- November 16, 2024
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Shoshanah Mercado has finally put away her rolling luggage cart and settled into her office at Flagler Palm Coast High School. Mercado is one of several school psychologists in the county enjoying the streamlining of her position and the shift in her responsibilities.
“The most obvious thing is I don’t share my time anymore,” Mercado said. “I spent three days at Old Kings Elementary and two days at FPC last year. Now I am here five days a week.”
The school district is moving away from having psychologists balance their schedules between schools so they can become a part of a specific school community.
“This is a multi-year transition,” said Executive Director of Student and Community Engagement, Lynette Shott. “We were able to add two psychologists this year.”
The psychologists are part of teams in each of the schools that Shott said provides “a very powerful force to support our students in their classes.”
The school district goal is to eventually have one full time psychologist in every school. This year they increased the number of psychologists from five to seven, with only two assigned to more than one school.
“We have been reorganizing as a district and making our entire organization more collaborative and cohesive,” Shott said. “That’s the philosophy and the way we look at everything.”
Mercado’s day includes counseling students, implementing coping skills, and administering assessment tests. Some of the students she counsels are in crisis mode, and some just need to talk about family or school issues, or even boyfriend/girlfriend problems.
“It’s important for them to know they are not alone and there are resources for them if they need to talk,” Mercado said.
Mercado meets her students through a variety of avenues, including parents and teachers. Parents have called to let her know when there’s a death in the family so Mercado can offer grief counseling if the student is interested. Other times a teacher may contact her about behavioral issues, a fellow classmate may express concern over a friend, or a student just pops their head in her office door and asks to talk.
“It really changes things because you realize that maybe a child who is sleeping in class isn’t just a lazy, uncaring kid, he’s actually working until 2 a.m. trying to save up money for college,” Mercado said. “Or they may have a bad life at home and not even going home. It isn’t they don’t want to do their homework, there’s no place for them just to sit down and do it.”
Trust and confidentiality is paramount to her work, and Mercado said unless there are safety concerns, what is said in her office stays there.
“They know they can tell me something and it’s confidential unless it’s going to hurt themselves or someone else,” Mercado said. “You can come in here and be exactly who you are and you are not going to get judged for it, and that’s a very good thing for kids to know, otherwise they won’t tell anybody.”
“I am so happy for Flagler County to do this because it’s almost unheard of in Florida,” Mercado said. “Florida is one of those states that you’re lucky if you have only two schools, so to have one is amazing.”
