All interventions -- whether academic, behavioral, or social-emotional -- should be consistently delivered as planned to realize desired student outcomes. In other words, they should be delivered with fidelity. School psychologists can address this concern by monitoring fidelity and providing support for intervention implementation. In this final…

The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated school, state, and federal responses to curb infection and resultant fatalities, including extensive school closures and reliance on distance education for a substantial portion of the academic year. This article considers the equity issues laid bare by COVID-19, followed by the implications for MTSS, with a…

Evidence-based practice (EBP) is the norm and expectation for providing interventions in school psychology. However, there are two major hurdles to be addressed before EBP can be a true improvement in providing educational and psychological interventions to children and families. The first challenge is that the standard of clinical research limits…

Many students in schools have experienced traumatic events and struggle to deal with emotional, social, behavioral, and learning problems. School psychologists can be effective leaders in the school to establish trauma-informed practices within schools. By promoting awareness of trauma and its impact on students, school psychologists can help…

In the early months of 2020, it became apparent that this year would bring unprecedented challenges as the COVID-19 pandemic swiftly compelled the impromptu transition to remote instruction that required a level of triage, flexibility, and problem-solving few were prepared for. Inequities in distance education and broader structural inequities…

Evidence-based interventions (EBIs) have proved to be an exciting, yet frustrating aspect of school psychology practice. The argument for EBIs is that educational and psychological interventions strongly supported by a consensus of peer reviewed experimental and quasi-experimental studies will result in the best possible outcomes for students.…

Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) has been an effective, evidence-based intervention in treating externalizing behaviors in children ages 2-7. PCIT can be adapted in a classroom setting to become Teacher-Child Interaction Training (TCIT), wherein the principles of PCIT are applied to the teacher-student relationship. This article describes…

The National Association of School Psychologists' (NASP) official stand on sexual education is that it should be taught in schools to help young people make healthy decisions regarding sex throughout their lives. Accordingly, school psychologists have a responsibility to use their expertise to facilitate these programs. Without a comprehensive…

This article describes Getting to Outcomes (GTO), a 10-step framework for accountability designed to facilitate effective implementation of evidence-based programs and improvement of home-grown practices (Getting to Outcomes and GTO are trademarks registered by the University of South Carolina and RAND; Wandersman, Imm, Chinman, & Kaftarian,…

This article discusses some key components of implementing innovations in schools and presents a guide for quality implementation of school programs. While it is more of a broad overview than a detailed toolkit, this information will help introduce more systemic thinking into schools and improve implementation so as to increase the chance of…