Medical Lake School District has been awarded a $3.5 million grant to recruit, train, and retain school psychologists in rural communities. 

In many rural communities, school psychologists are often the only mental health practitioners available, making their presence crucial not just to the students they serve but also to parents, teachers, and other professionals, says Medical Lake School District Superintendent Kimberly Headrick.

At the same time, a national shortage of school psychologists persists. The National Association of School Psychologists recommends one school psychologist per 500 students in order to provide comprehensive school psychological services. The national ratio for the 2023-24 school year was one psychologist for every 1,065 students.

In rural areas of Washington state, the shortage of school psychologists isn’t just a staffing problem; it’s a cost-of-entry problem. Unpaid internships, travel expenses, and limited supervision opportunities have long discouraged graduate students from working in rural districts, Headrick says.

“School psychologists work across multiple domains … and there’s a lack in those rural school districts,” Headrick says. “Some districts are having to contract outside agencies just to do an online test.”

The new $3.5 million federal grant awarded to Medical Lake School District aims to remove some of those barriers by funding paid placements, tuition support, and clinical supervision, creating a pipeline to supply trained mental health professionals to underserved communities across northeastern Washington. The grant was awarded by the U.S. Department of Education and is titled "Recruiting, Training, and Retaining the School Psychology Workforce for School-Based Mental Health in Rural Communities."

As part of the four-year grant, Medical Lake School District will train 16 graduate-level students from the University of Washington School Psychology program through paid, yearlong internships. Participants will receive tuition support and clinical supervision while completing placements in high-need rural districts across Educational Service District 101, which serves nearly 60 school districts across northeastern Washington. In exchange, graduates commit to working in rural schools within the Educational Service District 101 region for at least two years after certification.

“We are not just addressing a workforce shortage,” Headrick says. “We are building a sustainable system to ensure every student in our region, especially those in rural settings, has access to the high-quality mental health support they deserve to thrive academically and personally.”

Paid internships are the linchpin of the program, says Tawni Barlow, director of integrated student and community services and project director for the Medical Lake School District. Unpaid placements often require students to absorb travel and housing costs while working full-time. By funding wages, supervision, and training, the program helps address the financial barriers that have long kept graduate students from considering school psychology careers.

“Paying interns changes who is able to say yes to these jobs,” Barlow says.

The Medical Lake School District serves roughly 1,600 students across four schools, including one located on Fairchild Air Force Base, where military deployments and relocations add unique stressors for military families, Headrick notes.

Medical Lake School District has spent years building the infrastructure needed to support a regional mental health workforce, Barlow says.

Launched in 2018, the district’s Wellness Center, at 317 N. Broad, operates as a centralized hub for the district’s school-based mental health services, coordinating care across its four schools. The team includes two school psychologists, a mental health counselor, a behavioral therapist and two techs, an occupational therapist, a physical therapist, a speech therapist, and four school nurses. All services are offered for free, Headrick says.

Clinicians and interns rotate between classrooms, therapy sessions, family meetings, and crisis response, and return to the center for supervision, case notes, and coordination, she says. Services extend beyond individual counseling to include group sessions, family support, staff consultation, and community classes, with providers embedded directly in school life rather than working as outside contractors. District leaders say the integrated structure allows for earlier intervention, clearer communication among educators and families, and support that reaches beyond students to the broader community.

“If you look at the rural communities in Eastern Washington and across the United States, the schools really are the hearts of those communities,” Headrick says. “So what better place to provide these resources? It’s been really rewarding to add mental health as a component of our resources to offer to our community.”

The district's Wellness Center model, which has been recognized by the U.S. Department of Education, has trained an estimated 50 mental health professionals since opening, Barlow says. Many of those who were trained at the Wellness Center now work in schools, hospitals, and nonprofit organizations throughout the region. District leaders say that the combination of scale, experience, and integration has made Medical Lake School District a natural fit to anchor the new workforce initiative.

“We didn’t start out with a fully formed model,” Barlow says. “We built this system over time by learning what worked for families, staff, and schools, and adjusting when it didn’t.”

An interview and selection process is currently underway and district leaders expect the first cohort of graduate students to begin placements at the start of the 2026-27 academic year. The four-year program will roll out in phases, with Medical Lake School District serving as the central training hub, while interns are placed in high-need districts across the Educational Service District 101 region.