SUNY Plattsburgh School Psychology Program Earns Seven-Year Re-accreditation

 

SUNY Plattsburgh’s school psychology graduate program has received full accreditation from the National Association of School Psychologists through Feb. 1, 2028.

Association accreditation “provides assurance to graduate students that the quality of the program has been evaluated and has met national standards established by the profession,” said Dr. Laci Charette, associate professor and program director at SUNY Plattsburgh.

“NASP accreditation positively impacts our college, our program, our students and our community,” she said. “For the college, it ensures ongoing program self-evaluation, continuous improvement as well as a system for accountability. For our program, NASP accreditation ensures quality, enhances program reputation and leads graduates to obtaining national certification in school psychology.”

It also assures the community that children, youth and families are being taken care of by competently trained school psychologists, she said.

Local Graduates

“The majority of school psychologists that are employed by public schools in and around Plattsburgh are graduates of the SUNY Plattsburgh school psychology MA/CAS program,” Charette said. “Many of them supervise current school psychology graduate students and/or teach in our graduate program.”

The college’s master’s and certificate of advanced study program has had NASP accreditation since 2008. The National Association of School Psychologists is the world’s largest organization of school psychologists, representing more than 25,000 school psychologists, graduate students and other related professionals throughout the United States and in 25 countries worldwide.

For this most recent accreditation review, Charette said the board “concluded that our self-study demonstrated that (our) standards for graduate preparation of school psychologists appeared to be met, and we were granted a NASP site visit.”

A September 2020 virtual site visit brought two NASP reviewers “to campus” to meet with stakeholders, Charette said.

“They met with SUNY Plattsburgh administration, psychology department faculty, school psychology faculty and graduate students,” she said. Word came down Jan. 27 that accreditation was granted.

Begin Process Again

As a result of new NASP standards adopted by the association in July 2020, Charette said the program “will begin the process again of aligning our course work to the new training standards and revising our program assessment tools. We will submit a self-study for accreditation again in March 2027.”

Charette thanked college administrators and colleagues, saying, “In order to maintain a nationally accredited school psychology graduate program, support and collaboration among the stakeholders is needed.”

She also said how proud she is of the graduate students enrolled in the program.

“I am proud of all of them. Through this pandemic, they met challenges and faced uncertainty with grace and professionalism,” she said. “In addition to managing everything that has come with COVID, they volunteered to assist with the NASP accreditation site visit as well as volunteered to participate in faculty and student interviews. They make our program exceptional.”