth opportunities for members to better serve the mental health and educational needs of children and youths and educate the public about the capacity of school psychological services that could be available. Amidst a shortage crisis of school psychologists, ISPA’s Governing Board, continued to work to advocate:
ISPA has worked to serve you in the year of Collaborating for Advocacy as we built sustainability efforts for our field to continue to support and advocate for each other, the field of school psychology, for children, and families! Thank you, all of you, for your service to each other, education, the field, children, and families! You truly are our backbone to this association, education, and of our society, and I truly do not know what we would do without you. Thank you for your commitment to kids in the field and your incredible SKILLS you continuously improve upon, despite being undervalued in every way in our society. ISPA continues to dedicate its mission and vision to the work all of you do in your capacities in education, school psychology practice, and to each other, as we move forward. Take time to honor each other and the work you did this year of service. Honor the mental toll was taken and please take care of your bodies and mental health in the summer ahead. Be kind to yourselves! Please feel free to reach out to ISPA if you have any questions or want to share your perspective to enhance the work of our association and your stories at [email protected]. As always, thank you to all of you, members, school psychologists, educators, ISPA Governing Board members, for your dedication. Jyoti Kolodziej Your 24-25 ISPA President |
