Lewis & Clark College will launch a hybrid option within school psychology program this fall aimed at training rural Oregonians to work as mental health professionals in their local schools.

The private liberal arts school currently offers one of two graduate school psychology programs in Oregon and will be the first to offer a mostly remote option for aspiring school psychologists who don’t want to relocate, program director Elena Diamond said. The on-campus program has about 60 students. The hybrid program will welcome about 10 students in its inaugural cohort this fall, but is expected to grow in the future, Diamond said.

The University of Oregon also offers a master’s degree and doctorate in school psychology.

Oregon has a shortage of school psychologists, something that rural school districts feel even more acutely, said Diamond, former president of the Oregon School Psychologists Association. Oregon districts employed about 400 school psychologists in the 2022 school year, according to data from the Oregon Department of Education. The state’s ratio of roughly 1,400 students to one school psychologist is nearly triple the ratio recommended by the National Association of School Psychologists, which suggests schools have one mental health expert per every 500 students. Just two states and Puerto Rico meet that ratio, according to the association.

School psychologists do everything from assessing whether students qualify for special education to one-on-one mental health interventions with individual students, Diamond said. They can also consult with groups of students to prevent issues like bullying and other behavior challenges.

“Without that person, so many of these resources just don’t exist,” Diamond said.

Officials at Lewis & Clark have found that rural students who come to Portland to enroll in the school’s in-person program often stay in the metro area after they complete the three-year degree, Diamond said.

The COVID pandemic proved that Lewis & Clark could offer its psychology program online and ushered in the new track for remote psychology training, Diamond said.

The pilot cohort that starts this fall includes students from Ashland, Redmond, Hermiston and other far-flung communities. Those students will study mostly online but come to campus for some in-person classes and events.

The sticker price is about $64,000 before any financial aid. Aspiring students need to have a bachelor’s degree, ideally in a related field, and should have experience working with children in K-12 schools, Diamond said. All of the candidates in the pilot cohort are working in schools right now, including a special education teacher who wanted to become a mental health professional but couldn’t uproot their family to move for a graduate program, according to Diamond. The hybrid program offers courses at night and on the weekends so students can keep their day jobs, she said.

“It’s been really inspiring,” Diamond said. “You have people who are very established in their careers in education, who very much understand K-12 systems, who want to take this next step and be a school psychologist. And up until now, that was not an option.”

Sami Edge covers higher education and politics for The Oregonian. You can reach her at sedge@oregonian.com or (503) 260-3430.