School Psychologist Rolls Up His Sleeves

He's the new face in the crowd, a certified law enforcement officer with a master's in counseling who's worked as a school psychologist in Florida public schools for the past three decades.

And now, Al London wants to make a difference here.

This year, the Franklin County School District brought in London to be its fulltime, on-staff school psychologist, replacing a previous system of outsourcing the post to a private contractor. Before that, Helen McLaughlin had served for years as the district's in-house school psychologist.

"The school system wants to make sure that all of the students are having a very successful and a very positive school experience, from an academic, social and behavioral standpoint," said London. "We're looking across the whole wide range, from kids who are not achieving to kids achieving well but who are bored in their classes. Both need to be addressed."

A resident of Monticello, he and his wife plan to relocate here permanently in their mobile home, for which they have already rented a spot in the county. London's wife, a registered nurse, has applied for work at Franklin Correctional Institution.

Until after hurricane season, though, he's commuting, and bringing with him years of experience in the field.

After receiving a bachelor's in psychology from West Chester State College in 1971, the Pennsylvania native, and former Eagle Scout, went on to earn a master's in counselor education, and pursue doctoral coursework in reading and educational psychology from Temple University in Philadelphia over the next four years.

For the next 23 years, from 1979 to 2002, he would serve as staff psychologist for the Hillsborough County School District, followed by four years in Pinellas County and two years in Leon County.

London's career in the public schools brought him the experience and know-how for the job he'll be doing within the brand new halls, classrooms and athletic fields of the consolidated school.

In addition to fighting truancy and attacking the troubling dropout rate, a lot of his job begins with assessment of what a student requires to get the maximum benefit while in school.

"We want to make sure there's no backlog in testing and in trying to assess what the kids need," he said. "We want to look at youngsters who are having problems in school from the earliest ages and try to resolve them with as little timeout of the classroom as possible.

"Not being able to pay attention in class, not being able to sit in your seat and do the class work and understand what the teachers talking about, having problems getting along with your friends, these type of things," he said, stressing that there were plenty of testing of gifted students as well.

Trained in threat management and crisis intervention

As a life member of the National Rifle Association, a former police office in Tampa and an amateur radio operator, London brings with him a wealth of worldly experience in handling "crisis intervention" and "threat management," buzz words for the problems of school violence that have plagued the nation's urban and rural schools for the last decade.

On that subject, he takes the approach that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

"History has found that students who are meeting with success, in the classroom and out, are less likely to engage in other things," he said. "They don't have issues that they try to get back at everybody for."

London noted that emergencies don't always involve school violence, and that as a team leader for a mobile command center in Pinellas County, he faced multi-hazard situations that ranged from car accidents and weather emergencies to the untimely deaths of classmates.

With his focus on testing and evaluation, London's work comes at a time when education experts are looking for ways to ensure children are not wrongly assigned to special education classes when their problems could be solved in other ways.

"We do evaluation for the state criteria for various ESE programs and I chair the Child Study team, which is a precursor of any evaluation, where we try to solve the kids problems by alerting classroom teachers to methods, according to established research -based interventions, actually called ‘response to intervention' or RTI," he said. "Basically it says that before we look at any ESE, we have to try some varying teaching methods that are increasingly intensive to try and resolve any learning or behavioral problems, before we get involved in special education.

"(State and federal educational officials) are becoming more restrictive about who is served by special education," London said. "It didn't take much to get into special education before.

            "I want to do interventions, I want to be a resource to the teachers. I want to get in with these kids who are having ‘fit'  issues in terms of their learning styles," he said. "I don't want to put lots of kid in special education. I want these kids to learn."

Believes meds can be useful, but it's up to parents

With the issue of behavioral management comes inevitable questions of using pharmaceuticals, such as Ritalin, Cylert and Dexedrine, and London has experience in that subject as well.

"First of all the school psychologist does not prescribe medications at all, nor does any psychologist," he stressed. "That's done by a medical doctor.

"In certain cases the medication really, really works very well to allow children to focus, to control themselves and to learn," said London. "But they have to be administered according to what your doctor says and some do require a time frame to reach a therapeutic level."

The school's role, London said, is to provide the doctor with the information he or she needs to make the right decisions. "What we can do is assist your physician in collecting data here and providing information to help them determine whether a trial on medication is appropriate. If you don't have accurate data going back to the doctor, the doctor is shooting in the dark. He needs to have all this information. The problems you see with medications are a result of the doctor not having accurate information to work with," he said.

"I don't think it (medication) is a last resort," he said. "I have seen the medications work so well, if the medication is adjusted properly, and that is a responsibility of the school, the parent and the doctor working together."

London said schools are a resource for parents in making their choices, but can not dictate the action a parent must take regarding prescribed drugs. "We can't make medications a mandatory condition of education," he said. "That doesn't mean we're not going to suggest you maybe talk to your doctor about it, but those are your decisions as a parent."

Teachers are open to suggestions of new methods

            London said the district is considering creating a parent support group but has not yet decided whether to run one.

            In any case, a chunk of his job will be to work with parents to assist in making a student's life outside of the classroom walls conducive to learning at home. To do this, he plans to communicate constructively, but carefully, with parents.

            "I've got a lot of latitude and my overriding concern will be you don't get the kid into a hot water situation, where they take it out on him for talking about anything that went on at home," said London. "It's got to be a very gentle discussion that takes place between myself and parents.

            "There's an old adage ‘The children are barometers of what's going on in the family" and it's always true," he said. "It's a universal."

            London expects the bulk of his duties will be with elementary and middle school students, but he'll be involved with high school students as well, especially when it comes to helping them with choices for future jobs or education.

            "This county works very closely with the Department of Vocational Rehabilitation so we do a lot of evaluations for graduating seniors," he said.

            London said his initial impressions of the district staff have been great. "Teachers here are really open to suggestions, it makes their life easier," he said. "More and more teachers are being faced with educating a more diverse group than they did 15 years ago. A lot need as many resources as the district can provide to assist them in that goal."

            He's optimistic that the new campus will boost the district's successes even further, but cautioned that it may take a few years for the changes to work themselves through the system.

            "Here you have a gorgeous new facility that people are excited about, that teachers are excited about. It is amazing," London said. "There is a lot of really great energy going on, all of which may spawn a change in the dropout rate. But those things we can't see for a while.

            "This county is going to be a wonderful learning experience for me," he added. "I'm very excited to be here."