School Psychologist job description

Testing is the spine of the job. School psychologists select, administer, and score psychological tests, then read the results against what teachers and parents report to work out whether a student qualifies for special services. O*NET widens that to schoolwide intervention: diagnosing and addressing educational, behavioral, or developmental issues that hurt how a student functions at school. BLS reports a national median of $95,990 for May 2025 across 63,940 jobs. The published tenth percentile is $63,070 and the ninetieth is $142,330.

Core Duties and Responsibilities

Assessment and the writing that follows it dominate the ranked tasks. Test results are compiled and interpreted, psychological reports are prepared for teachers, administrators, and parents, and records of special education services and behavioral data are kept. Mandated reporting of child endangerment, neglect, or abuse belongs to the role too. Out of the assessments come individualized education plans built with teachers, counseling for children and families working through learning and adjustment problems, and consultation with staff on learning styles and behavior modification. Program evaluation is the quieter part: collecting data on whether a behavior management system or an academic program is working.

Common Skills and Technologies

Reading and speaking rank almost level with listening here, and judgment and decision making close behind, which is what an eligibility determination comes down to. The tooling is plain. Standardized test instruments and their scoring materials do the specialist work, and the named software amounts to the Office suite plus Zoom. Scanning software appears among the categories O*NET records here.

Education, Training, and Career Path

The credential picture is unusual. A post-master's certificate was the most common qualification reported, at 53 percent, ahead of the master's degree at 46 percent, and almost nobody in the survey stopped at a bachelor's. That matches Job Zone Five, where graduate school is assumed and on-the-job training is minimal because the hire is expected to arrive ready. Reported titles reach wider than the occupation's name: educational diagnostician, learning consultant, autism consultant, bilingual school psychologist, and school psychometrist.

Sources: O*NET 30.0, 19-3034.00 School Psychologists, https://www.onetonline.org/link/summary/19-3034.00. BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, 19-3034, https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes193034.htm.